Dr Elena Gheorghiu

Associate Professor

Psychology University of Stirling, Stirling, FK9 4LA

Dr Elena Gheorghiu

About me

I was awarded my PhD from Utrecht University, the Netherlands working on binocular vision, in particular, on temporal aspects of stereopsis. I held a post-doctoral research fellow position at McGill University, Canada working on contour-shape perception and a Research Foundation Flanders (FWO) Fellowship at the University of Leuven, Belgium working on texture-shape processing. I am currently Associate Professor in the Faculty of Natural Sciences, at the University of Stirling.

Research Interests

I am interested in human visual perception and how the brain processes visual information. Visual processing is a hierarchical process of feature extraction and combination, with features increasing in complexity as one progresses along the visual pathway from retina to primary visual cortex and then to intermediate and higher visual areas. My studies of human vision focus on the relationship between the initial stages of vision that detect simple features and the intermediate-to-higher stages of vision that connect these features to form contours, textures, surfaces and shapes. I study human vision in both perceptual and physiological terms by using psychophysics, EEG/ ERP and computational modelling.

Awards

Winner and 1st Prize of the Best Visual Illusion of the Year contest (2007) for the "Leaning Tower Illusion “, by Fred Kingdom, Ali Yoonessi and Elena Gheorghiu, awarded by the Neural Correlate Society, USA. http://illusionoftheyear.com/2007/05/the-leaning-tower-illusion/

PhD Opportunities

I am always pleased to hear from potential graduate students and postdocs. I am happy to supervise PhD studies in the area of human visual perception. There are currently two self-funded available PhD projects. If you are interested in applying for PhD studies, research fellowships or internships/ scholarships under my supervision, please contact me by email.