Graduate Students
Madison Tutton, Ph.D.
I completed my BSc in Health Studies at the University of Waterloo, before moving to the UK where I obtained my MSc in Audiological Science with Clinical Practice at University College London. After graduating, I worked as a clinical audiologist in an adult rehabilitation setting where I was responsible for assessing, diagnosing, and managing hearing problems in adults. Alongside my clinical role, I also started working as a research audiologist before I finally joined the CoNCH Lab to pursue my Ph.D. Currently, my research focuses on the cognitive and neural correlates associated with the experience of effortful listening.
Jaimy Hannah, Ph.D.
In 2018, I completed my Honours Bachelor of Science in Psychology with a minor in Physics from the University of Calgary. After that, I obtained a Master of Science in Psychology, also from the University of Calgary. My undergraduate thesis focused on hippocampal volumes and structural integrity in very poor spatial navigators. During my master's degree, I received NSERC funding to investigate how spatial metaphor processing is related to spatial cognition as measured by performance on spatial tasks. I joined CoNCH Lab in the summer of 2020 and officially started the Ph.D. program in cognitive, developmental, and brain sciences (CDBS) at Western University that fall. I was fortunate to receive an NSERC PGS-D to support my Ph.D. research. I plan to investigate individual differences in listening effort associated with audiovisual speech perception using behavioural and neuroimaging methods.
Caroline Chadwick, Ph.D.
I completed my Bachelors degree from Queens University, majoring in Political Studies, before moving to Ireland where I completed a Higher Diploma in Psychology. In University College Dublin's Media and Entertainment Lab under the supervision of Dr. Brendan Rooney, I studied the effects of perceptual and conceptual cues on feelings of presence in a virtual environment and the applications of virtual reality as a neuropsychological assessment tool. After working as an Assistant Psychologist at Highfield Healthcare, I moved to Western to work with Dr. Johnsrude as a student in the Clinical Science and Psychopathology program. My current research examines functional brain restructuring in individuals with temporal lobe epilepsy and explores how these changes are related to cognitive and psychological functioning before and after resective surgery.
Hana Abbas, Ph.D.
I obtained a Bachelor's of Science from the University of Toronto at Scarborough in Neuroscience and Cognitive Psychology, with a focus on visual object recognition processes. I then completed a Master of Arts at the University of Manitoba in the domain of Brain and Cognitive Sciences, focusing on obstacle avoidance during memory-guided reaching and grasping. Following this, I completed a Master of Science at UWO in Clinical Science and Psychopathology, with a focus on using a naturalistic (movie) stimulus as a tool to identify neural abnormalities in people with drug-resistant epilepsy. I am currently completing a Ph.D. in Clinical Science and Psychopathology at UWO, where my research focuses on the clinical and practical utility of movie-driven fMRI paradigms in pre-surgical evaluations of epilepsy. I have the ultimate goal to pursue neuropsychology as a specialization, as I have interests in brain injury and sensory impairment.
Joseph Rovetti, Ph.D.
I obtained my bachelor's degree in Psychology from Toronto Metropolitan University in 2019, where my honours thesis was the first study to use fNIRS to measure the brains of participants using hearing aids. After graduating, I worked in a number of other labs studying topics beyond auditory perception, including decision-making, and quantitative methods. I joined Dr. Johnsrude at Western University in 2020, and I completed my master's degree in Psychology (Cognitive, Developmental, and Brain Sciences) in 2022. Currently, I am completing my PhD in Psychology, for which I was awarded the Vanier Canada Graduate Scholarship. My research investigates how our brains are able to understand speech in challenging conditions, as well as the listening effort that we experience as a result.
Bruno Mesquita, Ph.D.
I obtained both my Bachelor and Teaching degrees in Biology at the University of Sao Paulo in Brazil, with my undergraduate project focused on the study of animal models of depression. In 2019 I visited Canada under the Mitacs Globalink Research Internship, working during the summer under the supervision of Prof. Isabelle Blanchette at the Universit du Qubec Trois-Rivires. This excellent experience motivated me to return to Canada in 2021 for my graduate studies, with support from the Mitacs Graduate Fellowship. As part of the CoNCH Lab I completed my Master's in Neuroscience, and in 2023 I started my PhD still under the supervision of Prof. Johnsrude. My main interests involve how experience and learning may shape the ways in which we perceive and organize auditory information. However, the Biologist in me is very much still alive, and so I also have a deep interest in how our brains and perceptual systems are shaped by our evolutionary history.
Olivia Richards, Ph.D.
I completed my degree from Carleton University, majoring in Psychology with a minor in Neuroscience. Following this I continued my studies at Carleton and in 2018 completed my MA in Experimental Psychology in the Social Diversity Lab under the supervision of Dr. Kim Matheson. In my thesis I assessed the validity of the newly created Unintentional Racism Scale (URS) that would address the nuances of racism (by differentiating intent from being sensitive to situational complexities and variations) towards Indigenous Peoples in Canada. After I graduated, I worked for the Government of Canada as a Policy Analyst for the Department of Women and Gender Equality as well as a Data Analyst at the Public Health Agency of Canada. I moved to UWO and joined the CONCH Lab in 2021 to work with Dr.Johnsrude as a student in the Clinical Science and Psychopathology program. My current research is focused on developing and validating a tool incorporating subjective and objective measures of mental fatigue to capture the experience of individuals in specific neurological populations including people with epilepsy, those with hearing loss, and people who have suffered from concussions. A secondary goal of this research is to explore the underlying physiological and neurological processes that underpin fatigue after mentally strenuous tasks.
Ronak Mohammadi, Ph.D.
