Chair in Translational Cognitive Neuroscience, University of Oxford
Cross-cutting theme lead: Neuroimaging and cognitive science
Email: kia.nobre@psy.ox.ac.uk
Phone: 01865 271356
I grew up in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, and then completed my university education in the United States. I obtained my PhD (1993) and carried out postdoctoral research at Yale University, supervised by Gregory McCarthy, and then became instructor at Harvard Medical School, working with Marsel Mesulam at the Behavioural Neurology Unit of Beth Israel Hospital. I moved to Oxford in 1994 to take up a McDonnell-Pew Lectureship in Cognitive Neuroscience and a Junior Research Fellowship at New College. Prior to my current position, I was a university lecturer (Reader 2002-2006, Professor 2006-2014) at the Department of Experimental Psychology at Oxford, and was Tutorial Fellow at New College, Oxford (1996-2014).
My current research is concerned with understanding the principles of the neural systems that support cognitive functions in the human brain. I look at how neural activity linked to perception and cognition is modulated according to memories, task goals and expectations. In addition to revealing the basic mechanisms of these large-scale dynamic regulatory mechanisms, I am interested in how these develop over the lifespan, and how they are disrupted in psychiatric and neurodegenerative disorders.
My work integrates behavioural methods with a powerful combination of non-invasive techniques to image and stimulate the human brain, such as electro- and magneto-encephalography (EEG and MEG), structural and functional magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), and transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS).
Awards:
Made a Fellow of the British Academy (2015), a Member of that Academia Europaea (2015), and received the Suffrage Science Award (2016).
Positions:
Director, Oxford Centre for Human Brain Activity; Head, Department of Experimental Psychology, University of Oxford; Wellcome Trust Senior Investigator; Advisor to the James S. McDonnell Foundation Program (JSMF) in Understanding Human Cognition; Associate Editor for the Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience.
