The Cusack Lab

We study the development of infants in their first year of life. We are based at the Trinity College Institute of Neuroscience at Trinity College Dublin, and collaborate with maternity hospitals in Dublin and other centres across Ireland. Our expertise and backgrounds range from physics to psychology and neonatology to neuroscience. We use many methods to study infant development, including online tasks and MRI.

Principal Investigator

Rhodri Cusack, MA (Hons) Cantab, PhD, FTCD
The Thomas Mitchell Professor of Cognitive Neuroscience
Director, Trinity College Institute of Neuroscience
School of Psychology
Trinity College Dublin
​Rhodri with son, Calin

The Team

Postdocs
Zi Ye, PhD
Zi is a Research Fellow working on the FreezeMotion project, where she develops deep learning methods for fMRI motion correction and reconstruction. Her background spans AI-driven medical imaging research as well as over a decade of teaching experience in China. She holds a PhD in ICT from Universiti Teknikal Malaysia Melaka, an MSc in Applied Statistics from Oxford, and a BSc in Mathematics and Statistical Science from UCL.
Param Ahir, PhD
Param completed her PhD at Gujarat Technological University, India (2025), where she focused on improving the generalisability and explainability of tissue segmentation models for infant brain MRI. At the Cusack Lab, she works on the Freezemotion project, developing deep learning–based tools for motion correction and reconstruction to improve functional MRI quality in infants. She holds a Master’s in Information Technology and a Bachelor’s in Computer Engineering, with research and teaching experience in AI and is interested in generative and explainable AI applications in healthcare.
Kevin Campion
Graduate Students
Áine T. Dineen (PhD Candiate)
Áine completed her B.A. in Neuroscience here at Trinity College Dublin (2021). She conducted her final year research project with the lab using deep learning models to explore how the perceptual limitations that characterise early visual experience might be important for guiding infants to learn about object shape. Her doctoral research combines awake infant fMRI and computational modelling to advance understanding of how infants learn to interpret the visual world. Specifically, she is investigating what features are encoded by the ventral visual stream when infants view objects, and how this changes across development.
Marie Santillo (PhD Candiate)
​​​Marie completed her MSc in Developmental Psychology at Maastricht University in 2021. Wanting to dive deeper into developmental neuroscience and neuroplasticity, she pursued a Research Master in Cognitive Neuroscience at the Donders Institute of Brain, Behavior and Cognition in Nijmegen (2024). For her thesis, she conducted research at the Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences, using machine learning models to predict the impact of shared book reading on neural and cognitive development.
Muhammad Faizan (PhD Candiate)
Faizan completed his Master’s in Robotics and Intelligent Machine Engineering at the National University of Sciences & Technology (NUST), Islamabad, Pakistan, in 2025. His thesis focused on developing a novel neural network architecture for multi-modal brain imaging to advance brain cancer segmentation. At the Cusack Lab, he is working on collecting infant fMRI data and developing deep neural network methods for motion correction to enhance data quality for clinical applications
Kim N. Nolle (PhD Candidate, co-supervised with Prof Vinny Cahill)
Kim completed her MSc in Computer Science (Data Science) at Trinity College Dublin in 2024. She is currently pursuing a PhD in Computer Science on the topic of continual reinforcement learning. Kim is interested in the intersection between neuroscience and artificial intelligence, and how insights from neuroscience can be leveraged to develop RL agents that can continually adapt to new environments.
Research Assistants
Elaine Oliveira (FOUNDCOG Manager)
Elaine has considerable expertise in Finance and HR processes at Trinity College and joined the lab in 2024 to assist with administration and organisation of the FOUNDCOG project and its datasets.
Aoibhe De Burca (Research Assistant)
Aoibhe has just completed her B.A. in Psychology and French at Trinity College Dublin (2022). She is currently working as a research assistant on some of the online studies at the Cusack Lab, particularly looking through a cross-cultural lens to improve study recruitment. 
Matteo Mattersberger (Research Assistant)
Matteo did his MSc in Psychology at the University of Vienna (Austria). He is interested in the application of computational methods to research in cognitive neuroscience. To this end, he came to Dublin to gather expertise in computational methods in preparation for his PhD studies. In the past, he has worked on how different neural rhythms relate to attention and learning in infants. Additionally, he has a background in philosophy and is interested in how scientific models and theories relate to real-world phenomena.
Interns
Clara Conyngham  (Neuroscience, Trinity College Dublin)
​Clara is currently in her final year of a Neuroscience undergraduate degree, with an interest in cognitive neuroscience and neuroimaging. For her final year research project Clara is looking at tract guidance and category specificity in infants.
​Amy Hogan ​ (Psychology, Trinity College Dublin)
Amy is in their final year of the Psychology Undergraduate program and is currently working in the lab for their final year project, which is investigating the link between early categorical representations and later word development. Amy's interests are developmental psychology, social psychology and behavioural analysis. 

