Professor of Neurosciences
Rogier obtained his PhD (highest honors) from the Donders Centre of the Radboud University in 2006 with a thesis on the contributions of human premotor cortex to action. He then moved to University College London to work with Sven Bestmann on computational models to analyze EEG and TMS data. Since 2007 Rogier has been working at the University of Oxford, first as a Marie Curie Intra-European Fellow with Matthew Rushworth and more recently as an independent PI.
Rogier is interested in understanding how the brains of different animal species' are differently organized and how this affects the species' behavioral repertoire. To this end, he and in team build tools for comparative neuroscience and apply them both to understand brain evolution and to help improve translational neuroscience.
Erwin Schroedinger Fellow
Magdalena Boch obtained her PhD at the Comparative Canine Cognition Unit at the University of Vienna, where she used comparative functional neuroimaging to study a potential convergent evolution of the neural bases supporting social abilities in humans and pet dogs. At the Cognitive Neuroecology Lab, she will combine multiple neuroimaging modalities to investigate the evolution, structure, and function of the temporal lobe — a key brain area for social cognition in primates — across a broad range of carnivoran species.
Sir Henry Wellcome Post-doctoral Fellow
Nicole did her DPhil in the Neuroecology Lab, working together with Rogier and Kate Watkins. She focused on the neural mechanisms underlying language and speech, in particular showing reorganization in the human lineage in neural circuit underlying language processing and the human specializations enabling vocal control. She currently is a Sir Henry Wellcome Post-doctoral Fellow, working together with Saad Jbabdi and the Neuroecology Lab. As part of this work, she has shown how cortical connectivity to the hippocampus has changed across primate lineages.
DPhil student, Jardine scholar
Tien joined the lab in 2024 as a Jardine scholar, reading a DPhil in Clinical Neurosciences with the Nuffield Department of Clinical Neurosciences and the Department of Pharmacology. Her research focuses on leveraging MRI technologies to advance interdisciplinary neurosciences and improve the translatability of current preclinical models, with a particular emphasis on understanding and addressing post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). At the NeuroEcology and Anatomy lab, she is continuing her MSc project to construct a multimodal MRI brain template to facilitate cross-species comparison between mice and rats. Before her DPhil, Tien obtained her MSc in Clinical and Therapeutic Neuroscience from the Psychiatry Department and worked as a research assistant at the Experimental Neuropathology lab, Department of Pharmacology.
Post-doctoral researcher
After a PhD in Grenoble investigating the role of the Parietal Operculum in tinnitus perception, Chloe started questioning the role of preclinical models of auditory disorders. This led her to a postdoctoral position at the Neuroecology lab aiming to improve the rate of translation between preclinical and clinical research. Using high throughput data such as gene expression and machine learning tools, the goal of her current project is to build a model mapping the translation between the mouse and human brain.
PhD student
"I am interested in the organisational mechanisms of the brain, in particular, the evolutionary adaptations that led to the existence of the human brain as we know it today, especially when compared to its cousins along the evolutionary tree.
"As part of my PhD project in Nijmegen, I aim to work towards unravelling the anatomical, functional, and computational patterns of organisation in the posterior parietal cortex, region vastly expanded in primates and in particular in humans, compared to other species."
Post-doctoral researcher
Alberto joined the lab in 2024 as a Postdoctoral Researcher. He did his PhD in Neuroscience at University of Oxford with Heidi Johansen-Berg, studying myelin plasticity in humans and rodents. He then continued working in Oxford as a postdoc in preclinical neuroimaging with Jason Lerch. Alberto is interested in translational applications of cross-species neuroimaging and in myelin imaging techniques. At the Cognitive Neuroecology Lab, he works on transdiagnostic biomarkers and clinical translation of mouse-human comparisons.
DPhil student, Interdisciplinary Bioscience Doctoral Training Programme
Jade joined the lab in 2024 as a DPhil student on the Interdisciplinary Bioscience Doctoral Training Programme, funded by the BBSRC and a Clarendon scholarship. She is working on a mouse-human translational brain model, aiming to inform and improve cross-species comparisons. Previously, she was a research technician studying sex-specific neural circuits and amyloid protein aggregation, and completed a BSc (Hons) in Biological Sciences at the University of Warwick funded by the Warwick Singapore Scholarship.
Director, Brazilian Neurobiodiversity Network
Post-doctoral researcher, Federal University of Rio de Janeiro
Kamilla Souza obtained her Ph.D. in Neurosciences from the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, where her research focused on the neuroanatomical description and gyrification analysis of freshwater and saltwater dolphins. As the founder of the Brazilian Neurobiodiversity Network, her interests extend beyond cetaceans, encompassing the diversity of mammalian brains to contribute to a deeper understanding of brain evolution. In her work at the Neuroecology Lab, Dr. Souza focuses on adapting and integrating advanced neuroimaging techniques to explore the distinct structure and function of aquatic mammal brains, shedding light on how these species have adapted to diverse ecosystems throughout their unique evolutionary history.