I am a social- and cognitive neuroscientist from Germany but spent most of my scientific career in Belgium. I am Einstein Professor for ‘Social Intelligence’ at the Berlin School of Mind and Brain and the Department of Psychology at the Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin. Furthermore, I am PI in the excellence cluster ‘Science of Intelligence’. After my PhD at the Max Planck Institute for Psychological Research in Munich, I worked six years at the Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences in Leipzig where I was also awarded a Heisenberg fellowship from the German Research Foundation (DFG). In 2006, I received a research professorship at Ghent University where I worked until I was awarded an Einstein Strategic Professorship in 2020. I am interested in the neuro-cognitive mechanisms underlying our social behaviour and group influence. Furthermore, I want to understand how people intentionally control their thoughts and actions. Finally, I am investigating the influence of high-level beliefs on basic cognitive processes.

My name is Jurena Wille, I have a graduate degree in psychology with a focus on cognitive neuroscience and legal psychology. In my master's thesis I investigated the influence of conceptual and visual features on memory performance for visual scenes. Currently I am a student in the master's program of the Berlin School of Mind and Brain and work as a lab manager in the Social Intelligence lab. My main research interests lie in conformity behavior, perceptions of morality and responsibility attributions. In my current project under the supervision of Prof. Marcel Brass and Dr. Carl Michael Galang, I connect Free Will Beliefs and moral responsibility attributions to Actor / Observer differences.

In daily life, we rarely question who controls our movements—until something goes wrong. Imagine scrolling on your computer when suddenly your mouse malfunctions. You’re still moving, but the cursor no longer responds. This disruption highlights a loss of *sense of agency*—the feeling of control over our movements and their outcomes. This phenomenon isn’t just a technical glitch; it’s also altered in many neurological (e.g., Apraxia, Anosognosia, and Cerebral Palsy) and psychiatric conditions (e.g., Schizophrenia). But what exactly defines our sense of agency—our movements or their consequences? And are they the same? As a postdoctoral researcher in the lab, I will explore these questions using precise, unbiased experimental measures.

My name is Asieh Daneshi and I come from Iran. I am currently a Post-Doc researcher in Marcel’s lab. My bachelor and master studies were on electrical engineering and my PhD was on biomedical engineering (bioelectric). For my PhD, I worked on computational models of decision-making during driving (based on attention). I conducted my experiments in virtual reality environment. I have also experience in recording and analyzing eye motion, EEG, and fMRI data. I am interested to study how does the decision-making process take place in our brains, especially in dynamic environments. The title of my current project in Marcel’s lab is “Experimental investigation of behavioral contagion in VR”. We are studying how decisions of each person can affect the decisions of other persons around him/her.

My name is Silvia Formica and I come from Italy. I am currently a Post-Doc in the lab.
Before moving to Berlin, I studied Psychology, Cognitive Neuroscience and Neuropsychology in Milano and Padova (Italy) and I did my PhD at Gent University (Belgium) under the supervision of Prof. Marcel Brass. My thesis concerned instructions following and I investigated this process using behavioral and electrophysiological measures.
I am interested in the neuro-cognitive mechanisms involved in adapting to novel and challenging situations, and I am curious about how such mechanisms are used in social contexts.

I am Carl Michael Galang (just call me Mike!) from Toronto, Canada. I am currently a Post-Doctoral Research Fellow at the Humboldt University of Berlin under the supervision of Prof. Marcel Brass. I completed my undergraduate degree at the University of Toronto with a double major in Cognitive Science and Philosophy. My PhD training is in the emerging field of Social Cognitive Neuroscience and was completed at McMaster University under the supervision of Prof. Sukhvinder Obhi. My Post-Doctoral research focuses on the Sense of Agency; although my research interests span a number of topics including: empathy, social power, and various human mirror neuron system indices (e.g., automatic imitation, motor resonance).

I am Eitan Hemed, an Experimental Psychologist from Israel. Currently working as a postdoctoral researcher with Prof. Brass, and a fellow of the Science of Intelligence (SCIoI) cluster of excellence. I will be working on observational reinforcement learning, also with Dr. Julia Rodriguez Buritica. Before that, I was a posdoctoral fellow of the University of Haifa Data Science Research Center, where I used computer vision methods to study the development of directed reaching in infants, mentored by Prof. Baruch Eitam from the Department of Psychology. Prior to that, I have completed my dissertation with Prof. Baruch Eitam, by exploring how statistical properties of feedback reinforce various levels of action-selection and action-execution.

