ART Alumni
Andrea Chebat (Former Research Assistant)
Andrea completed her MSc in Fundamentals in Clinical Psychology and Health Services at Goldsmiths University in 2019. She completed her thesis with the supervision of Dr Jansari investigating the effects of Internet Gaming Addiction on executive functioning. This was done using Dr. Jansari’s virtual reality assessment of executive functions: the Jansari assessment of Executive Functions (JEF©). She is currently volunteering at Headway, a centre for people suffering from brain injury, and is looking to work in the mental health field. Andrea also has a BSc in Neuropsychology from McGill University in Montreal, Canada.
E-mail: acheb001@gold.ac.uk
Anisha Desai (Former Research Assistant)
Anisha is a Highly Specialist Speech and Language Therapist in Neurorehabilitation who studied Neuroscience as an undergraduate. She is passionate about neurorehabilitation, hidden disabilities and cognitive-communication disorders after brain injury; how executive dysfunction social cognitive impairments impact on communication skills.
Anisha sits on the RCSLT’s Clinical Excellence Network for Acquired Brain Injury and represents RCSLT at the ABI Alliance. Anisha has recently presented posters at the British Paediatric Neurologist Association (BPNA), European Academy of Childhood Disorders (EACD) and Frontiers in TBI conference.
E-mail: desai_anisha@hotmail.com
Avril Carey (Former ART Research Fellow)
Avril is the Principal of a hospital school in Dublin, Ireland. The school provides rehabilitation education services in an acute neuro surgical setting. She is currently undertaking a PhD in UCC Cork, examining the training needs of Irish teachers in supporting successful school re-entry for students with acquired brain injury. She is currently interested in using JEF-C© in the acute rehabilitation hospital school setting. By establishing accurate baseline information on executive function, educational planning can be targeted to support students’ specific needs early in their recovery. As an advisor to the National Council for Special Education in Ireland, she hopes to eventually use JEF-C© in school contexts beyond that of the hospital school.
Andrea Furuly
Andrea Furuly is a MSc student in Cognitive and Clinical Neuroscience. Before starting the MSc, she completed a Bachelor’s degree in Psychology. Currently she is working on a project with Ashok Jansari related to his test VALMT, to look at differences in healthy age-related memory loss in the elderly population. The test has been able to identify Accelerated Long-term Forgetting, and the current project is looking to further explore the sensitivity and validity of the test. Accelerated Long-term Forgetting is a form of rapid forgetting of newly leaned information over a period of hours. After graduating Andrea is hoping to work in research related to memory.
Caroline Daily (Former Research Assistant)
Caroline is a third-year undergraduate student studying psychology at Washington University in St. Louis. She is studying abroad for one term at Goldsmiths and is doing a research assistantship with Dr Jansari for the term. She is very interested in the human brain and how it works and would like to attend medical school after she graduates.
Caterina Barbara Buonomo (Former International Research Assistant)
My name is Caterina, I am a graduate student in occupational therapy at the Gabriele d’Annunzio University of Pescara. I found art thanks to my Italian university and I am participating in their research project on memory, in particular I administered the VALMT in the Italian version to some subjects recruited in Italy. By working in the art team I would like to implement my research skills to be able to work as a researcher in the future.
Catarina Rosa
Originally from Portugal, Catarina is in the MSc Forensic Psychology programme at Goldsmiths. Before starting the MSc, she completed her Bachelor’s in Psychology. Alongside her Masters, she is involved in a child protection project as a volunteer at Circles South East. Currently, she is working on a project with Ashok on the connection between traumatic brain injury on executive functions of ex-offenders that may contribute to criminal behaviour. Catarina will use JEF© to conduct her research.
Christina Lepak (Former Research Assistant)
Christina got her bachelor’s in Psychology and Neuroscience at Miami University (Ohio). She then studied abroad and completed her MSc in Cognitive and Clinical Neuroscience at Goldsmiths with Dr. Jansari. Her dissertation project focused on the looking at the differences in executive functioning in younger versus older adolescents using the JEF-A© assessment. In addition, her project also assessed the ecological validity of JEF-A© by comparing these results to other current standard executive function tests. She currently works as a research associate at The Ohio State University in the neuroscience department doing spinal cord injury research.
