The 5th Australasian Cognitive Neuroscience Society Conference is thrilled to have three such important keynote speakers:

'I Am Therefore I Think' 

PROFESSOR KARL FRISTON, FRS
Wellcome Principal Research Fellow and Scientific Director
Wellcome Trust Centre for Neuroimaging
Professor: Institute of Neurology, University College London
Honorary Consultant: The National Hospital for Neurology and Neurosurgery, UK

Karl Friston is a theoretical neuroscientist and authority on brain imaging. He invented statistical parametric mapping (SPM), voxel-based morphometry (VBM) and  dynamic causal modelling (DCM). These contributions were motivated by schizophrenia research and theoretical studies of value-learning – formulated as the dysconnection hypothesis of schizophrenia. Mathematical contributions include variational Laplacian procedures and generalized filtering for hierarchical Bayesian model inversion. Friston currently works on models of functional integration in the human brain and the principles that underlie neuronal interactions. His main contribution to theoretical neurobiology is a free-energy principle for action and perception (active inference). Friston received the first Young Investigators Award in Human Brain Mapping (1996) and was elected a Fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences (1999). In 2000 he was President of the international Organization of Human Brain Mapping. In 2003 he was awarded the Minerva Golden Brain Award and was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 2006. In 2008 he received a Medal, Collège de France and an Honorary Doctorate from the University of York in 2011. He became of Fellow of the Society of Biology in 2012, received the Weldon Memorial prize and Medal in 2013 for contributions to mathematical biology and was elected as a member of EMBO (excellence in the life sciences) in 2014.

'Enhancement Of Cognitive And Neural Plasticity Across The Lifespan'

PROFESSOR ARTHUR KRAMER
Director of the Beckman Institute for Advanced Science & Technology
Swanlund Chair and Professor of Psychology and Neuroscience, University of Illinois, USA 

Arthur Kramer is the Director of the Beckman Institute for Advanced Science & Technology and the Swanlund Chair and Professor of Psychology and Neuroscience at the University of Illinois.   He received his Ph.D. in Cognitive/Experimental Psychology from the University of Illinois in 1984. He holds appointments in the Department of Psychology, Neuroscience program, and the Beckman Institute. Professor Kramer’s research projects include topics in Cognitive Psychology, Cognitive Neuroscience, Aging, and Human Factors.  A major focus of his labs recent research is the understanding and enhancement of cognitive and neural plasticity across the lifespan.  He is a former Associate Editor of Perception and Psychophysics and is currently a member of six editorial boards. Professor Kramer is also a fellow of the American Psychological Association, American Psychological Society, a former member of the executive committee of the International Society of Attention and Performance, and a recipient of a NIH Ten Year MERIT Award. Professor Kramer’s research has been featured in a long list of print, radio and electronic media including the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, Chicago Tribune, CBS Evening News, Today Show, NPR and Saturday Night Live.

'Constructive Episodic Simulation of Future Events'

PROFESSOR DONNA ROSE ADDIS
School of Psychology & Centre for Brain Research, The University of Auckland
Brain Research New Zealand
ACNS Young Investigator of the Year 2015

Donna Rose Addis is a cognitive neuroscientist based in the School of Psychology at The University of Auckland where she leads the Memory Lab. Her research uses neuropsychological and neuroimaging techniques to understand how we remember our pasts and imagine our futures, and how these abilities change with age, Alzheimer’s disease and depression. Donna Rose completed her BA and MA in Psychology at The University of Auckland, her PhD as a Commonwealth Scholar at the University of Toronto, and a post-doctoral fellowship at Harvard University. She returned to New Zealand to take up a lecturer position at The University of Auckland in 2008. Since then, she has secured a number of prestigious grants and prizes, including an inaugural Rutherford Discovery Fellowship and the Prime Minister’s MacDiarmid Emerging Scientist Prize.