I am a developmental cognitive psychologist interested in human potential. My early work explored how perceptual and attentional capacities underpin complex functioning such as how cognitive control relates to reading abilities. This research focusses on learning difficulties and exceptional development with the aim of contributing to scientific understanding as well as translation for education and intervention. Through understanding everyday behaviours like reading, I investigate the workings of the mind. I conduct these enquiries using behavioural psychophysics and neuroimaging techniques (e.g., electroencephalography, functional transcranial Doppler ultrasound, and functional magnetic resonance imaging). More recently, I’ve begun to explore the inter-relationships between cognition (e.g., reading), physiological processes (e.g., sleep), and wellbeing (e.g., anxiety, depression, and life satisfaction).

My history

I completed my undergraduate and postgraduate studies at the University of Western Australia, working with:

  • Mike Anderson (Honours, 2002: The Attentional Blink and Children: Development of Selective Attention and Automatic Processing), and
  • John Hogben and Jan Fletcher (combined Masters/PhD in Applied Developmental Psychology, 2008: Applying the Attentional Blink).

After lecturing at Curtin University, I took up a postdoc fellowship with Dorothy Bishop in Oxford Study of Children’s Communication Impairments (OSCCI) at Oxford University. In Oxford my work predominantly examined language lateralisation in adults and toddlers using functional Transcanial Doppler Ultrasound (see Bishop et al., 2010 for a short video of the method).

I returned to Australia in 2011 to take up a postdoctoral research fellowship in the ARC Centre of Excellence in Cognition and its Disorders at Macquarie University, predominantly working with Genevieve McArthur investigating the relationship between cognitive control and reading. We’ve also validating a gaming-EEG system (see Emotiv’s EPOC) for research which has excited some people.

I’ve been at The University of Western Australia since the start of 2020 as an academic within The School of Psychological Science. I’m responsible for schools engagement (e.g., outreach activities with primary and high school groups) and look after our second semester first-year unit, Behaviour in Context (PSYC1102), which I enjoy a lot.