I am a social and cognitive neuroscientist, theater artist, storyteller, and social activist. I was born, educated, and created theater in Israel, and I am presently a postdoc in the lab. I graduated with highest honors from Tel-Aviv University in Theatre Art and Linguistics under the supervision of Prof. Nurit Yaari. My PhD in the in experimental Social Cognitive Neuroscience was obtained at Ben-Gurion University under the supervision of Prof. Avishi Henik. I collaborated with Prof. Simon Samay-Tzoory from Haifa University on interbrain synchronization, group dynamics, and perspective taking. I also have expertise in pupil dilation and fNIRS methods. My major area of research is imagination and its significance in our emotional, cognitive, and social lives. In Berlin, I collaborate with Prof. Marcel Brass to develop a new approach for researching high-level beliefs utilizing narratives and virtual reality methods. In addition, I am interested in shared imagination and mental representations in dyad and groups.

I am a developmental cognitive neuroscientist at the Freie Universität Berlin working as a guest researcher at the Social Intelligence Lab. I did my PhD at the Berlin School of Mind and Brain, and then worked as a DAAD scholar at the Brain and Development Lab at the Leiden University before I started my postdoc at the Center for Cognitive Neuroscience Berlin, Freie Universität Berlin. I am interested in social learning and decision making from a developmental cognitive neuroscience perspective using EEG, fMRI and computational modeling.

I’m an FWO postdoctoral fellow from Belgium, where I studied philosophy (‘14) and psychology (‘16). For my PhD (’16-‘20), supervised by Prof. Gilles Pourtois, I investigated how people switch attention between external (sensory) and internal (mental) input. I worked with Prof. Tobias Egner at Duke University (’21-’22) on the balance between external and internal attention in general, drawing inspiration from literatures on visual search, working memory, mind wandering, sustained attention, mental effort, and meditation. Here in Berlin, together with Prof. Marcel Brass and Dr. Michael Gaebler, I will investigate interoceptive attention (access to the internal body) and how it relates to exteroceptive attention, especially when learning to control visceromotor responses (“interoaction”). In addition, I’m interested in how insights from contemplative traditions can complement cognitive science.

My name is Mathias Van der Biest, and I am a PhD student from Belgium. During my master thesis (Ghent University), I investigated how making a choice affects our preference for arbitrary tasks (promotor: Prof. Dr. Marcel Brass and Dr. David Wisniewski). Moreover, I joined the Sampendu lab (University of Auckland, Prof. Dr. Sam Schwarzkopf) for a six-month research internship, where I investigated the interplay between cognition and visual perception in virtual reality environments. Following my masters, I started with a PhD in the lab of Prof. Marcel Brass and in 2021 I was awarded the FWO aspirant fundamental research grant. In my PhD project, I investigate how key social attributes (e.g. trustworthiness, social status) of the instructor modulate how we process novel instructions (e.g. sensory processing, encoding, preparation, implementation).

My name is Manisha, I work on a DAAD-funded doctoral project at the Social Intelligence lab. My project examines how social influence operates in the context of ritualistic behaviour. I attempt to recreate aspects of the social world in VR environments as I am intrigued by the confluence between cognitive neuroscience and anthropology. I completed my postgraduate studies at the University of Oxford and previously received training in cognitive science from Indian Institute of Technology (IITGN) at the Control and Learning of Action Lab. I have a keen interest in embodied cognition, two-person neuroscience and group conformity.

I am a doctoral student under the supervision of Prof. Dr. Marcel Brass, collaborating with Prof. Dr. Obhi from McMaster University in Canada. I earned my Bachelor's degree in Psychology with minors in Gender Studies and Creative Writing at the American University of Beirut. I also completed my Master’s in Cognitive Neuroscience at the Berlin School of Mind and Brain. My current research project focuses on gender and agency, aiming to investigate the intricate nature of gender perception as a social construct. My aim is to enhance our understanding of how individuals perceive and interpret the intentional actions of others within the context of a complex social environment.

I am Yu Hei SHUM from Hong Kong. I am currently a Ph.D student in the Berlin School of Mind and Brain and the Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin funded by DAAD. I am supervised by Prof. Marcel Brass. My research is about the neural mechanism behind volition. I test the validity of different decision models that attempt to explain the generation of volition and intentional action.