Chrystel Mendoza
Chrystel is a MSc Student in Cognitive and Clinical Neuroscience. Originally from Ecuador, she obtained her Bachelor’s degree in Sociology from Beloit College in America. She joined ART, looking to explore the link between executive functions and emotion regulation in teenagers using JEF-A©. She will work under the supervision of Dr Jansari.
Claudia Corti (Former International ART Fellow)
Claudia is a PhD, a neuropsychologist and a cognitive-behavioral psychotherapist working at Scientific Institute IRCCS E. Medea, a rehabilitation center located in Northern Italy, not far from Milan. Her research focuses on cognitive and behavioral functioning of children with congenital or acquired brain damage and on innovative assessment methods and rehabilitation interventions, also allowed by the use of technologies. For her research practice, she uses the Jansari assessment of Executive Functions (JEF©). Recent rehabilitation interventions conducted by Dr. Corti are based on online methods to make participation accessible to anyone, anywhere, at anytime.
Danny McKennedy
I am a psychology graduate with interests in executive functioning and social media.
Denisa Gorina (Former BSc Student)
I am a third-year student studying Psychology BSc at Goldsmiths. For my final year project, I am investigating the executive functions in eating disorders using the Jansari assessment of Executive Function under the supervision of Ashok.
Denisa-Mihaela Tancou
Denisa is a MSc Cognitive and Clinical Neuroscience student at Goldsmiths. She completed her Bachelor’s degree in Psychology at Lucian Blaga University in Romania. Her previous research investigated the causes of somatic symptom disorder in adolescents. Her interest in neuroscience was driven by her previous contact with psychiatric patients and raised her interest in finding neurobiological causes for mental and neuropsychological conditions. Her current research, conducted under the supervision of Dr Jansari, is looking at the contribution of facial recognition stages to the development of prosopagnosia. The focus of her research is single case studies of patients with acquired prosopagnosia due to brain injury.
E-mail: dtanc001@gold.ac.uk
Diego Nardi (Former PhD Student)
Diego is a second year PhD student funded by the Department of Psychology and supervised by Professor Fiona Gabbert and Dr Ashok Jansari. In carrying out research on applied memory, he has worked on projects linked to cognitive and social aspects involved in investigative interviewing, eyewitness memory, and suggestibility. The overall aim of Diego’s work is to gain a better insight into the underlying cognitive processes required to eyewitnesses and victims during an investigation, and thereby improve the quality of the evidence provided. His PhD research investigates how individual differences in key cognitive abilities correlate with the performance of eyewitnesses in relevant tasks. In particular, Diego is working on the development of a battery of tests that can be used as a screening tool to identify witnesses who are most likely to be able to provide either reliable or unreliable evidence and make accurate or inaccurate identifications.
Disha Pattani (Former BSc Student)
Hi my name is Disha and I am a first year psychology student. It is an amazing opportunity to be part of ART as I have learnt so many different areas of neuro and cognitive psychology such as facial recognition and executive functions. It is a great pleasure to work with a fantastic team and explore different areas of psychology.
Dominik Sala (Former BSc Students)
Dominik is a second-year undergraduate student in Psychology with Clinical Psychology. He is especially interested in memory and major depressive disorder and its bearings on people’s everyday life. Currently, he is working on a study looking at gender-linked differences in everyday memory performance and preparing the application for the EPS bursary with Dr Ashok Jansari. In the future, Dominik would like to work as a research assistant and to become a neuropsychologist.
Dr Andrew James (Former ART Research Fellow)
After initially training as a Clinical Neuropsychologist, Dr James completed a PhD with Prof Andy Young at the University of York investigating neurobehavioral disorders after acquired brain injury. He has recently left the NHS to work full-time in private practice, conducting medicolegal expert assessments for Court and providing treatment and rehabilitation. He continues to hold an honorary research post in the NHS, addressing executive dysfunction (including JEF) after brain injury in the community, and also joined Goldsmiths as a Visiting Research Fellow last year. He is CPD lead for the BPS Division of Neuropsychology.
Elanur Altunbas
Elanur is completing her Bachelor’s degree in Biology and Sociology at Arcadia University in Pennsylvania. She is currently studying abroad at Arcadia’s campus in London. She is doing a research internship with Dr Jansari until the end of March because of her interest in neuropsychology. After graduating, she hopes to attend medical school.
