People

Aron Hill

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ResearchGate

Dr Aron Hill is a Senior Research Fellow in the School of Psychology and co-lead of the BSN Lab. Aron completed his PhD in Neuroscience at Monash University prior to undertaking postdoctoral fellowships at the Monash Alfred Psychiatry Research Centre in Melbourne, and the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH) in Toronto.

Aron studies how the brain’s electrical activity supports reliable communication despite noisy, non-stationary signals. His work focuses on how excitation-inhibition balance and connectivity shape neural communication and plasticity in the brain, and how these mechanisms are disrupted in neurodevelopmental and psychiatric conditions. He uses EEG and non-invasive brain stimulation alongside multimodal approaches to identify mechanistic, clinically meaningful brain markers. Aron is also interested in helping to advance reproducible EEG research through open-source software, and transparent workflows.

Talitha Ford

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ResearchGate

Dr Ford is a Research Fellow and Co-Lead of the Brain Systems and Neurotherapeutics Lab within the Cognitive Neuroscience Unit, School of Psychology. Her primary research interests and expertise focus on characterising the excitatory-inhibitory neurobiology of specific symptoms associated with neurodevelopmental conditions, particularly autism.

Dr Ford utilises neuroscientific techniques such as magneto/electro-encephalography (M/EEG), resting/functional magnetic resonance spectroscopy (rs/fMRS), and resting state/functional magnetic resonance imaging (rs/fMRI) to better understand brain systems underlying neurodevelopmental conditions, and runs clinical trials examining the extent to which pharmacological therapeutics, such as cannabidiol (CBD), can modulate these brain systems to improve outcomes for people.

Peter Enticott

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Prof. Peter Enticott is a cognitive neuroscientist and psychologist whose research examines the neural mechanisms underpinning autism, social cognition, and brain development, complemented by extensive experience leading clinical trials. He uses advanced brain stimulation, neuroimaging, neurophysiology, and clinical assessment methods to understand how neural systems emerge, function, and adapt across the lifespan. His research program—which has been supported by major national and international funding bodies—sits alongside his role as Pro Vice‑Chancellor, Research Planning and Governance at Deakin University..

Elizabeth Ellis

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Dr Ellis is a post-doctoral researcher working with both the BSN lab (Deakin University) and Turku Brain Lab (The University of Turku, Finland). After returning from her post-doc at the University of Turku in Finland, her current body of work aims to help us understand the links between brain lesions and their resultant symptom profiles with a particular focus on movement disorders. This work hopefully provides evidence for the creation or refinement of therapeutic interventions for patients. Elizabeth currently supervises two PhD students (Turku), is on the Steering Committee for the post-stroke movement disorders study group within the International Parkinson and Movement Disorders Society, and has experience supervising Master’s, Honours and Doctoral student theses and teaching into neuroscience and statistical courses across Undergraduate, Honours and Master’s levels . With an interest in both neuroimaging and brain stimulation, you can often find Elizabeth in the TMS labs or, in her spare time, escaping into nature, travelling, and spending time with family and friends.

Neil Bailey

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Dr Neil Bailey completed his PhD in neuroscience at the Monash Alfred Psychiatry Research Centre in 2013. He now works as the Data Science Lead and Senior Lecturer within Deakin University’s School of Psychology. His research program is focused on the use of electroencephalography (EEG) to conduct a range of studies that explore different methods to improve mental health. In particular, he examines 1) whether depression treatment responses to repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation can be predicted using EEG data, 2) how cognition-related brain activity differs in depression, as well as in mindful individuals, and 3) whether EEG pre-processing and analysis tools can be improved. While his research priority is a better understanding of mental health, his research has also involved the use of machine learning models to optimize the relevant information that can be obtained from brain activity. He has used these machine learning models to identify a range of informative features that are seldom analysed in EEG research.

Melissa Kirikovski

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Melissa’s primary research interests involve understanding the neurobiological basis of autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and anorexia nervosa (AN), with a focus on social cognition, executive function, and the role of biological sex. She also has experience in taking basic science approaches to understanding the neurobiological mechanisms underlying social cognition.

Bridgette Speranza

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Bridgette is an Associate Lecturer within the School of Psychology, and a member of the Brian Systems and Neurotherapeutics lab within the Cognitive Neuroscience Unit at Deakin. Her research focuses on cognitive neuroscience, particularly the neural mechanisms underlying facial emotion processing and non-invasive brain stimulation techniques. She employs advanced methodologies such as transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS), theta-burst stimulation (TBS), electroencephalography (EEG), and neuronavigation. In addition to her research, Bridgette is actively involved in teaching (including unit chairing) and supervision of undergraduate and postgraduate students.

