About me

Hello! I’m Steven - I’m currently a Postdoctoral Research Associate in the Cognitive and Translational Neuroscience lab - part of the Biosciences Institute at Newcastle University.

Academic background

I started my studies in 2010 at Northumbria University in Newcastle-upon-Tyne, where I got my BSc (Hons) in Psychology in 2013. During my undergraduate years, I was fortunate enough to have the opportunity to explore areas of research I got interested in. I got my first start in neuroscience research working in Prof Jenny Read’s lab at Newcastle University. Here I got to learn more about how to run visual psychophysics experiments in humans and insects, aiming to understanding how visual information across the eyes is merged to form one cohesive image. I also spent time as a research intern at the Institue of Health and Society (now the Population Health Sciences Institute ) at Newcastle University, where I studied socioeconomic factors related to the incidence of childhood cancers in the North of England. During the summer of 2012, I joined the Psychopharmacology and Emotion Research Lab at the University of Oxford, funded by a Wellcome Trust Biomedical Vacation Scholarship . Here, I studied the effects of prebiotics on emotional processing and stress responses.

After graduating from Northumbria, I went on to get my Master’s degree in Neuroscience (MRes) from Newcastle University. As part of my Master’s research, I joined the Lewy Body Lab working with Prof John-Paul Taylor and Dr Greg Elder to understand the relationship between visual hallucinations, visuo-perceptual function, and attention in Lewy Body Dementia. I continued with this work beyond my MRes, before joining the Delicato Lab as a research assistant; here, we looked at emotional processing abilities in patients with Parkinson’s disease.

A few years after my MRes (and a LOT of applications later…), I got accepted to study for my PhD in the Psychological Science (Neuroscience) program at Vanderbilt University. I completed my PhD as a graduate student in the Schall Lab , studying how areas in the medial frontal cortex contribute to action outcome monitoring (i.e. after errors or response inhibition). After finishing my PhD in December 2022, I joined the Monosov Lab for my postdoc in January 2023 to investigate the cortical and subcortical systems that control exploration and learning, before returning to the UK in May 2024 to join Yuki Kikuchi’s lab at Newcastle.

Personal background

I was born and raised in Newcastle-upon-Tyne in the United Kingdom, and am a proud Geordie. Just prior to starting my undergrad degree, I met an incredible woman during a summer-school for first-generation students from low-income areas. Four years later, we were engaged; and two years after that, we were married. We lived in Newcastle until July 2017, before moving to Nashville for my PhD. I am beyond grateful for her support & love, and am beyond happy to now be joined by our beautiful daughter.