Elika Esmailzadeh
Elika is a MSc Cognitive and Clinical Neuroscience student. She completed her Bachelor’s degree in Psychology. Under the supervision of Dr Jansari, she is working on a project investigating accelerated forgetting, looking at the differences between age groups and the level of head injury on memory performance. This will be done using the Verbal Associative Learning and Memory Task (VALMT). She hopes to pursue a PhD in clinical psychology and specialise in neuropsychology.
E-mail: eesma001@gold.ac.uk
Emma Mallinder
Emma completed her MSc in Cognitive and Clinical Neuroscience at Goldsmiths University in 2019. Her thesis investigated the role of sleep in consolidating both verbal and face memory. She is considering a PhD to further investigate the role of sleep in consolidating face memory. Emma also has a BA in English and Italian from the University of Wales, and a Grad-Dip in Psychology from LSBU. Her previous areas of research included the effect on parents of their child’s acquired brain injury.
E-mail: Emall001@gold.ac.uk
Esma Metinkale
Esma completed her Bachelor’s degree in Psychology at Bogazici University, in Istanbul. She is currently studying MSc in Cognitive and Clinical Neuroscience at Goldsmiths. Under the supervision of Dr Jansari, Esma is carrying out her dissertation project on the JEF-A© assessment of executive functions in adolescents. She is further interested in the clinical implications of JEF-A© in evaluation of developmental disorders.
E-mail: emeti001@gold.ac.uk
Francesco Innocenti
Francesco is a third-year undergraduate student of Psychology and Cognitive Neuroscience with a deep interest in consciousness and the brain. He has helped Ashok develop a more sensitive test of face memory recognition aimed at better discriminating people of different face recognition ability.
Idda Kimaali (Former BSc Student)
Idda is a second-year undergraduate student in Psychology with Cognitive Neuroscience. She is interested in studying the brain’s ability to learn after damage and how such research allows researchers to gain an insight into normal cognition. She is currently working on a study to explore the effect of semantic relatedness on memory recognition in older and younger participants.
James Dixie (Former Research Assistant)
James is completing his Bachelor’s degree in Psychology with a Queer Studies Concentration at Denison University in Granville, Ohio. He studied abroad at Arcadia University’s campus in London during the Fall term of 2019 and worked as one of Ashok’s research assistants focusing on JEF© and Accelerated Long-term Forgetting (ALF) experiments done by his undergraduate, MSc, and PhD students. James also assisted in putting together the British Council Synergy Workshop and Symposium with Ashok and Claudia Pulcini. After graduating, James plans to work in the healthcare industry as a research coordinator and attend graduate school specialising in Clinical Psychology.
Jeramey Mason
Jeramey is a student in the MSc Cognitive and Clinical Neuroscience programme. He completed his Bachelor’s in Psychology in the United States at Purdue University. While there he worked under Dr Margo Monteith focusing on racial implicit bias primarily, however during his undergraduate he undertook an internship abroad in Sydney, Australia at The Brain & Mind Research Institute of University of Sydney. There he was exposed to neuropsychology and cognitive psychology and developed an interest in these areas working closely with the practitioners and patients. His current research proposal is looking at the effects of a traumatic brain injury on ex-offenders and how those who’ve experienced this sort of injury have a greater likelihood of reoffending. The research will be conducted using the Jansari Assessment of Executive Functions (JEF©).
Kamila Pawlowska
Kamila is currently completing the final year of her BSc Psychology degree and has been a member of Dr Jansari’s lab since her first year at Goldsmiths. She has previously worked on data collection and database management of various JEF © studies and is now in the process of finishing her final year project involving secondary data analysis of the JEF © database. The aim of her work is to better understand executive functions with regards to both a healthy population and those with brain injuries, identify potential insights and create accurate guidelines for clinicians treating patients with brain injuries.
Kim Corbett
Kim studied part-time on the MSc in Forensic Psychology alongside her day job as a Deputy Head teacher. Kim has a particular interest in, and passion for, the challenges faced by children who have experienced early trauma. Kim used the Jansari assessment of Executive Functions for Children (JEF-C©), as well as other measures, in children who experienced early trauma to help better understand their difficulties and how they can be better supported in an educational context.
