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Dr. Bland is a cognitive neuroscientist with expertise in brain stimulation, neural oscillations, and neuroplasticity. His research explores how patterns of rhythmic brain activity underpin neural communication and computation, and how non-invasive brain stimulation can be used to effectively manipulate brain oscillations that shape human consciousness and cognition.

Dr. Bland completed his PhD at the Queensland Brain Institute, where he investigated oscillatory neural networks and their dynamic role in brain communication. Together with his research students and collaborators, he combines advanced neuroimaging, neuromodulation, and research methodologies to study brain function.

As a researcher and academic advisor at The University of Queensland, Dr. Bland is dedicated to advancing knowledge at the intersection of psychology, neuroscience, and statistics, with applications ranging from cognitive enhancement to rehabilitation.

Dr. Emily McCann is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Dementia & Neuro Mental Health Research Unit at the University of Queensland Centre for Clinical Research. She is currently working on the development of a Parkinson's Disease specific cognitive toolkit to harmonise cognitive assessment and understand the development of dementia.

She completed her PhD in 2024 at the Cognitive Neurology (Nestor) lab at the Queensland Brain Institute. During her PhD, she investigated the nature and timing of visuoperceptual impairments across a range of neurodegenerative diseases.

Dr Dana Pourzinal is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Dementia & Neuro Mental Health Research Unit within the UQ Centre for Clinical Research, Faculty of Medicine. From her PhD (2023) and continued research, she has gained extensive expertise in neuroimaging, advanced statistical analysis, and clinical trials, with a particular focus on identifying dementia risk in Parkinson's disease and related therapeutic interventions and biomarkers. Dr Pourzinal's current work aims to improve current clinical practice for people living with Parkinson's disease (MRFF-funded PDCogniCare project) by developing guidelines for the diagnosis and management of cognitive disorders in Parkinson’s disease.

Dr Pourzinal's primary research interests are focussed on cognition in Parkinson's disease (PD) and include:

1. Defining and profiling PD cognitive subtypes using advanced data-driven methods.
2. Neuroimaging biomarkers to predict cognitive decline and dementia risk in PD.
3. Evaluating pharmacological treatments for dementia risk in PD.
4. Longitudinal tracking of cognitive trajectories to inform early intervention strategies in PD.

Dr Chase Sherwell is a Research Fellow at the UQ Learning Lab and the Principal Research Technician for the Compassionate Mind Research Group in the School of Psychology. His research combines neuroscientific, psychological, and educational perspectives to provide tools for enacting learning, well-being, and behavioural change in real-world contexts. With a focus on application, Dr Sherwell’s work aims to identify metrics of internal psychological mechanisms that can be easily interpreted and integrated by professionals and end-users to facilitate skill development and mental health in everyday life.

With a background in cognitive neuroscience, psychology, and education research, Dr Sherwell leads projects that aim to explain learning, development, and mental health across disciplinary lines: from the level of neural networks through to everyday experience. Integrating multi-modal techniques including digital interaction, biometrics, and neurophysiology, Dr Sherwell develops tools, user experiences, and analytics that provide actionable metrics and insights for professionals and researchers.

Dr Sherwell is a Research Fellow in the UQ Learning Lab: a team of multi-disciplinary researchers, educators, and industry partners who collaborate to transform learning, teaching, and training in diverse school and post-school environments through the science of learning. In this role, Dr Sherwell lends his expertise in cognitive neuroscience and psychology to develop projects aimed at understanding and measuring the barriers, facilitators, and mechanisms of self-regulation in professional contexts. He leads projects designing digital tools providing educators with real-time feedback on learner states and skill development integrating smartphone apps and biometrics from wearable devices.

Dr Sherwell is also the Principal Research Technician for the Compassionate Mind Research Group – the leading research hub for Compassion Science in Australia, based at the UQ School of Psychology. In this role, he oversees research design and development across projects investigating the mechanisms of prosocial behaviour in everyday life, barriers to clinical interventions, and the efficacy of online interventions for mental health.

I am a cognitive neuroscientist with a research focus on the neural basis of language. My research is focused on three related questions:

1. How is language processed in the brain?
2. How does brain damage affect language processing in individuals with aphasia, i.e. acquired language disorders?
3. What brain mechanisms support the recovery of language processing in people with aphasia who improve over time?

To address these questions, my lab studies individuals with aphasia, as well as healthy participants with normal language, using a range of state-of-the-art functional and structural neuroimaging techniques. We combine our multimodal imaging approach with comprehensive language assessments designed to quantify deficits in different components of the language processing system, such as syntactic structure, word meanings, and the selection and assembly of speech sounds.

Language Neuroscience Laboratory