Michaela Kent

Michaela Kent is a PhD candidate in the Neuroscience Graduate Program at Western University in London, Ontario, Canada. She is based at the Western Institute for Neuroscience and is co-supervised by Dr. Emma Duerden and Dr. Jody Culham.

Her interest in the developing brain has been a driving factor behind previous work. During an undergraduate degree at Glasgow Caledonian University, Michaela wrote a dissertation focussing on the neurodevelopment of children raised in orphanages. She then completed a Master’s degree in Brain Science at the University of Glasgow, working primarily on a functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) study exploring aspects of social cognition. Whilst in Glasgow, Michaela worked with Dr. Ruud Hortensius and as part of the Social Brain in Action Lab on the ERC-funded Social Robots research project. Building on her neuroimaging background, Michaela is now working to use functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) to study the developing brain in naturalistic settings. Specifically, she uses fNIRS and behavioural measures to study how socio-cognitive skills develop and how brain responses to social interactions might be influenced by the environment.

Outside of her research, Michaela serves on the Executive Committee for the Society of Neuroscience Graduate Students and as a graduate teaching assistant at Western University.