Lucy White (Former BSc Students)
I am a first-year mature student studying Psychology and Cognitive Neuroscience. I began this academic journey because I am fascinated in how the mind and brain work together. I have been a member of ART since the beginning of my degree. I am an active research assistant and I working with the facial recognition group, which is involved in investigating different aspects of facial recognition. Being a member of ART has given me so much insight into cutting-edge research and interesting projects – I am very proud to be part of the team.
Lingani Mbakile-Mahlanza (Former International Research Assistant)
Dr Lingani Mbakile-Mahlanza, DPsyc., MSc. is an Atlantic Senior Fellow for Equity in Brain Health. She holds a Doctorate in Clinical Neuropsychology from Monash University, Australia and a Master of Clinical Psychology from Bond University in Australia. Dr Mbakile-Mahlanza has an appointment at the University of Botswana as a Lecturer (Assistant Professor) in the psychology department and as co-ordinator of the psychology clinic. She has a special interest in neurodegenerative conditions, traumatic brain injury, and training in neuropsychology. In addition to her teaching role at the University of Botswana and working clinically, she has been conducting research in the areas of dementia, traumatic brain injury and neuropsychological assessment in under resourced settings. Lingani argues that there are currently no supports and services for people with dementia and people with traumatic brain injury in Botswana, and that this contrasts with the pressing needs for these supports. She is committed to increasing awareness about brain health and supporting the development of neuropsychology in her region.
E-mail: lingani.mbakile-mahlanza@gbhi.org
Madison Taylor
Madison has recently graduated from her MSc in Forensic Psychology at Goldsmiths University. She is hoping to conduct PhD research under the supervision of Dr Ashok Jansari using the Jansari assessment of executive functions. She is interested in investigating the connection between traumatic brain injury and executive functions in ex-offenders.
Melissa Evans (Former BSc Students)
Melissa is a second-year BSc Psychology student with broad interests in psychology. Previous interest has focused on statistical cognition, specifically the reasoning behind statistical misunderstanding in social science which she may wish to continue to investigating. Melissa has aspirations in the field of research and is learning from ART to gain more presentation skills, improve her statistical understanding and learn how to conduct research well.
Natasha Cucchiara (Former BSc Students)
Natasha is a second-year Psychology undergraduate and a research assistant for the executive functions group in ART. Her interests lie in executive functions and the cognitive processes involved in neurodevelopmental disorders and how these affect regulation and academic achievement, with an interest in application to real life.
Noah Shapiro (Former Research Assistant)
Noah is a final year undergraduate Psychology student at Regent’s University London. He is currently working on an experiment investigating individual differences amongst people with prosopagnosia with respect to the other race bias.
Olivia Jarvis (Former Research Assistant)
Olivia is completing her Bachelor’s degree in Psychology at Arcadia University in Pennsylvania. She is currently working as a research assistant with Ashok while studying abroad in London until the end of April. Her interests include social psychology and executive functions. She hopes to pursue a PhD in neuropsychology and return to London in the future.
Oscar Knockton (Former BSc Student)
Oscar is a first-year MSc Student studying Molecular Neuroscience, completing his BSc in Psychology whilst under Ashok’s supervision during his undergraduate. He previously completed his dissertation on the Effects of Controlled MDMA use on Cognitive Function Using The Jansari assessment of Executive Functions (JEF©). Oscar is interested in psychedelic drugs as novel treatment options, the glutamatergic system/specifically NMDA receptors and Alzheimer’s Disease.
Pedro Douglass-Kirk (Former PhD Student)
Pedro is undertaking a PhD researching the use of music as an aid for stroke rehabilitation. His current research focuses on upper limb rehabilitation with a core focus on quality of movement. Self-selected favourite music is used to provide real-time feedback rewarding high quality movement patterns and punishing poor quality movement patterns. The research is being undertaken in collaboration with stroke rehabilitation experts from the National Hospital of Neurology and Neurosurgery in London.
Pooja Mahendran (Former Research Assistant)
Pooja has completed her BSc in Criminology and Psychology at Royal Holloway, University of London. She is interested in research looking at regaining cognitive functioning after acquiring a brain injury and in research looking at potential treatments for neurodegenerative disorders. Currently, she is a cognitive rehabilitation assistant for clients who have acquired brain injuries. By working in ART as a research assistant, she further developed her research and presentation skills.