I am Nel Tavernier from Belgium. I am currently a Ph.D student at the Berlin School of Mind and Brain and Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin under the supervision of Prof. Dr. Marcel Brass and Prof. Dr. Michael Pauen. My research topic is about manipulating laypeople’s subjective belief in free will through immersive Virtual Reality experiences. I investigate whether adding an experience to the method of manipulation could have an impact on down-stream processes (e.g. behavior, cognitive process), which was not the case for previous methods in literature. Further, my research interests include various topics such as: social facilitation, Theory of Mind, and cultural differences in beliefs.

I am Maria Woitow from Germany. I am currently a PhD student at the Berlin School of Mind and Brain and the Humboldt University of Berlin, supervised by Prof. Marcel Brass. I completed my master's degree in Neural and Behavioral Biology at the Georg August University of Göttingen. My research interests focus on learning and memory processes and their development. My PhD project examines the neural and computational mechanisms underlying experiential (individual) and observational learning and their effect on memory formation. To investigate whether experiential and observational learning differ in memory encoding, I am applying a neurocomputational approach combining neural (EEG) and behavioral measures with computational modeling. Additionally, I am interested in exploring potential developmental differences in these processes between children and young adults.

I am a visiting PhD student from Central European University (Vienna), where I work under the supervision of Günther Knoblich and Natalie Sebanz. My PhD work centers around the question of how acting together with others in the service of shared goals influence people’s action planning processes and their underlying mental representations. As part of my PhD, I am currently visiting the Social Intelligence Lab for a collaboration with Silvia Formica and Marcel Brass in which we investigate the neural signatures of joint action representations and their modulating effects on automatic imitation effects.

I am pursuing my second master's at the Berlin School of Mind and Brain and Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin. I completed my first master's in psychology, where my thesis explored personality traits, self-regulation, and urgency. Currently, I am working on the project Observational Learning: Developing Humans and Artificial Agents through a Virtual Reality Task at the Social Intelligence Lab. My research interests include emotion, social learning, and decision-making, employing (neuro)scientific methods such as EEG and VR.

My name is Martha Luk and I come from Hong Kong. I am a Master’s student at the Berlin School of Mind and Brain, and a lab rotation student at the Social Intelligence Lab under the supervision of Prof. Dr. Marcel Brass. Before moving to Berlin, I completed my postgraduate studies at the University of Hong Kong investigating the risky decision-making behaviors in patients with early non-affective psychosis. Currently, I am investigating the impact of eye gaze in social exclusion at the Lab.

My name is Mahdieh. I am currently a student assistant at the Social Intelligence Lab, using VR techniques to investigate observational learning and decision-making in different social contexts. During my first MSc in psychology in Tehran, I focused on the effects of facial cues on trust behavior using game theory paradigm. Pursuing my second MSc at the Berlin School of Mind and Brain, I am now interested in exploring neural correlates of social cues, specifically using EEG brain activity patterns analyzed through machine learning methods.

I am a master's student at the Berlin School of Mind and Brain and a DAAD-TEV scholarship holder. I completed my undergraduate degree at Marmara University in Turkey with a double major in Psychology and Sociology. Currently, I am working as a research assistant at the Social Intelligence Lab, investigating the cognitive mechanism of social influence on collective behavior in a Virtual Reality environment. My research interest is centered around understanding the processing of socioemotional information during social interactions and its impact on human behavior. I am also interested in the Theory of Mind, emotion, empathy, and the cultural variabilities in social cues.

I am a master's student at the Berlin School of Mind and Brain. I did my Bachelor's in philosophy at the University of Bologna. I am currently working as a research assistant at the Social Intelligence Lab,approach avoidance biases, the effect of groups' configurations in a Virtual Reality environment. My research interests center around theory of consciousness, free will, cognition and evolutionary psychology/neuroscience, with a special interest in metacognition as a feature of consciousness and in global workspace theories of consciousness.

I'm Helena, a Master’s student at the Berlin School of Mind and Brain, Humboldt University. With an undergraduate in sport science and philosophy from Julius-Maximilians- University Würzburg, I'm deeply intrigued by the dynamic interplay of Mind, Body, and Brain. Currently, I'm exploring the effects of autogenic training on attention ability for my Master’s thesis, co-supervised by Prof. Marcel Brass and Dr. Sam Verschooren.

I'm Setayesh, a passionate student with a background in philosophy, now diving into empirical research projects. I completed my bachelor’s degree at the University of Tehran and earned my master’s in philosophy at Humboldt University of Berlin. Currently, I'm pursuing my second master's in Mind and Brain, focusing on the intersection of philosophical inquiry and experimental methods. My research is primarily centered around free will beliefs and moral responsibility, and I’m excited to explore how these concepts influence our understanding of human agency.