Celia Foster, PhD Student
Hometown: Manchester, England
Affiliation: MPI for Biological Cybernetics, Department for Human Perception, Cognition and Action
What are you working on?
I'm 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 I'm 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, it's a great place to cool off when it's sunny in Tübingen!
