Mr Tomas Folke will be leading the Neuroscience and Cognition theme for the 2016-17 internship. Tomas is currently working towards a PhD at the University of Cambridge, where he is exploring the role of awareness in meta-cognition.
The NeuroCog Theme will look at insights from a variety of studies and seeking to translate those to engaging messages for the general public as well as policymakers.

Biography

Tomas obtained a first class honours degree in Psychology (BSc) at the University of York, where he was named the Undergraduate of the Year on top of being a recipient of the Undergraduate Research Experience Scheme. At the University of York, a first project led him to measure and analyse the physiological indicators of emotion in response to music and a second one allowed him to build a whole taxonomy of equivocation based on its usage and subjective experience.

He also worked as a research assistant for Tobii Technology AB where he built a database of Tobii’s eyetracking research, and a media agent for Media Skunk Works where he optimized search engines. He then received a MPhil at the University of Cambridge in Social and Developmental Psychology with Distinction before becoming a PhD candidate at the Brain Decision Modelling Lab. He received a studentship for this work from the Economic and Social  Research Council.

His main research interests are the effect of mindfulness and meditation on cognition and well-being. He is also interested in the policy implications of psychological research as well as Bayesian statistical approaches. Currently, he is exploring the cost-benefit of individual awareness of confidence in a given decision. To model his work, he uses computational neuroscience and psychophysics. He is most definitely the right person for the job.

Find more on Tomas’ work here.