Professor Kami Koldewyn
Professor in Psyc
Links
Contact info
Co-director of the College Research Institute for the College of Human Sciences
Lead for ESRC Doctoral Training Partnership, Psychology pathway
Co-Director for Research at Tir Na n'Og
Member of the Bangor Imaging Centre Steering Group
Lab Website: https://sites.google.com/view/devsocialvislab/
Room 315
Brigantia Building
Penrallt Road
Bangor
LL57 2AS
email: k.koldewyn@bangor.ac.uk
Telephone: +44(0)1248388581
Overview
Kami earned a dual BA degree in Music and Philosophy at Pomona College in California. After several years teaching children and adolescents with neurodevelopmental disorders, she returned to graduate school and completed a PhD in Neuroscience at the University of California, Davis in 2009. She then spent four years as a postdoctoral researcher at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, working with Nancy Kanwisher. She joined the faculty at Bangor in 2013.
Kami is a Professor in the Department of Psychology in the School of Psychology and Sport Science and is part of the Cognitive Neuroscience research group in the school.
Her research interests include: The development of social perception and social cognition across the lifespan, Autism Spectrum Disorder and other neurodevelopmental disorders that affect social perception and cognition, and the brain bases of social perception and social cognition.
Research
Our current research program addresses three intertwined questions:
- What is the cognitive and neural architecture of social perception in typical adults?
- How does the social perception system arise and change across typical development?
- How is social perception and its development altered in autism spectrum disorders (ASD) and what are the neural bases of these social differences?
To address these questions, we use a variety of methods, including behavioral and eye-tracking paradigms, visual psychophysics and both structural and functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) in individuals with developmental disorders as well as typical children and adults.
Many of the current projects in the lab are focused on the perception and understanding of social interactions viewed from a 3rd-person perspective.
Teaching and Supervision
Kami supervises undergraduate and Masters students on projects that encompass a broad range of topics in social perception and social neuroscience.
She is currently supervising four PhD students as first supervisor: Mae Bernard, Laura Jastzrab, Lois Pierce-Jones, and Siwan Roberts. She is 2nd-supervisor for four PhD students: Rebecca Day, Judit Elias Masiques, Deyan Mitev, and Olivia Molina-Nieto,
Her supervision includes one current postdoctoral scholar: Julia Landsiedel
https://sites.google.com/view/devsocialvislab/people
She teaches a specialist 3rd-year module: Brain Development and Degeneration and contributes guest lectures to several modules at both Undergraduate and Masters level.
Grant Awards and Projects
Social Interaction Perception and the Social Brain Across Typical and Atypical Development - Becoming Social
ERC Starting Grant: £1,157,461.00
30/03/17 - 30/03/22
Developmental Change in the Posterior Superior Temporal Sulcus
Royal Society: £14,929.00
1/11/14 → 31/10/15
Person Perception in Typical and Atypical Development
British Academy: £9,681.00
1/10/14 → 30/09/16
Contact Info
Co-director of the College Research Institute for the College of Human Sciences
Lead for ESRC Doctoral Training Partnership, Psychology pathway
Co-Director for Research at Tir Na n'Og
Member of the Bangor Imaging Centre Steering Group
Lab Website: https://sites.google.com/view/devsocialvislab/
Room 315
Brigantia Building
Penrallt Road
Bangor
LL57 2AS
email: k.koldewyn@bangor.ac.uk
Telephone: +44(0)1248388581
Postgraduate Project Opportunities
Self-funded (inc. agency-funded) projects: Dr. Koldewyn welcomes informal enquiries from prospective PhD students interested in projects related to Social Perception or Social Neuroscience, especially those that are interested in how social perception, or the social brain, changes across development and/or across the life-span. She would also welcome students interested in research relevant to neurodevelopmental disorders that affect social perception and/or social cognition, including particularly Autism and Fragile X syndrome.
Research areas and keywords
Keywords
- RC0321 Neuroscience. Biological psychiatry. Neuropsychiatry - Social Perception, Social Development, Neurodevelopmental Disorders
Education / academic qualifications
- 2009 - PhD , Visual Motion Processing in Autism
- 1996 - BA , Music and Philosophy
- Professional , Fellow of the Higher Education Academy FHEA
Research outputs (52)
- Accepted/In press
Are there cortical somatotopic motor maps outside of the human precentral gyrus?
Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review
- Published
Representation of Sex from the Face and Body: Evidence from a Visual Adaptation Task
Research output: Contribution to conference › Poster
- Published
Beyond human-likeness: Socialness is more influential when attributing mental states to robots
Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review
Prof. activities and awards (26)
Bangor University Community Day - Psychology stall
Activity: Other › Types of Public engagement and outreach - Festival/Exhibition
Social Interaction in the Brain
Activity: Talk or presentation › Invited talk
Projects (4)
Developmental Change in the Posterior Superior Temporal Sulcus
Project: Research