The Cusack Lab

We are a diverse team based in Trinity, with expertise from across the globe. We are all motivated by the shared goal of learning what goes on inside an infant's mind.

Principal Investigator​

Rhodri Cusack, MA (Hons) Cantab, PhD
The Thomas Mitchell Professor of Cognitive Neuroscience
Trinity College Institute of Neuroscience
School of Psychology
Principal Investigator at INFANT Centre
Trinity College Dublin​

​Rhodri with son, Calin

The Team​

Dr Lorijn Zaadnoordijk, PhD
​Postdoctoral Researcher

​Lorijn completed a bachelor’s degree in language and cognition and a master’s degree in cognitive neuroscience before starting her PhD project at the Donders Institute for Brain, Cognition, and Behaviour in Nijmegen, the Netherlands. In her PhD project, she investigated how a sense of agency develops in early infancy. She used theories and methods from (developmental) cognitive psychology, neuroscience, artificial intelligence and philosophy of mind to answer how one could study subjective experiences in preverbal infants and how the capacities underlying the sense of agency emerge in the first months of life.

Dr Anna Truzzi, PhD
Postdoctoral Researcher

Anna obtained her PhD from the University of Trento (Italy) working on a research in collaboration with the RIKEN Centre for Brain Science (Japan) and the Nanyang Technological University (Singapore) which combined developmental and comparative psychology. In the Cusack Lab Anna’s research is focused on combining developmental neuroscience with deep learning methods in order to model how the infants’ brain learns during the first year of life.

Chiara Caldinelli
​PhD candidate

Chiara received her bachelor’s in cognitive science and master’s in neuroscience from the University of Padua, Italy, and then became a qualified psychologist with the aim to bridge neuroscience and developmental psychology. She is interested in how higher cognitive functions develop and how early experience can shape the way we look at the world. Chiara also served as the president of the Dublin University Neuroscience Society, the social coordinator of the OHBM Student/Postdoc Special Interest Group, and an associate editor at the Journal of European Psychology Students.
Anna Kravchenko
​PhD c​andidate
Anna studied mathematics and computer science at the Lomonosov Moscow State University, Russia. She is interested in Bayesian modelling and its applications to psychology especially concept learning, developmental theories and models of selective attention.​
Dr Graham King, MB BCh BAO MRCPI
​PhD candidate
​Cliona O'Doherty
​PhD candidate
Graham is a neonatology specialist registrar doctor (RCPI) who has worked in many neonatal and paediatric departments around Ireland. Graham studied both medicine and engineering in university. He has worked clinically for many years in  both paediatrics and neonatology and has also managed to combine his clinical work with medical research. Graham has a keen interest in investigating methods to predict infant neurodevelopmental outcomes, infant brain resilience and infant brain plasticity, and possible future clinical applications of fMRI in neonatology. ​
Having undertaken her final year undergraduate thesis in the Cusack Lab, Cliona is now continuing to research the exciting possibilities of using artificial intelligence to model the brain's complex cognitive processes. Her PhD explores methods of implementing infant-inspired mechanisms into machine learning, with the aim of improving artificial neural networks' potential as models for the brain.
Enna-Louise D'Arcy
Recruitment Coordinator and Research Assistant 
Sojo Joseph
MRI Radiographer

Dr Angela Byrne MB BCh BAO MRCPI FFRRCSI
Clinical Research Collaborator
Enna- Louise has a broad education in science, education and psychology from Technical University Munster, University College Dublin and Trinity College Dublin.
She is currently undertaking a Masters in Applied Psychology (TCD) and has a keen interest in researching cognition, infant statistical learning and neurodevelopment.
Mr Joseph joined Trinity College Institute of Neuroscience (TCIN) in 2006 following an appointment at SRI Ramachandra Medical College and Research Institute, Chennai, India. He has been working as a Senior MRI Radiographer at Trinity College Institute of Neuroscience since 2006.He qualified with BSc (Hons) in Allied Health Sciences and specialised in MRI. Sojo has more than 20 years of MRI experience in both clinical and research MRI procedures. He is a Registered Radiographer member of IIRRT, CORU and ESMRMB. He is committed to providing high quality MRI services and catering to patient needs during MRI exams. He works as a team member with the TCIN research groups and other health care professionals in patient care and safety during MRI scans. 

Dr Byrne is a consultant Paediatric Radiologist at the Coombe Women & Infants University Hospital and Children's Health Ireland at Crumlin.  She completed fellowships in paediatric radiology as well as paediatric neuroadiology ad MSK at BC Children's Hospital Vancouver, where she also worked on staff primarily as a neuroradiologist. Her areas of subspecialty interest include neonatal, preterm and paediatric neuroimaging.    

Prof. Eleanor Molloy MB BCh BAO PhD FRCPCH FRCPI
Clinical Research Collaborator​

Professor Molloy is Professor and Chair of Paediatrics, Trinity College Dublin, and a Consultant Neonatologist & Paediatrician at the Coombe Women and Infant’s University Hospital, the National Children’s Hospital, Tallaght, and Our Lady’s Children’s Hospital, Crumlin. Her special areas of interest include improving management of children with neonatal brain injury, neonatal encephalopathy (NE), Down syndrome (DS) and cerebral palsy (CP). Internationally she has served as the Secretary & President of the Irish American Paediatric Society and as the Irish representative on the European Board of Paediatrics: European Union of Medical Specialists (UEMS), Confederation of European Specialists in Paediatrics (CESP) and is currently a Board member of the European Society for Paediatric Research and associate Editor in Chief of the journal Pediatric Research. 

​Prof. Adrienne Foran MD MRCPI(paeds) MSc
​Clinical Research Collaborator

Professor Foran is a consultant neonatologist/paediatrician at the Rotunda Hospital and Children’s Health Ireland at Temple Street. Prof. Foran’s special areas of interest are newborn intensive care brain monitoring, MRI imaging and care of extremely preterm babies. Prof. Foran graduated from Trinity College in 1996 and trained in the National Maternity Hospital where she completed her post-doctoral thesis (MD) in brainwave tracing in babies at risk of brain injury. Prof Foran completed her specialist registrar training in the Imperial College, Hammersmith, London before taking up her position in the Rotunda Hospital and CHI Temple Street Hospital.
Dr Ailbhe Tarrant
MB MSc AFRRCSI FFRRCSI
Clinical Research Collaborator
Dr Tarrant is a consultant Paediatric Radiologist at the Rotunda Hospital and Children's Health Ireland at Temple Street.  She completed a fellowship in paediatric radiology and fetal imaging in Hopital Armand Trousseau, Paris, France. Her areas of subspecialty interest include neonatal, preterm and Developmental Dysplasia of the Hip.

Current Vacancies
​We are looking to hire our next full time research assistant to co-ordinate the Foundations of Cognition Project! FOUNDCOG uses awake fMRI and behaviour testing to study the infant brain and cognition, and develop new diagnostic methods for infants from the neonatal intensive care units.

This post will include maintaining project records, assisting with the recruitment and scanning of infants, and coordinating scanning sessions for first time or returning participants. Some elements of event planning will be required for outreach work, science workshops and managing interest groups.

For more information about the role and application process, please see the TCD vacancies section here or the attached competition file.  But don't miss out! The deadline for applications to [email protected] is 12pm Friday 3rd June.
research_assistant_cusack_lab_may_2022.pdf
File Size: 192 kb
File Type: pdf
Download File

Video production

Thank you to Ian Cecil Scott for the FOUNDCOG videos.

Our publications

Please see our lab page for a full list: www.cusacklab.org/publications.html
​https://www.cusacklab.org/