Young Researchers
Lina Aimola worked with Annalena Venneri (University of Hull) on language and cognition in Alzheimer’s disease. She was awarded her PhD in 2009. She was first appointed to a 5-month research assistant position with Professors Giuliana Mazzoni and Irving Kirsch at the University of Hull. She was then appointed to a post-doctoral position with Professor Thomas Schenk at the University of Durham, UK, where she is now working.
Laura Barca worked with Andy Ellis at the University of York on MEG studies of reading. She also collaborated with Cristina Burani and Pierluigi Zoccolotti (Rome) on studies of normal and dyslexic reading in Italian. She is currently a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Pediatric Rehabilitation Department, Children's Hospital 'Bambino Gesù' of Rome. She is investigating the impact of early lesions of the visual system on the development of visual functions. Behavioral and brain imaging techniques are being used to explore neurovision functions in children with acquired and congenital brain damage.
Roberta Biundo is continuing to work on her PhD at the University of Hull, supervised by Annalena Venneri. She is using a combination of genetic and neuroimaging methods to better understanding semantic and verbal deficits in patients with Alzheimer’s disease. She is now supported by a studentship from the University of Hull.
Iwo Bohr worked with Stefan Knecht at the University of Münster, Germany, on dementia and language processing. He is currently undertaking an MSc course in Bioinformatics and Computational Systems Biology at Newcastle University, UK. He intends to pursue a career in neuroscience, specializing in the analysis of magnetic resonance (MR) images using advanced neuroinformatic tools.
Pieta Bruen worked with Paolo Caffarra (University of Parma, Italy) in collaboration with Annalena Venneri (University of Hull). She is continuing her PhD in the Clinical Neuroscience Centre and Department of Psychology at the University of Hull, supported by a University studentship. Her research is concerned with the neural and neuropsychological bases of the delusions commonly experienced by patients with Alzheimer’s disease. She fully intends to remain within scientific research.
Robert Davies worked with Fernando Cuetos (University of Oviedo, Spain ) on word recognition and reading in Spanish. He was appointed to a research fellowship at Oxford Brookes University, UK, and has now been awarded a permanent lectureship at the same institution. He is collaborating with three senior scientists from the RTN-LAB network (Cristina Burani [Rome], Fernando Cuetos [Oviedo] and Andy Ellis [York]) on studies of reading and object naming in English and Italian, with particular emphasis on the role of orthographic transparency in the genesis of age of acquisition effects in word naming. He is also working with Professor Cuetos on the manifestations of dyslexia in Spanish, and on language processing in Alzheimer’s disease. He is particularly interested in the application of some of the advanced statistical techniques to which he was introduced at the second RTN-LAB training meeting, particularly mixed effects modelling.
Meinou de Vries worked with Stefan Knecht at the University of Münster, Germany, on the acquisition of grammar and the role of Broca’s area. She submitted her PhD thesis in January 2009 and is now working as a post-doctoral fellow at the Donders Institute for Brain, Cognition and Behaviour; Centre for Cognitive Neuroimaging (Radboud University, Nijmegen, The Netherlands), as well as the Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics (Nijmegen, The Netherlands). Her research is funded by the Karolinska Institute (Stockholm, Sweden), in collaboration with the Donders Centre. From May 2009 she will be funded by his own 12-month research grant that was awarded recently by the Dutch Organization for Scientific Research (NWO).
Giorgio Fuggetta worked with Vince Walsh (University College London) on TMS studies of cognition and semantics. He is now a Lecturer in Psychology at the University of Leicester, UK. He continues to conduct research (and to teach) in the field of cognitive neuroscience.
Zoe Hunter did 24 months as an Early Stage Researcher at Royal Holloway, University of London, before transferring to the University of Münster for the final 12 months of her PhD. She was supervised throughout by Marc Brysbaert (Royal Holloway) and Stefan Knecht (University of Münster). She was awarded her PhD in 2009. She is now employed as a postdoctoral researcher in the Neurology Department at the University Hospital Münster, where she continues to work on topics that are related to her PhD work on language dominance. In particular, she is collaborating with a researcher based in Münster who has collected data on language dominance development in children, and who is just starting up a new project on language dominance shifts in children with temporal lobe epilepsy. In addition she is the project coordinator for several other studies; work which includes aspects of project management and organization, as well as supervision of Diploma and PhD students.
Michael Klein worked with Ton Dijkstra (Donders Institute for Cognition, Brain, and Behaviour, Nijmegen, The Netherlands) on ERP studies of bilingualism. He is now working in the Centre for Language and Speech Technology at the Department of Linguistics, University of Nijmegen. He is involved in creating a computational model of first word acquisition from real speech input. His particular task is to create the semantics, and to work with Restricted Bolzmann Machines on a model that learns to associate speech sounds with images.