Former Members

Postdocs (Cognitive Neuroscience)
Cliona O'Doherty (PhD Trinity College Dublin)
​Anna Truzzi (Trinity College Dublin)
Lorijn Zaadnoordijk (Trinity College Dublin)
Annika Linke (Western University)
Bobby Stojanoski  (Western University)
Conor Wild (Western University)
Daniel Mitchell (University of Cambridge)
Alejandro Vicente-Grabovetsky (University of Cambridge)
Jason Taylor (CamCAN, Cambridge)

Postdocs (Neuroimaging methods)
Marta Correia (University of Cambridge)
Ciara Greene (University of Cambridge)
Stefan Hetzer (University of Cambridge)
Daniel Beauregard (University of Cambridge)

Postdocs (Clinical imaging)
Jeff Crukley (Western University)
Jingyun Chen (Western University, with Mark Daley)
Hester Duffy (Western University)
Charlotte Herzmann (Western University)
Leire Zubiaurre-Elorza (Western University)
​
Visiting Research Fellows
Hiromichi Hagihara (The University of Tokyo)

Programmer
Aya Myhr (Western University)

Lab Managers
Tamrin Holloway (Lab Manager, FOUNDCOG Recruitment Coordinator and Research Assistant)
Jessica White (FOUNDCOG Recruitment Coordinator and Research Assistant, Trinity College Dublin)​
Enna-Louise D'Arcy (FOUNDCOG Recruitment Coordinator and Research Assistant, Trinity College Dublin)
Màiri Gardner (Trinity College Dublin)

Research Assistants
Cameron Murphy (Trinity College Dublin)
Karolina Kucinskaite (Trinity College Dublin)
Katie Herbert (FOUNDCOG Research Assistant)
Amy Burke (Trinity College Dublin)
Calum Kyle  (Trinity College Dublin)
Keelin Harrison (Trinity College Dublin)
Maebh Healy (Trinity College Dublin)
Nicole McDermott  (Trinity College Dublin)
Oscar Markey (Trinity College Dublin)
Anna Birbeck (Trinity College Dublin)
Deborah Ness (Trinity College Dublin)
​Michelle Tran (Western University)

Graduate Students
Graham King (PhD Trinity College Dublin)
Cliona O'Doherty (PhD Trinity College Dublin)
Anna Kravchenko (PhD Trinity College Dublin)
Chiara Caldinelli (PhD Trinity College Dublin)
Laura Cabral (PhD Western University)
Patrick Gatutsi (MSc Neuroscience, Western University)
​Jordynne Ropat (MSc Neuroscience, Western University)
Jacob Matthews (MSc Medical Biophysics, Western University)
Michelle Tran (MSc Neuroscience, Western University)
Annika Linke (PhD University of Cambridge)
Daniel Mitchell (PhD University of Cambridge)
Michele Veldsman (PhD University of Cambridge, with Daniel Mitchell)
Alejandro Vicente-Grabovetsky (PhD University of Cambridge)

Co-Supervised Graduate Students
Sarah Thompson (PhD University of Cambridge, with Bob Carlyon)
Karolina Moutsopoulou (PhD University of Cambridge, with Tom Manly)
Chris Dodds (PhD University of Cambridge, with Tom Manly)
Polly Peers (PhD University of Cambridge, with John Duncan)
Mark Stokes (PhD University of Cambridge, with John Duncan)
Michelle Tran (Western University, Canada)

Visiting Graduate Students
Josué Rico Picó (University of Granada)

Honours students
Clara Conyngham (Neuroscience, Trinity College Dublin)
Amy Hogan ​(Psychology, Trinity College Dublin)
Simone Brady (Psychology, Trinity College Dublin)
Karolina Kucinskaite (Neuroscience, Trinity College Dublin)
Cameron Murphy (Psychology, Trinity College Dublin)
Amy Burke (Higher Diploma Psychology, Trinity College Dublin)
Maebh Healy (Psychology, Trinity College Dublin)
Thalia Garnett (Psychology, Trinity College Dublin) 
Rūta Sevrukaitė (Higher Diploma Psychology, Trinity College Dublin)
Adrienne Mesa Sheehan (Neuroscience, Trinity College Dublin)
Maggie O Shea (Psychology Student, Trinity College Dublin)
Alex Graham (Neuroscience, Trinity College Dublin)
Áine Travers Dineen (Neuroscience, Trinity College Dublin)
Emma Hudson (Psychology, Trinity College Dublin)
Emily Markey (Psychology, Trinity College Dublin)
Lauren Travers (Neuroscience, Trinity College Dublin)
Aoife Daly (Psychology, Trinity College Dublin)
Anna Birbeck (Psychology, Trinity College Dublin)
Clíona O'Doherty (Neuroscience, Trinity College Dublin)
Madison Laurel Beaty (Neuroscience, Western University)
Laura Cabral (Psychology, Western University)
Vivek John (Physiology and Pharmacology, Western)
Ronak Patel (Neuroscience, Western University)
Kristen Turner (Western University, Canada)
Angela Westgate (Psychology, Western University)
​Mason Kadem (Psychology, Western University)
​Kristen Turner (Psychology, Western University)
Joanna Ryan (Psychology, Trinity College Dublin)

Lab Volunteers and Summer Interns
Corinna Naeve (The University of Groningen)
Grace Kaprielian  (Trinity College and Columbia University)
Maria Novella Giobbio (Trinity College and Columbia University)
Sophia Ho (Trinity College and Columbia University)
Claire Ambre (Trinity College Dublin and Columbia University)
Anisha Wadhwa (Trinity College Dublin)
Camden Arnold (University of Notre Dame)
Maeve Kelly (Trinity College Dublin)
Oliver Shipston-Sharman (visiting Research Elective from Edinburgh University)
Gwenyth Gasper (University of Notre Dame)
Brenda Finlay (Trinity College Dublin)
Marcus Lo  (Western University)
Roni Shanoada (Western University)
Claire Chambers (visting from École Normale Supérieure, Paris)
Lauren Forrest (Schulich School of Medicine, Western University, Canada)
Marcus Lo (Western University, Canada)
Andrew Nicholson (Western University, Canada)
Kim Ramos (visiting from Seton Hall University, NJ)

Neuroscience at the Cusack lab
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