Priyanka Dey (Former International Research Assistant)
My name is Priyanka. I am currently doing my Master’s in Applied Psychology from the University of Calcutta in India. The way the brain works and how it all translates to behaviour, particularly abnormal behaviour fascinates me. I discovered ART through Dr Jansari’s online talks and am thrilled to be a part of it.
E-mail: smilepeedee@gmail.com
Rachel Keyes (Former International Research Assistant)
My name is Rachel Keyes and I am finishing my Bachelor’s degree at Coe College in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. I found out about ART through one of Dr Jansari’s talks while I was studying abroad and attending Goldsmiths. I am completing my internship virtually and am so happy to be a part of such a diverse group of individuals.
Raheleh Heyrani (Former Research Assistant)
Raheleh Heyrani is graduated in clinical psychology both for her BSc and MSc. Her MSc thesis is about evaluation of cognitive functions in depressed and non-depressed elderly people using MoCA and MMSE. Her current research interests are tDCS, plasticity, memory and executive functions. She would like to work on Mild Cognitive Impairment (MCI), using tDCS and cognitive rehabilitation. However, her proposal has not been fixed, yet. She hopes to find her research topic for her PhD proposal because she aspires to pursue her PhD in neuropsychology at Goldsmith London University under supervision of Dr Ashok Jansari.
Rahul K V (Former International Research Assistant)
Rahul is a Senior Research Fellow at National Institute of Mental Health and Neurosciences, India. He has completed his MSc in Neuropsychology and has keen interest in the areas of culture, cognition, and aging. In association with Dr Aparna Dutt, we are carrying out a systematic review on Cognitive tests available for screening dementia in India. Rahul believe culture plays a significant role in ageing and dementia. He was part of a longitudinal aging study named SANSCOG, which is aimed at assessing protective and risk factors of rural elderly people. With the help of INSERM (National Institute of Medical Research), France, he worked towards developing a culturally sensitive cognitive tool to assess the early changes of pathological aging. Rahul was introduced to ART by Dr Aparna Dutt and was fascinated by the diverse team, regular talks, and peer learning sessions.
Rosamond Watling (Former Research Assistant)
Dr Watling is a Chartered Psychologist and Senior Lecturer in Psychology at Regent’s University London, who leads the BSc Psychology Programme. Her teaching specialisations are cognitive and biological psychology. Following completion of a First-Class BSc (Hons) degree in Psychology at the University of East London, where her research was under the supervision of Dr Jansari, she completed an MSc in Research Methods in Psychology and a PhD at Goldsmiths‘ Department of Psychology. Her PhD research focused on visual extinction, a neurological disorder that occurs following brain damage. Her current interests include synaesthesia, visual neglect and disorders of face recognition. She has supervised many undergraduate and postgraduate dissertations in psychology, as well as supervising a PhD student.
E-mail: watlingr@regents.ac.uk
Sara Abbas (Former International Research Assistant)
Hi! My name is Sara Abbas and I work with Dr. Ashok Jansari at Goldsmiths University in London as a Cognitive Psychology research assistant. I am from the state of Minnesota in the United States. I am studying abroad from January to May 2023 at Queen Mary University of London too. This internship is set up through Arcadia University and has allowed me to be exposed to numerous projects that Dr. Ashok Jansari is involved in. I am really happy to be a part of this team because I have learned so much in this internship, from basics in research to the field of cognitive psychology! Back home, I am in a 3+2 Physician Associate program between the University of Minnesota Rochester and the Mayo Clinic School of Health Sciences. I will receive a Bachelor of Science in Health Sciences from the University of Minnesota Rochester in three years (so I am graduating in 2023!) and then go into PA school at MCSHS to receive a Masters in Health Sciences and Physician Assistant Studies.
Shauna Murphy
Shauna is a MSc Cognitive and Clinical Neuroscience student originally from Ireland who has a background in psychology. Her current area of interest is in the executive functioning of adolescents, with a particular interest in the comparison between neurotypical adolescents and those who have disorders or injuries which could impair executive functions. In the future she hopes to go into clinical psychology and specialise in neuropsychology.
