About Our Team

Nadia Papadopoulou
PhD
During my undergraduate studies in Biology, in the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens (NKUA), my keen interest in studying the nervous system and behavior grew. Therefore, I proceeded with the Athens International Master’s Programme in Neurosciences, offered by the NKUA, in order to focus on the brain and how its functions are interpreted into behavior. For my PhD, I am pleased to study the lateralization of the brain in the process of written language both in adults and in children with dyslexia and/or dysgraphia, but also how lateralization patterns can be altered after a phonological intervention in children with dyslexia. I have now completed my PhD and am excited to continue my research as part of the lab.

Christos Samsouris
PhD Student
My area of research is brain lateralisation during written language production using functional Transcranial Dopler sonography (fTDC). I am also interested in implementing modern tools for better and more meaningful processing of neuroimaging data.

Nicholas Badcock
Senior Lecturer of Psychological Science, University of Western Australia
Dr. Badcock completed undergraduate and postgraduate studies at the University of Western Australia (UWA). He spent 11 years as a postdoc including time at Oxford University working with Professor Dorothy Bishop and Macquarie University working with Prof. Geneveive McArthur within the Reading Program of the Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence in Cognition and its Disorders. In 2020, he returned to UWA as a Senior Lecturer in the School of Psychological Science. Dr. Badcock is a developmental cognitive neuroscientist, interested in how perceptual and attentional capacities underpin complex functioning such as how cognitive control relates to reading ability. His research focuses on learning difficulties and exceptional development with the aim of contributing to scientific understanding as well as translation for education and intervention. He conducts these enquiries using behavioural psychophysics and neuroimaging techniques (e.g., electroencephalography, functional transcranial Doppler ultrasound, and functional magnetic resonance imaging).

Silvia Paracchini
DPhil FRSE FRSB , Reader in Medicine University of St Andrews
I graduated in Biological Sciences (cum laude) from University of Pavia in 1998 and obtained a DPhil in Human Genetics from Oxford University in 2003. My project, supervised by Dr Chris Tyler-Smith and Prof. Ed Southern involved the development of genotyping methods and screening of large cohorts for genetic associations with prostate cancer and male infertility. I conducted my post-doctoral training in Prof. Anthony Monaco’s group at the Welcome Trust Centre for Human Genetics, Oxford University. In 2011 I was awarded a Royal Society University Research Fellowship to set up my group at St Andrews. In 2013 I became member of the Young Academy of Scotland. In 2018 I was elected Fellow of the Royal Society of Biology (FRSB) and in 2019 I became a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh (FRSE) and was promoted to Reader. I lead the St Andrews Bioinformatics Unit and I am the co-Director of the the Institute of Behavioural and Neural Sciences.

Filippos Vlachos
Professor of Educational Neuroscience & Developmental Disorders, University of Thessaly
Professor Vlachos is a Professor at the University of Thessaly, Greece, where he has taught and conducted research since 1997 and Director of Educational Neuroscience and Developmental Disorders Laboratory. He is the author of the book Handedness: Myths and Reality (in Greek), editor of the book Brain, Learning & Special Education (in Greek) and co-editor in three more scientific editions. He has published more than 160 articles in referred national & international journals, book chapters and congress proceedings, with more than 1300 known citations. His research interests include the investigation of the neural mechanisms of reading, numerical cognition, attention and their attendant difficulties including learning difficulties and other developmental disorders as they relate to education, as well as the relationship between brain laterality and cognitive abilities.

Phivos Phylachtou
Post-Doctoral Associate, School of Physical Therapy, University of Western Ontario
I am an experimental psychologist interested in cognitive neuroscience. In short, I spend most of my time bringing people into a lab, having them play weird, boring, video games, while zapping their brain using magnetic pulses, with a machine called Transcranial Magnetic Stimulator (TMS).
TMS is a safe, non-invasive, and reliable tool for brain stimulation. I use it to understand how the brain processes visual information. You can read more on that here.
Sometimes, I also like to record people’s eyes, using a very precise camera, commonly known as an eye-tracker, while they’re playing these boring games. With the eye-tracker, I can measure where the eye is looking or how the pupil size is changing with amazing temporal precision, of up to a thousand measures a second! In general, I am excited to understand how we make sense of the world around us.