Celia Foster, PhD Student
Hometown: Manchester, England
Affiliation: MPI for Biological Cybernetics, Department for Human Perception, Cognition and Action
What are you working on?
Im exploring
which regions of the brain encode information about people. When we
look at a picture of a person, we can automatically tell
information about their age, gender, identity, and so on. This is
an amazing ability, as people can look very different, and Im
interested in how the brain is able to do this.
How are you going to find out?
I use functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to record brain
activity evoked when participants look at pictures of people. This
allows me to localize regions of the brain that respond when we
look at people. I then use machine learning classifiers to
determine which of these areas contain different patterns of
activity, depending on the category of person the participant was
viewing.
Why did you decide to become a
researcher?
I decided to study neuroscience to learn more about how the brain
works: I find this one of the most fascinating puzzles in science
yet to be solved. As a researcher, I am excited to be able to
directly learn new things about the brain through my own
research.
Your favourite thing outside of
science?
At the moment I enjoy visiting the
Freibad, its a great place to cool off when its sunny in
Tuebingen!