Sydney Baker
Sydney is a MSc Cognitive and Clinical Neuroscience student from the USA supervised by Dr Ashok Jansari. She received her Bachelor’s degree in Psychology from the University of Colorado (USA) and her Master’s degree in Psychology from the University of Bradford (UK). Sydney’s research interests focus on neurobiological causes of bipolar disorder, psychopharmacology and factors affecting executive functions. Her current work seeks to investigate the potential interaction effects of nicotine and caffeine on executive constructs by utilising Dr Jansari’s ecologically-valid virtual reality tool, the Jansari assessment of Executive Functions, (JEF©). The aim is to gain insight into the effects of stimulants on executive functioning in individuals with bipolar disorder by assessing healthy controls and bipolar patient case studies. After graduating, she plans to work in affective disorder research and pursue a PhD in psychological medicine.
Terry McGibbon (Former PhD Student)
Terry is a PhD student in the Department of Psychology. His research focuses on human memory and forgetting in the general population and in disorders such as epilepsy. A particular area of focus is Accelerated Long-term Forgetting (ALF), a memory disorder where new information is initially learnt and retained normally, but then forgotten at an accelerated rate over a period of hours to weeks. He also practises Open Science, ensuring his scientific research is accessible to all levels of society and making his methods, tools, and results freely available to others. Terry uses online methods to make participation accessible to anyone, anywhere, at anytime.
E-mail: t.mcgi001@gold.ac.uk
Thomas Theodosiou (Former International ART Fellow)
Thomas has completed his MSc. studies with excellence in clinical neuropsychology-cognitive neurosciences (clinical direction) at National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, Medical School in collaboration with McGill University of Canada, Montreal Neurological Institute.
Moreover, he has completed, excelled and ranked first, his BSc. studies in Psychology at University of Crete, School of Social Sciences. He is working as a clinical neuropsychologist concentrating on patients’ cognitive assessment and rehabilitation. Moreover, he is a research associate at the neuropsychological laboratory of the first department of neurology, Eginition University Hospital – National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, studying the neuropsychological profile of different clinical populations, including Myotonic Dystrophy Type 2 and Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis patients while his scientific works are currently under review. He was a presenter at international and national conferences demonstrating his passion to study in-depth about the clinical and cognitive aspects of psychology and neuropsychology.
Thomas is also, a scientific associate (research and education committees) at the Hellenic Neuropsychological Society. Furthermore, he is a lecturer, also module leader, in cognitive neuropsychology at Metropolitan College, Department of Psychology in collaboration with University of East London, Department of Psychology, teaching in both English and Greek programs. Lastly, he is a supervisor of MSc. Clinical and Community Psychology students’ dissertations.
LinkedIn: Thomas G. Theodosiou
E-mail: tgtheodosiou@gmail.com
Tristan Alexander (Former BSc Students)
Tristan is a first year undergraduate student studying Psychology and Cognitive Neuroscience. He is professional actor and runs a non-fiction book summary website and podcast called Wise Words He is interested in many subjects outside of psychology such as politics, philosophy and health and so brings an outside perspective to the very detail oriented subject of neuroscience. He has recently looked into the link between executive functions and personality.
Vytautė Gavelytė (Former BSc Student)
Vytautė is a first-year undergraduate student studying BSc Psychology and Cognitive Neuroscience and is currently working with Dr Ashok Jansari as a research assistant. She is interested in the association between consciousness, behaviour and personality. Through her involvement in Dr Ashok’s research team, she hopes to expand her knowledge on neuropsychology and further develop her research skills.
YeeHiun Chin (Former BSc Student)
Yee is a third-year undergraduate psychology student and is currently working with Dr Ashok Jansari as a research assistant. His main research interests are neuroplasticity, working memory and understanding how the brain learns to read. In particular, he is interested in understanding how these three fields of research can be applied to educational settings.
E-mail: ychin002@gold.ac.uk
Zöe Henry (Former Research Assistant)
After doing a research assistant internship during my BSc Psychology with Clinical Psychology, I went on to do a MSc in Clinical Neurodevelopmental Sciences. Currently, I work as an assistant psychologist in the NHS and am interested in executive functions and mental health presentations in those with neurodevelopmental disorders such as autism, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder and Down’s syndrome. I love getting involved with ART events at the Science Museum and look forward to more opportunities!
