Prof Zoe Kourtzi
- Principal Investigator
About
Zoe Kourtzi is Professor of Experimental Psychology and Computational Cognitive Neuroscience at the Department of Psychology, University of Cambridge. Her experimental work aims to understand the role of lifelong learning and brain plasticity in enabling humans of all ages to translate sensory experience into adaptive behaviours. Her computational work aims to develop predictive models of mental health and disease based on large-scale population data. Her work has translational impact in the early diagnosis and design of personalised interventions in healthy ageing and mental health disorders. Zoe received her PhD from Rutgers University and was postdoctoral fellow at MIT and Harvard University. She was a Senior Research Scientist at the Max Planck Institute for Biological Cybernetics and then a Chair in Brain Imaging at the University of Birmingham. She moved to the University of Cambridge in 2013 and she is the Angharad Dodds John Fellow at Downing College. She is a Royal Society Industry Fellow, Fellow and Cambridge University Lead at the Alan Turing Institute, and the Science Lead for Alzheimer's Research UK Initiative on Early Detection of Neurodegenerative Diseases (EDoN).
Research
My research focuses on imaging the neural processes in the human brain that mediate complex, adaptive cognitive functions and behaviour. The aim of my work is to understand the neural processes that mediate complex cognitive functions (i.e. object categorization, recognition, perceptual decisions) and their experience-based and developmental neural plasticity.
In particular, we combine multimodal brain imaging methods (structural and functional MRI, EEG, MEG), established behavioural paradigms from cognitive psychology and state-of-the art mathematical algorithms to understand the link between brain structure, neural function and behaviour. The development of these multidisciplinary and advanced tools has direct applications for translational research in ageing and neurological disorders with potential impact for the prevention and treatment of nervous system disorders.
Within this framework research in my lab spans diverse areas in neuroscience: visual brain imaging, learning and plasticity, cognitive development of the intact and impaired brain across the lifespan from infancy to ageing.
Zoe is the Angharad Dodds John Fellow at Downing College.
Zoe is an Alan Turing Fellow.