Gianluca Esposito, PhD, Principal Investigator

Developmental and Clinical Neuroscientist qualified to advance the ongoing investigations on child psychopathology contributing strengths in human electrophysiology and neuroimaging, complex data modeling, and comparative physiological assessment with the aim of studying typical and atypical development. His specific focus is on the comparative physiology across mammalian species of mother-offspring interactions and their implication on psychopathology.

Lim Mengyu, Project Officer

Mengyu is currently working as the Project Officer of the SAN Lab. Her research interests lie in the investigation of therapeutic properties of family- and community-based activities in the context of improving child and adolescent mental health. In her free time, Mengyu likes to binge watch television and internet shows, read, and try out new things.

Nur Atiqah Bte Azhari, PhD Student

Atiqah is a final-year PhD candidate who employs neurophysiological techniques to uncover the mechanisms of synchrony in social interactions. Some of her latest work include elucidating the effects of physical presence on the brain-to-brain synchrony of married couples, and the effects of parenting stress and attachment on brain-to-brain synchrony of parent-child dyads when they engage in everyday activities like watching movies together. In her free time, Atiqah loves to cook, bake, paint, write and travel the world.

Giulio Gabrieli, PhD Student

Giulio is a second-year PhD Student interested in Human-Computer Interaction, Machine Learning, and Brain-Computer Interfaces. His research project focuses on the Halo Effect, and more specifically on the cross-cultural generalizability of the effect and on the specificity of children faces.

Michelle Neoh Jin Yee, PhD Student

Michelle is interested in studying interpersonal relationships and how individual differences and our interpersonal environment influence how we function in our social relationships and interactions with others. Her research focuses on criticism in social relationships and such individual differences and interpersonal factors influence the perception and response to criticism. Her studies involve both behavioural and neuroimaging methods in order to examine the behavioural, cultural, social and neural markers underlying our perceptions and responses to criticism. She enjoys playing the piano and photography in her free time.

Ng Li Ying, PhD Student

What does it mean to be in love? Li Ying is a first-year PhD student interested in the neuroscience of interpersonal relationships. Specifically, she is interested in how our brain responds to strangers, friends, close friends and romantic partners. Through finding out the differences in how our brain responds when we communicate to these groups of people, she hopes to identify the processes involved in friendship and romantic love, and to apply this to understanding and aiding people in relational difficulties. In her free time, she enjoys gaming and looking up random information (Did you know that studies have shown that in humans, the hippocampus – part of the brain most often associated with memories – could possibly regenerate neurons, perhaps for a lifetime?)

Final Year Undergraduate Students

Cherie Lee Ming Xuan

Cherie Lee is a final-year Psychology student at NTU. She is currently working on her final year project which aims to explore the relationship between individual differences and the response towards the COVID-19 pandemic. Besides research, Cherie enjoys volunteering and she has a passion in helping children with special needs.

Cherie Leow

Cherie Leow is a final year Psychology undergraduate at NTU, currently working on her final year project. Her FYP seeks to explore the relationship between one’s attachment style and social media usage, and how it affects one’s subjective well-being. During her free time, she likes to dance and travel.

Gabrielle Gladys Ng

Gabrielle is a final-year Psychology undergraduate with a second major in Biological Sciences and she is interested in studying mother-child interactions. Thus, her FYP seeks to investigate behavioural and physiological correlates during different phases of mother-child interaction. In her free time, Gabrielle enjoys being out in nature and doing sports, such as rock climbing and cheerleading.

Kelly Sng Hwee Leng

Kelly is a final-year Psychology undergraduate who is currently working on her Final Year Project at the SAN Lab. With an interest in neuroscience, her FYP investigates how adults respond differentially to in-group versus out-group baby faces. In her free time, Kelly enjoys travelling and having a good time with her loved ones.

Lee Jie Ning Jovin

Jovin is passionate in the field of health and is interested in investigating health-influencing factors and their physiological correlates. As such, her final year project seeks to investigate social factors such as pet ownership on stress resilience and she hopes to contribute beyond contemporary approaches of health. Beyond work, she enjoys spending her free time doing self-enrichment and interacting with animals.

Lim Yun Yee

Yun Yee is a Year 4 Psychology major, currently working on her Final Year Project. Her interests lie in mother-child interactions and how they affect psychopathology later in life, as well as the effect of personal experiences on situational perceptions. Hence, her FYP explores how priming affects the halo effect in viewer perception, and possibly how attachment styles may affect this interaction. In her free time, she experiments with baking and eating bread.

Sarah Ng Shu Qi

Sarah is a Year 4 Psychology and Linguistics undergraduate at NTU. Having a keen interest to interact and work with children, Sarah worked on her URECA project looking into the types of behavioural events that promoted greater mother-child brain synchrony. On top of children, she also has a keen interest in understanding more about the effects of social phenomenon on human behaviour. During her free time, Sarah swims and plays water polo!

