Dr. Ian Charest
Senior Lecturer
Dr Ian Charest is a cognitive computational neuroscientist generally interested
in high-level vision and audition. He leads the Charest Lab at the University of
Birmingham and the Centre for Human Brain Health, where he and his team investigate
object recognition in the brain using neuroimaging techniques such as
magneto-electroencephalography (M-EEG), and functional magnetic resonance
imaging (fMRI). His work makes use of advanced computational modelling and
analysis techniques, including machine learning, representational similarity
analysis (RSA), and artificial neural networks (ANNs), to better understand
human brain function. The current topics of research in the lab include
information processing in the brain during perception, memory, and visual
consciousness when recognising and interpreting natural scenes and visual objects.
The laboratory is currently funded by an European Research Council - Starting Grant
(759432) to investigate object recognition, visual consciousness, with a focus on
individual differences in brain and behaviour.
Dr. Jasper van den Bosch
Postdoctoral Scientist
Jasper studied Psychology and Neuroscience in Maastricht and Rome.
He then worked on PhD research on multisensory integration in Frankfurt.
He went on to do a postdoc with Patricia Kuhl in Seattle, and with Niko Kriegeskorte
in Cambridge. He then joined the Charest lab in 2018. His research focuses on the
interplay between semantic and perceptual representation, from a multi-sensory perspective.
Dr. Ludwig Barbaro
Postdoctoral Scientist
Ludwig studied medicine at the University of Pisa, and completed his
Ph.D. in Cognitive and Brain Sciences in CIMeC, under the supervision
of Clayton Hickey and Marius Peelen. His interests include real-world
object recognition, visual attention and the way vision and motivation
interact with each other. He is currently a postdoc in the CharestLab,
where he has conducted a project on the effects of task-relevance on the
neural representation of visual objects using EEG and fMRI.
Katerina Simkova
Research Assistant
Research: Cognitive Neuroscience
conscious access
Dr. Adrien Doerig
Visiting Scholar
Adrien studied neuroscience and physics at EPFL, and completed his Ph.D. in
Neuroscience there under the supervision of Michael Herzog. His interests
include neural computations in recurrent networks, in particular for vision,
and, more broadly, understanding how and when different computational properties
emerge in neural networks. He also works on theoretical issues in consciousness
science. Currently, is a postdoc with Tim Kietzmann at the Donders Institute, and is
visiting scholar at the University of Birmingham and the University of Cambridge.
Daniel Lindh
PhD Candidate
Daniel studied Cognitive Science at Umeå University before completing his Research
Masters in Cognitive Neuroscience at the University of Amsterdam. He is currently in
the end of his Ph.D. working together with Ian Charest, Kim Shapiro and Ilja Sligte
in a joint Ph.D. programme between University of Birmingham and University of Amsterdam.
During the past few years he has been investigating attention, working memory, and
conscious experience. Specifically, he is using fMRI/EEG, neural networks and cognitive
models to investigate how hierarchical information-flow (from low-level visual features
to semantics representations) is processed when presented in a fast sequence, hoping to
unveil the essential mechanisms for perception.
Simon Faghel-Soubeyrand
PhD Candidate
Simon Faghel-Soubeyrand is completing a PhD in cognitive neuroscience
under the supervision of Ian Charest (University of Birmingham, UK)
and Frédéric Gosselin (Université de Montréal, Canada). His work is
centered on the perceptual and brain mechanisms that support individual
differences in visual representations and recognition ability, with an
emphasis for high-level representations (faces & objects). He uses a
combination of psychophysical techniques, brain imaging, and machine
learning to probe the mental representations of individuals from a
neurotypical population, super-recognisers, and “pathological” populations,
including prosopagnosia, and individuals on the schizophrenia and autism spectrum.
Daniel Perez Zapata
Daniel studied psychology at the University of Tarapaca (Chile)
and completed a MPhil in Cognitive Psychology at the University of
Queensland (Australia) under the supervision of Prof. Virginia Slaughter
and Prof. Julie Henry. His current PhD project is supervised by Dr. Ian Charest
and Prof. Ian Apperly, which is focused on how individuals understand cognitively
pure coordination games (i.e., players actively try to align their responses to
each other with no communication whatsoever). To achieve this goal, he is interested
in building new social measures, and apply representational similarity analysis (RSA)
in order to find out: whether people are able to coordinate with each other successfully
in social scenarios, and whether they show individual differences in alignment agreements. This research might shed some light into how individuals understand online social interaction.
Yifan Xu
PhD Candidate
Research: Cognitive Neuroscience
emotions
Eva Bamps
MSc Candidate
Research: Cognitive Neuroscience
expertise
Yuxuan Zeng
MSc Candidate
Yuxuan studied biological science at Sichuan University (China), and completed MSc in Brain Imaging and
Cognitive Neuroscience at University of Birmingham, under the supervision of Dr. Ian Charest and Dr.
Jasper van den Bosch. She worked on multisensory real-world object representations at the Charest Lab
and really enjoyed her time there. She is now working as a research assistant in China and most likely
will keep pursuing a PhD degree in high-level visual perception with neuroimaging and computational
model as methods in the near future.
Subati Abulikimi
Undergrad Research Assistant
Subati did his undergraduate studies of psychology and cognitive neuroscience at the
University of Birmingham, where he investigated the conscious recognition of visual
objects. He is currently studying Translational Neuroscience at the Imperial College
London, and he is interested in brain connectivity, and the application of computational
methods to improve the diagnostic precision of neurological and psychiatric disorders.
Charlie Wong
Bsc Candidate
I completed my Human Neuroscience Bachelor degree at the University of Birmingham.
During my final year project, I was involved with the research of emotional
categorization and multivariate pattern analysis using EEG in the lab. I was very
fascinated by how we can link the brain process to behaviour by decoding brain signals
recorded in EEG. I absolutely enjoyed the time in this research and this has really
widened my knowledge in this field. In the future, I would like to get into clinical
psychology and explore more on how to develop interventions for different psychological
disorders.
Lara Oliel
MSc Candidate
Lara studied physiology and neuroscience at Sorbonne université (Paris, France),
and psycholinguistics at the Ecole Normale Supérieure (Paris). She joined the Charest
Lab for a 3 month internship during her Master's degree, and worked on linking brain
and behavioral measures of visual object similarity. She is now a public school teacher
in France (for children between 3 and 10 years old).
Dr. Sara Assecondi
Postdoctoral Scientist
Research: Cognitive neuroscience
and Methods
School of Psychology
College of Life & Environmental Sciences
Hills Building
University of Birmingham
Edgbaston, Birmingham
B15 2TT