Dr Magda Chechlacz PhD

• MSc (Biology)
• PhD (Biology)
• PhD (Psychology)

Dr Chechlacz initially trained and carried out a doctorate in cellular and molecular biology (2002). After working as a biologist (Larry L. Hillblom Foundation Fellowship at the University of California, San Diego) she decided on a career change to a more human-oriented science and neuroimaging. In order to gain formal training in cognitive neuroscience and neuroimaging, she completed a second doctorate in psychology at the University of Birmingham under the supervision of Glyn Humphreys (2012). From 2013 to 2016, she held a British Academy Postdoctoral Fellowship and EPA Cephalosporin Junior Research Fellowship, Linacre College at the University of Oxford. In 2016 Dr Chechlacz returned to the School of Psychology, University of Birmingham as a Bridge Fellow.

Potential doctoral as well as postdoctoral researchers interested in working with Dr Chechlacz should email her to discuss potential projects and funding opportunities. Applicants interested in areas as listed below are especially welcome:

• visual attention
• neuroimaging genetics
• age-related structural and functional changes in neural networks
• individual differences
• diffusion imaging

Dr Chechlacz’s research is broadly concerned with understanding how variability in the neurochemical, structural and functional organisation of the brain affect cognitive performance, in particularly attentional functions, as well as whether and how these individual differences predict the susceptibility to neurological disorders and the way we age. Her prior research programme funded by the British Academy examined whether variability in the organisation of the visual attention networks is associated with individual differences in attentional functions, whether structural lateralization underlies functional lateralization in the organisation of attention and whether behavioural asymmetries are causally linked to the structural asymmetries in attention networks. Her current work aims to test for associations between common genetic variants in neurotransmitter signalling and resting state connectivity within attention networks as well as examine the links between those functional genetic polymorphisms and individual differences in age-related cognitive decline in attention.