Nina Parrella

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ResearchGate

Nina’s research focuses on neurotherapeutic supports for autism, particularly their effects on the neural systems underlying social communication. She uses neurophysiological and neuroimaging approaches to examine how excitation-inhibition balance relates to social processing. Her work has included a randomised controlled crossover trial exploring the neural and behavioural effects of cannabidiol in autistic children.

Michael Barham

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My current research interests lie in evaluating the effectiveness of non-invasive brain stimulation techniques such as Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation (TMS) and neuroimaging techniques such as Electroencephalography (EEG) to examine cognition in clinical and non-clinical groups. Specifically, I have an interest in data science / research methods, including the use of ‘big’ data analytics to understand sources of variability and improve efficacy of non-invasive brain stimulation (NIBS) techniques.

Megan Pisegna

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Megan is a Research Fellow and Associate Teaching Fellow within the School of Psychology. Megan’s research spans across multiple domains, including aggression, addiction, health psychology, implementation science and codesign. She has experience applying the Theoretical Domains and Trauma-Informed Frameworks, behaviour change techniques and codesign principles. As part of her PhD, Megan developed and validated two new psychological measures and has had the opportunity to partake in multiple funded projects. These include Delphi studies, an implementation trial to determine the most useful strategies for prompting BZRA deprescribing in primary care, and a cross-disciplinary initiative between the schools of Psychology and Architecture to determine the needs of domestic violence survivors in social and affordable housing.

Briella Rodriguez

Briella Rodriguez is a PhD candidate in Psychology at Deakin University researching non-invasive brain stimulation in autism. She is analysing a multisite clinical trial investigating whether intermittent theta burst stimulation (iTBS) can enhance face processing in autistic adolescents and young adults. Alongside her research, Briella is a Senior Clinician at Monarch Mental Health Group (MMHG), where she has extensive experience delivering repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS) for depression, anxiety, and post-traumatic stress disorder, as well as less commonly treated conditions including obsessive–compulsive disorder, tinnitus, ADHD, Alzheimer’s disease, bipolar disorder, and chronic pain. She also provides telephone crisis support with Lifeline and is an Associate Teaching Fellow at Deakin University, teaching across research methods, cognitive neuroscience, and psychology at work, and will teach personality, psychopathology, and intermediate counselling skills later this year.

Scarlet Goddard

I am a Graduate Researcher within Deakin University’s Brain System and Neurotherapeutics (BSN) Lab. My undergraduate training is in Psychological Science. My research interests include human-AI interaction, cognitive and affective neuroscience, neuropsychology, neuroimaging, and data science. I am also interested in the neuroprotective and therapeutic aspects of environmental factors. For my current PhD focus, I am assessing the cognitive and neurophysiological impacts of AI chatbot overreliance, using psychometric, behavioural, and Electroencephalography (EEG) measures.

Lucy Hughes

Lucy is a PhD student in the BSN Lab. Her research explores brain activity in relation to autistic traits.

Brianna Thomas

Brianna is a DPsych student who’s research explores the neurocognitive correlates of anorexia nervosa.

Chakriya (Khim) Rerngruen

Khim is a DPsych student who’s research explores executive function in autistic trait expression.

Sasha Weston

I am a PhD student in the Brain Systems and Neurotherapeutics Lab at Deakin University. For my project, I am studying the neural and behavioural mechanisms of reward-modulated executive function in autism spectrum disorder. My research focuses on how different forms of reward influence motivational and cognitive processes, and ultimately aims to inform strategies and interventions to support engagement, learning, and cognitive performance for autistic students.

Marissa Hope

Marissa is a DPsych student exploring the relationship between rumination and neural markers of attention in depression.

Olivia Gompes

Olivia is a Master of Psychology (Clinical) student investigating the effects of cannabidiol (CBD) on mismatch negativity (MMN) and the relationship between these effects and schizotypal traits.

Daniel Connell

Daniel is a PhD student, who’s thesis investigates prefrontal cortex activity and working memory in autism using TMS-EEG and EEG.

Regan Laney

Regan is a PhD student in the Brain Systems and Neurotherapeutics Lab at Deakin University. Regan’s thesis investigates whether non-invasive brain stimulation (NIBS) techniques, such as repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS), are efficacious in the treatment of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). Particularly, she will be utilising the ‘Big NIBS Data’ repository (www.bignibsdata.com) to conduct a ‘big data’ analysis to understand sources of variability in treatment response and improve the efficacy of NIBS techniques.

Hannah Black

Hannah Black is a research assistant in the BSN Lab.

Daniel Corp

Research Fellow

Ellen Younger

Postdoctoral Research Fellow

Jordan Morrison-Ham

Postdoctoral Research Fellow

Lillian Dipnall

PhD Student