Who we are?
Dr Pascal Molenberghs | Lab Director | pascalmolenberghs@gmail.com
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Pascal completed his PhD in 2009 at the University of Leuven (Belgium). Subsequently, he was a Postdoctoral Researcher at the Queensland Brain Institute and UQ Postdoctoral Fellow at the School of Psychology at the University of Queensland.
From 2015 to 2017 he was a Senior Lecturer at Monash University supported by a DECRA Fellowship and from 2018 to June 2019, he was a Senior Research Fellow in the School of Psychological Sciences at the University of Melbourne supported by a Heart Foundation Future Leader Fellowship.
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Since July 2019, he is an Associate Professor at the Institute for Social Neuroscience.
Guy received his B.Sc. in Psychology and B.Bus.Man. in Economics from the University of Queensland. His PhD focused on the examination of workplace stress, and how stress-management interventions influence: (a) the functional and structural morphology of the brain using MRI, and (b) physiological measures of allostatic load, including changes in stress hormones and neuronal growth factors.
Dr. Guy Prochilo | former PhD student
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Ashley completed a BSc (hons) in health sciences as well as a BA in philosophy at Monash University. His main research interest centers around the impact different cultural forces and value systems can have in influencing psychological wellbeing. His PhD, completed in 2018 under the supervision of Dr. Pascal Molenberghs and Dr. Ana-Maria Bliuc, focused on the role the concepts of individualism and materialism have on affecting young peoples psychological wellbeing, as well as possible intervention strategies to better enable young people to deal with these influences.
Dr. Ashley Humphrey | former PhD student
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Dr Juan Dominguez | former Postdoctoral Researcher
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Juan’s research interests span social and cultural neuroscience, neuroanthropology, neuropsychology and brain training, stimulation and rehabilitation. Since completing his PhD in 2008 at the University of Melbourne, he has held research positions at the Howard Florey Institute, the Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain science (Germany) and Monash University. His work in the lab was published in Social Neuroscience and Frontiers in Human Neuroscience. He is currently a research officer at Australian Catholic University. You can find his Google Scholar Profile here.
Yong Hui Lau| former Honours student
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Yong did an Honours degree in Psychology at the University of Melbourne. She examined the neural responses to threats and reconciliation efforts from both outgroup and ingroup members with the use of fMRI.
Dr Robert Eres | former PhD student
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Robert’s PhD focused on the functional and structural architecture behind empathy and morality. Specifically, he is interested in determining how groups and context influence the neural responses of vicarious experiences, as well as whether they influence our moral decision making (e.g. to harm another, either physically or through theft). Work from his PhD has been published in NeuroImage, Social Neuroscience and Frontiers in Human Neuroscience. Dr Robert Eres is currently a postdoc at Swinburne University. You can find his webpage here.
Stefanie Roberts | former Lab manager
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Anna Van Moorst | former Honours student
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Ayushi Gupta | former Honours student
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Ayushi completed Honours in Psychology, in which she investigated the influence of group membership on the decision to harm others. The study used fMRI to examine the neural processes involved in deciding to harm others and the work was eventually published in Social Neuroscience.
Stacey Bei Wang | former Honours student
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Stacey investigated empathy-related neural mechanisms underlying ‘ingroup bias’ in pain perception. Her research, published in Cerebral Cortex , showed that people experience high levels of empathy when in group members are attacked by outgroup members, but seem to be indifferent when out-group members are in conflict among themselves.
Joshua Gapp | former Honours student
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Joshua investigated how group membership influences how we fell for the suffering of others. The results, published in Cerebral Cortex, showed that people show increased behavioural and neural moral sensitivity for outgroup members that attack ingroup members.
Claudette Ogilvie | former Honours student
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Claudette investigated the neural mechanisms involved in justified and unjustified violence. The study, published in SCAN, contributed to a greater understanding of how people readily kill others in war and in other situations when they perceive violence is justified.
Rebecca Bosworth | former Honours student
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Rebecca examined the neural architecture involved when individuals administer pain and rewards to ingroup and outgroup members. The study, published in Human Brain Mapping, contributed to a better understanding of how socially important phenomena such as racial and group biases develop.
Lydia Hayward | former Honours student
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Lydia used fMRI to investigate if mirror system brain areas respond differently to the observation of actions depending on the intentions of the observer. The results, published in NeuroImage, show that they do and this suggests that the mirror system plays an active role in action understanding. Lydia is now a postdoctoral researcher at UNSW. You can find her Google Scholar profile here.
Veronika Halász | former Honours student
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Veronika investigated how people perceive the actions of ingroup and outgroup members differently. Her work, published in Human Brain Mapping, showed that people rate the actions of in-group members more favourably and that it is caused by different brain processes in the action perception network. The paper was also featured in the New Scientist. Veronika is now a Postdoctoral researcher at the Queensland Brain Institute. You can find her Google Scholar profile here.
Anna's Honours project involved a study of attitudes towards immigration policies, immigrants and refugees, and the personality and socio-cultural factors that affect these attitudes. She is currently collecting additional data and is preparing her work for publication.
Stefanie completed a Bachelor of Psychology (with Hons I) at Monash University. She managed the daily workings in the lab at Monash University and was responsible for recruitment and testing of stroke patients in Melbourne. Stefanie is currently doing a Master in Clinical Neuropsychology at Melbourne University and writing a review paper on how brain lesions can influence the neural processes involved in morality.