About Me

I am a PhD student at Technical University Dresden, Germany, investigating the effects of stress on decision-making in humans using fMRI. My project is part of a collaborative research center studying volition and cognitive control (CRC 940 Volition and Cognitive Control). Specifically, I am interested in how acute and chronic stress might alter how we anticipate the consequences of our own actions and how this biases decision-making and goal-directed behavior. While combining behavioral tasks with fMRI and the collection of biomarkers of acute and chronic stress, I am striving to incorporate open science practices into my research and contribute to more reproducibility in cognitive neuroscience.

Research Interests

Decision-Making and Cognitive Control

I am interested in neural mechanisms underlying human decision-making, in how and when cognitive control is recruited to reach desired or anticipated outcomes of our own actions, and in potential variables associated with failure to employ cognitive control.

Stress

Stress is ubiquitous in daily life and has been shown to impair important cognitive functions. I am investigating the neural correlates underlying the association of acute and chronic stress with alterations in cognitive control processes. To do so, I am combining the collection of endocrinological biomarkers of acute and chronic stress with decision-making tasks and neuroimaging methods.

fMRI

State-of-the-art methods for collecting and analyzing fMRI data are subject to ongoing improvement and scientific debate. It is of personal importance to me to follow methodological developments and to incorporate these into my work.

Open Science

In my PhD, I want to contribute to open and reproducible neuroscience as much as possible. It is my goal to preregister my studies, to share data, code, and other material with other researchers in order to foster collaborative work among scientists.