PhD project:

Since November 2019 I have been collaborating to the project "Convergent Evolution of the social brain? A comparative dog-human fMRI approach." With my supervisors, we have been investigating similarities and differences in dogs' and humans' social neuro-cognitive processes by combining behavioural, eye-tracker and fMRI studies.   

Mainly, I have been responsible for a behavioural study testing dogs' sensitivity to human beliefs, eye-tracker studies investigating dogs' action prediction ability and an fMRI study tapping into dogs' potential vicarious neural activation in response to the observation of others being neutrally touched. 

Past experiences:

I gained my bachelor degree in Cognitive Psychology in July 2017 from the University of Trento (Italy). Immediately after I began my master's degree course in Psychology and Neuroscience at the same university. During the course of my studies I carried out different internships and worked part-time at the Animal Brain Cognition Lab (Rovereto). Here, I had the opportunity to assist on different projects investigating mainly chicks' (Gallus gallus) spontaneous social predispositions and abstract pattern learning.

In July 2019, I graduated (summa cum laude) with an experimental thesis on recognition of rotated stimuli and cognitive offloading in pet dogs. The research for my master thesis was carried out at the Clever Dog Lab in Vienna. 

Outside the lab:

I read, write or go horse riding. 

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