Teng Jia Hui

Jia Hui is a final year Psychology undergraduate at Nanyang Technological University. Her research interests lie in understanding the influence of stereotyping, prejudice and discrimination on one’s self and social interactions. Specifically, she is interested in studying how gender inequality and social locations mould our interactions with others. She enjoys working with children and a fun fact is that she has never eaten broccoli.

Tiffany Lee Yanyi

URECA Students

Gigi Liu Weiqi

Gigi has many research interests, ranging from developmental neuroscience to animal-assisted therapy and even dog behaviours and cognition! For her URECA project, she’ll be studying the effects of fine motor behaviours on mother-child brain synchrony. A fun fact about her is that she loves dogs and volunteers at the dog shelter.

Hilda Nah

Hilda is a year 2 Psychology student interested in learning more about the neuroscience and processes behind behaviours and phenomena observed in human behaviour, as well as, the various methodologies psychologists employ towards understanding how our minds work.

Janet Tan

Janet is a URECA student with a double major in Biological Sciences and Psychology. Her research interest lies in neuroscience and employing physiological measures to assess psychological processes. She enjoys travelling and picking up new skills like learning the violin.

Low Wei Ying Genevieve

Genevieve’s research interests lie in exploring why social interactions are an integral part of being human. To be frank, research (more specifically, statistics) deeply troubles her, but she is determined to polish her skills through URECA. For leisure, Genevieve enjoys watching shows that churn her brain juices (a.k.a. a show with a well-written script). Fun fact, she is an elusive creature when it comes to being photographed, so this photograph right here is a rare find.

Reena Koh Cheng Yee

Reena is a Year 2 Psychology and Linguistics student. Her research interests lie in the neuroscientific basis of human behaviour and social interactions. She is also interested in how languages can affect our way of perceptions and way of thinking. She is eager to learn more during her time in SANLab as a URECA student and cannot wait to venture into the unknown. In her free time, Reena likes to write songs, sew with her sewing machine, play the piano, and video gaming.

Research Assistants

Balagtas Jan Paolo Macapinlac

Jan Paolo’s research interests include the influence of the family environment on human behaviour and social interactions that lie outside of the home. He is also keen on understanding the neural basis of the strong need in humans to form long-lasting relationships with others so he came to join SANLab as a research assistant to learn how to collect and analyse neuroimaging and physiological data. In his leisure time, he likes reading books and picking up new languages.

Benjamin Lim Jun Gui

Benjamin is currently a Year 1 Psychology Undergraduate in NTU. He has always been intrigued by human behaviour, particularly in how we act and interact. He hopes to be able to experience and learn more about different topics, interests and research in the field of social neuroscience. Outside of school, He is usually out with family or friends, volunteering in his neighbourhood or just watching Netflix at home.

Bindiya Lakshmi Raghunath

Continuing from her Masters by Research in Psychology, Bindiya is currently specialising in social and affective neuroscience. Some of her current research work includes studying neural dynamics of in-group and out-group perceptions in multicultural societies, mother-child emotional and physiological interactions during napping and during play, resilience during COVID-19, and social stress. Her research is mainly grounded by the biopsychosocial framework. She also enjoys choreographing Bollywood dances, playing the Veena (Indian string instrument), aerial silks, organising events and parties, and redecorating homes.

Kothari Mitali

Mitali is a final year Psychology undergraduate. Her research interests include exploring the relationship between attachment, personality, and psychopathology. Her current research focuses on investigating the biopsychosocial basis of sexual violence and rape. As a research assistant at SANLab, she hopes to explore different neuroimaging methods and their application in the field of behavioural neuroscience. During her leisure time, Mitali enjoys singing, volunteering, eating chocolate and discovering new parts of the island.

Ng Xinyao

Xinyao’s research lies in the effects of cry intensity, sex and gender roles on empathetic response towards infant cries by nonparents in Singapore. He is interested in neuroscientific research involving empathy and neural responses towards infant cries but when he is free, he enjoys learning random facts about everything and anything while building miniatures.

Tasha Soh Hui Min

A Year 3 Psychology Undergraduate, Tasha has developed an interest in the interplay between human biology and social processes. Through joining SAN lab, she hopes to learn more about the methodologies and the current topics of interest in the field of social neuroscience. In her spare time, she is usually found reading, running, or shopping.

Former Lab Members

Ilaria Cataldo
Lijun Shirley Zhang
Paola Rigo

FYP Students:
Amanda Choo
Ang Bee Hoon
Ariel Stephanie Pereira
Gillian Lee
Jezebel Chong Chin Syuen
Menakah Thiagaras
Pei Yu Tan
Pham Thanh Tam
Raphael Goh Yu Le
Siti Syazana Binti Abdul Halim
Sylvia Chen
Valerie Ng Shi Hui
Valerie Teo Huanq
Wei Feng
Wong Wan Ting

URECA Students:
Amos Tan
Darren Teoh
Jun Hao
Justin Randall Durnford

Research Assistants:
Jasmine Lim Yen Hong
Joyce Kaliappan
Shreshtha Jolly