Gianpiero Liuzzi worked with Stefan Knecht at the University of Münster, Germany, on the activation of motor cortex by speech. He is currently employed at the Universitätsklinikum Hamburg-Eppendorf where he is engaged in clinical trials research, including a study on the enhancement of language learning by stimulting motor cortex in the dominant hemisphere using transcranial direct current stimulation. If this technique works with healthy participants it will be tried as a method for enhancing the reacquisition of language by aphasic stroke patients.
Mikhail Masharov worked with Martin Fischer at the University of Dundee, UK, on spatial aspects of reading. He moved to the University of Rochester, USA, where he works with Michael Tanenhaus and others on word recognition and psycholinguistics. He was awarded a PhD in 2008 for a thesis on ‘Reference resolution and discourse salience’.
Mateo Obregón continues to work as a doctoral student with Richard Shillcock at the University of Edinburgh, UK, on visual aspects of word recognition. He is writing his PhD thesis and also submitting his thesis research to journals for publication.
Giovanni Pagliuca worked with Padraic Monaghan (University of York, UK) on computational modeling of reading in Italian. He left York to work at the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health, London, where he was employed as an Assistant Psychometrician. His main responsibilities involved the statistical analysis of the psychometric data collected at different medical centres and the management of various research projects commissioned by the College. In February 2009 he moved to a permanent position at the Universities of Exeter & Plymouth, UK, where he is working as a Psychometrician at the Peninsula Medical School. His plan is to keep on producing research and to become a full time academic lecturer.
Despina Paizi is putting the finishing touches to her PhD thesis in Rome, supervised by Cristina Burani and Pierluigi Zoccolotti. She intends to continue her research on normal and dyslexic reading in Italian and other languages with transparent orthographies.
Gorana Pobric worked with Michal Lavidor at the University of Hull, UK, on TMS studies of language processing. She is now a University Research Fellow at the Neuroscience and Aphasia Research Unit (NARU), School of Psychological Sciences, University of Manchester, UK. She is engaged in semantic memory research using TMS and fMRI (two techniques in which she was trained in the netwrok. She is now supervising 2 PhD students. After the end of the Fellowship (2010/11), she will be employed as a full time lecturer at the University of Manchester.
Cristina Rosazza was based in Lyon, working with Tatjana Nazir on the contribution of the ventral and dorsal pathways in visual word recognition with ERPs. She is now a Research Fellow at the Radiology Department of the Istituto Neurologico “Carlo Besta” in Milano. Now she works with fMRI on the presurgical assessment of patients candidate for brain surgery, in particular for temporal lobe epilepsy. Her research activity also includes the study of functional connectivity with fMRI.
Elina Sakellaridou worked with Stefan Knecht at the University of Münster, Germany, on language processing in dementia. Elina is medically qualified and is now working as a Resident in Psychiatry, Department of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, LWL-Klinik Lengerich, Germany. She plans to submit and defend her PhD later in in 2009 and to continue submitting papers based on the thesis.
Beata Silber worked with Tatjana Nazir at the Institut des Sciences Cognitives, CNRS Lyon, France, on the relationship between language and action. She applied successfully for a position as a research scientist at the Nestlé Research Centre in Lausanne, Switzerland, where she is now project manager in the Cognitive Sciences group.
Maartje van der Meij is part of the Cognitive Neuroscience Research Group a research group within the Department of Psychology of the University of Oviedo and member of the Cognitive Neuroscience and Psycholinguistics Team research team within the Department of Cognitive Psychology of the University of La Laguna, Spain. She is currently writing up her PhD which involves an Event Related Potential (ERP) study of second language processing in late second language learners. She has done three ERP studies and one behavioural study with this special population. She is currently working as a research assistant contract at La Laguna.
Maximilliano Wilson worked at the Institute of Cognitive Sciences and Technologies (CNR), Rome, Italy with Cristina Burani on reading in Italian and Spanish. He has been appointed to a post-doctoral research post in Montreal, Canada, working with Professor Yves Joanette at the Research Centre of the Institute of Geriatrics. He will work on normal and pathological aging using the methods of neuropsychology, fMRI and optical imaging. The training he received in neuroimaging as part of his RTN-LAB involvement was instrumental in securing this position. He plans to continue his existing RTN-LAB-based collaborations with Professor Fernando Cuetos (Oviedo) and Dr Cristina Burani (Rome).
