I graduated from Swinburne University in 2009 with a Bachelor of Social Science (Psychology) with first class honours. I completed my PhD at Swinburne University in 2014, after receiving an Australian Postgraduate Award. My PhD investigated neuropsychological function in bipolar disorder. The collected dataset resulted in 11 publications (6 published/accepted at the time of submission), including the first study to demonstrate that individuals with bipolar disorder do not integrate multimodal contextual information during emotion recognition. This, in combination with my findings of other cognitive information processing difficulties in people with bipolar disorder suggests that the patterns of brain communication underlying information processing are impaired in the disorder. The significance of my work was recognized in the form of a Faculty ‘Best Thesis Award’ and the Australian Psychological Society ‘Award for Excellent PhD Thesis in Psychology’.
Following my graduation I was awarded a highly competitive NHMRC Early Career Fellowship and in 2015 I moved to the University of Melbourne to pursue a program of research that now entails several clinically significant, multidisciplinary studies using imaging and behavioural techniques to advance understandings of the brain- behaviour relationship in bipolar disorder and schizophrenia. I currently supervise students in this area and have collaborations with several national and international researchers including in the USA, Canada, Denmark, Sweden, UK, Germany, Spain, Brazil and New Zealand.
My research program involves two sub-themes; one focussed on behaviourally characterising social and general cognitive processes in bipolar disorder and schizophrenia, and the other focussed on understanding the neurobiological basis of cognitive abnormalities in these disorders through neuroimaging. I currently lead the Mood-Psychosis Spectrum Research Group at the Melbourne Neuropsychiatry Centre.
Following my graduation I was awarded a highly competitive NHMRC Early Career Fellowship and in 2015 I moved to the University of Melbourne to pursue a program of research that now entails several clinically significant, multidisciplinary studies using imaging and behavioural techniques to advance understandings of the brain- behaviour relationship in bipolar disorder and schizophrenia. I currently supervise students in this area and have collaborations with several national and international researchers including in the USA, Canada, Denmark, Sweden, UK, Germany, Spain, Brazil and New Zealand.
My research program involves two sub-themes; one focussed on behaviourally characterising social and general cognitive processes in bipolar disorder and schizophrenia, and the other focussed on understanding the neurobiological basis of cognitive abnormalities in these disorders through neuroimaging. I currently lead the Mood-Psychosis Spectrum Research Group at the Melbourne Neuropsychiatry Centre.