I obtained my master’s degree in Audiology from Tehran University of Medical Sciences. I was awarded the William Demant Foundation studentship which provided me with the opportunity to engage in a collaborative research project under the supervision of Dr. Ingrid Johnsrude at Western University, Dr. Dorothea Wendt and Dr. Johannes Zaar at Eriksholm Research Center in Denmark. Now, I am a Neuroscience student in the CoNCH Lab and the central focus of my research project is cognitive processes and their influence on speech perception in noisy environments and the listening effort being experienced, and the ultimate satisfaction derived from the use of hearing aids.
Alina Kuimova, M.Sc.
I obtained my Bachelor's degree in Linguistics from York University (Toronto) in 2021 and then completed my Masters -- also in Linguistics, also at York -- in 2022. My Master's thesis focused on how attention and prior knowledge affect perception and misperception of degraded speech. Currently, I'm working towards a MSc in Neuroscience at Western, supervised by Dr. Johnsrude. My research will focus on how cognitive control and motivation affect speech comprehension and listening effort in difficult listening conditions.
Jonah Nemiroff, M.Sc.
I received a Bachelor's of Medical Sciences at the University of Western Ontario in 2022 with a double major in Interdisciplinary Medical Sciences and Pharmacology. I then went right into my Masters in Neuroscience also at Western, and am interested in the link between music and emotion, and our perception of reality. Outside of school I spend most of my time playing piano and guitar and writing music for my band Moonflowers. I also love photography, mushroom foraging, and rock climbing.
Lauren McBay, M.Sc.
In spring of 2023, I obtained my Bachelor of Arts from the University of Guelph, where I majored in Psychology and minored in Neuroscience and Philosophy. Under the supervision of Dr. Mark Fenske, I completed my Honours Thesis on the impact of noise-related hearing difficulty in those who routinely experience boredom and failures of attention. I have recently joined the University of Western Ontario as a graduate student in the Clinical Science and Psychopathology program and I am working towards earning my Master’s degree in psychology under the supervision of Dr. Ingrid Johnsrude. My research will focus on the role of context in speech perception in older adults. Clinically, I am interested in pursuing Neuropsychology as a speciality.
Lincoln Inglis, M.Sc.
I received my BScH in Psychology in May 2023 from Acadia University. My thesis sought to create an Augmented Reality application to inform grip strength in prosthesis use under the supervision of Dr. Dan Blustein. I was honoured to receive the Webster’s Undergraduate Research Award and a Scotia’s Scholars Award to complete my research. As a student of Dr Johnsrude, I am currently studying a MSc in Psychology (Cognitive, Developmental and Brain Sciences) where my research will examine categorical perception with familiar vs unfamiliar voices.
Maxine Montpetit, M.Sc.
In 2023, I received my Bachelor of Sciences with Specialization in Psychology and a Minor in Linguistics from the University of Ottawa. Under the supervision of Dr. Shanna Kousaie, I completed my Honour’s Thesis: A Behavioural and Electrophysiological Investigation of Age and Lexical Ambiguity Processing in Bilinguals. I have recently joined the University of Western Ontario under the supervision of Dr. Ingrid Johnsrude with the goal of completing a Master’s in Neuroscience. I have a great interest in the neuroscience of language and will focus my research on the link between language and music, and their neural correlates.
Rafaela Platkin, M.Sc.
I received my BScH in Psychology from Queen’s University in 2022. There, I completed a thesis-equivalent measuring the influence of social anxiety-like symptoms on the perception of emotional intensity in auditory stimuli. Currently, I am co-supervised by Dr. Johnsrude and Dr. Butler working towards a M.Sc. in CDBS Psychology. For my thesis project, I am working on investigating the role of narrative engagement and listening effort in children and its potential burden on secondary task performance. I hope to expand my research to accommodate children with hearing impairments and eventually inform school-focused interventions to reduce listening fatigue in adolescents.
Ali Tafakkor, Research Technician
I finished my Bachelor's degree in Electrical Engineering (with a Biomedical Engineering focus) at the Sharif University of Technology. Then, I started my Master's in Neuroscience under Dr. Mohsenzadeh's and Dr. Johnsrude's supervision at Western University in September 2021. I was awarded the Vector Institute scholarship in Artificial Intelligence (2021-2022) for research in cognitive neuroscience employing artificial intelligence approaches. Human perception: how the brain represents and perceives the world and how the information from different sensory modalities are integrated, in particular, inspires my curiosity. The question I'm pursuing in my current research project is about the temporal and spatial dynamics of semantic category's representation in audition and whether it is similar to vision. Aspiring to gather more evidence in favor of hierarchical processing in the auditory cortex and a modality-independent representation of semantic categories in the brain, I'm conducting an EEG and fMRI fusion study to address the question. Further, I am intrigued by modeling the brain with Artificial Neural Networks and investigating what these models imply about brain processes besides how inspirations from the brain can improve AI.
Nima Zargarnezhad, Research Technician
I obtained my Bachelor's degree from the Sharif University of Technology in Electrical Engineering (specializing in Biomedical Engineering). Currently, I'm a student in the Neuroscience and Music Cognition programs at Western University. I'm mostly interested in the perceptual organization of sound and music in complex auditory scenes (such as orchestras and music ensembles) and how the auditory system uses spatial information to organize perception. I'm approaching this question with a naturalistic setup where I simulate the free-field hearing experience in my experiments using the Audio Dome we have at Western. I'm also interested in neuroimaging and what we can learn from naturalistic task paradigms in the fMRI scanner (Movie-Watching paradigm) compared to resting state fMRI data. Currently, I'm working on the Human Connectome Project (HCP) data to address a few questions about the synchrony between different participants' brains and the dynamics of functional connectivity during watching movies in the scanner.
