meet the lab

Camilla leads the Mental Health Neuroscience Lab. She is an MRC Programme Leader, Assistant Professor of Cognitive Neuroscience, and a Wellcome Career Development Award fellow at Cambridge. She completed her PhD in Neuroscience under the supervision of Professor Jonathan Roiser at University College London, after a degree in Physiology, Psychology, and Philosophy from Magdalen College, Oxford. She has received various accolades, including being named a Rising Star from the Association for Psychological Science, and being awarded the European Society of Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience Young Scientist Award and Brainbox's Young Investigator Award. With Prof. Sarah Garfinkel (UCL), she jointly leads an international team investigating the role of interoception in anxiety and depression via a Wellcome Mental Health Award. Camilla is also known for her public communication of science, including her recent book The Balanced Brain: The Science of Mental Health, a Sunday Times and Financial Times Book of the Year.

Hugo joined the lab as an MRC-funded postdoctoral researcher in 2022. Prior to this, Hugo’s undergraduate degree was in Experimental Psychology at the University of Oxford, and subsequently he completed the Wellcome Trust PhD programme in Neuroscience at University College London, supervised by Professors Jonathan Roiser and Oliver Robinson. For his thesis he investigated cognitive effort and its interaction with cognitive control. Now, he is especially interested in understanding the role of the brain in regulating physiological signals, particularly those relating to energy and metabolism. More broadly, he seeks to understand the fundamental constraints acting on the brain and how these shape behaviour in health and disease.

Lydia joined the lab in 2024 as a Wellcome-funded postdoctoral research associate. Prior to this, Lydia completed her BA in Experimental Psychology at the University of Oxford, and a BBSRC-funded PhD in Psychology at the University of Birmingham (Professor Jennifer Cook’s lab). Her PhD work focused on movement, social cognition and interoception in clinical conditions, including autism and Parkinson’s Disease. In the lab, Lydia will be investigating how the perception of bodily signals (interoception) differs in mental health conditions, with a view to developing a range of interoception-based interventions.

Alicia joined the lab in 2020, when she started her MRC-funded PhD supervised by Camilla and our key collaborator Dr Caitlin Hitchcock (Melbourne). During her PhD, she is investigating how cognition mediates the relationship between the immune system's response to stress and susceptibility to intrusive memories in healthy and clinical populations. 

Sara joined the lab in 2021 as an MRC-funded PhD student supervised by Camilla. Sara recently graduated from a research Master’s in Psychology at the University of Amsterdam, with a major in clinical psychology and a minor in methods. During her studies she was a research assistant working on different projects applying network and complex systems theory to psychometrics. Her PhD is focused on using computational modelling of cognitive processes, especially reward functioning, to investigate transdiagnostic disease mechanisms of psychopathology.

Emily joined the lab in 2023 on an MRC-funded PhD studentship, investigating the role of disgust in transdiagnostic psychopathology. She is currently working on a project investigating reinforcement learning of disgusting outcomes.

Gabriel joined the lab in 2022 as a Sir Isaac Newton/Wellcome-funded research assistant working on magnetic resonance spectroscopy and transcranial focused ultrasound stimulation studies of the insula. He started his ESRC-funded PhD in autumn 2023, focussing on interoception and neurostimulation interventions in mental health conditions. 

Annalise joined the lab in August 2023 as a Wellcome-funded research assistant and is currently working on two projects. The first involves investigating the interactions between glucose metabolism and reinforcement learning, while the second employs flavour-calorie conditioning to explore metabolic reward learning in healthy and clinical populations. In October 2024, she will take up an MRC-funded PhD Studentship in the Nord Lab.

Isabel Lau joined the lab in September 2023 as a Wellcome-funded research assistant and is currently leading a line of work investigating computational modelling of somatic symptoms in patients with somatic anxiety. She will shortly be starting a PhD at Oxford.

Quentin worked in the lab as an AXA-funded research assistant 2020-2022, and is now completing a Wellcome PhD in Mental Health at UCL. He holds degrees in neuroscience and medical statistics, and is particularly interested in computational models of learning and decision-making, and how they can help characterise mental health disorders and their treatments. Outside of work, he enjoys sourdough baking, jazz drumming, and techno (yes, unironically).

Alec Sargood joined the lab in 2022 as a Sir Isaac Newton/Wellcome-funded research assistant working on mathematical simulations of transcranial focused ultrasound stimulation. He is now doing an EPSRC-funded PhD at the University of Cambridge, and continues to collaborate with the lab on ultrasound methods. 

Martyna joined the lab in 2023, funded by a BAP summer internship to work with Hugo and Camilla on the interactions between reinforcement learning and glucose metabolism