PhD project:

Contact to nature is associated with a broad range of beneficial outcomes in humans such as increased physical health or mental well-being. In recent years there has been burgeoning evidence, that being exposed to nature also helps to down-regulate aversive experiences such as pain or stress. However, the magnitude and stability of these associations as well as the mechanisms explaining them remain unclear.

By combining methods and theories from neuroscience and environmental psychology I aim to investigate the neural and psychological underpinnings of these associations. To this end I focus on a combination of behavioral, hormonal and neuroimaging measures to answer how strong and consistent these effects are and how they can be explained on a mechanistic level. The work is supervised by Prof. Claus Lamm and Dr. Mat White.

Past experiences:

I grew up in a small town near Vienna and did my diploma studies (equivalent to Bachelors and Masters) at the Faculty of Psychology in Vienna. I was fortunate enough to collect diverse experiences in the public and private research sector. In academia I worked as a research assistant in the field of developmental psychology while doing my Masters. I completed my Masters with a thesis at the SCAN-Unit in Vienna where I focused on the neural basis of performance monitoring in humans (https://scan-psy.univie.ac.at/). Upon graduation I was offered a fulltime position as a researcher in an interdisciplinary project investigating flight performance of airline pilots in situations of uncertainty (https://cognitivescience.univie.ac.at/research/man4gen-manual-operation-of-4th-generation-airlines/). After that I switched to the private sector for five years where I worked as a psychometrician developing neuropsychological assessments (https://schuhfried.com/). In the year of 2021 I returned to academia, where I am now doing my PhD in the field of environmental neuroscience at the University of Vienna.

Outside the lab:

When I am not at the Faculty you can find me outdoors hiking or climbing (bouldering and sport climbing). Furthermore, I enjoy music production, playing the guitar or the piano. I love good food, so to not get broke by spending hundreds of € at restaurants I also became a decent cook.

Contact: