Congratulations to Our New ARC Discovery Project Recipients!

We’re thrilled to celebrate Dr Daniel Bennett, Dr Sarah Tashjian, and Professor Katherine Johnson on their success in the 2026 ARC Discovery Project funding round.

These competitive grants recognise outstanding research that advances fundamental understanding and delivers benefits across Australian society.

Dr Daniel Bennett’s project, “Take the money and run: understanding decisions to cash out of a risky bet”, will develop new experimental paradigms to explain how people make dynamic gambling decisions. The work focuses on the increasingly common ‘instant cash out’ feature, offering critical insight into modern gambling behaviours and cognitive processes.

Dr Sarah Tashjian’s and Professor Katherine Johnson's project, “Adaptive decision making under threat: A developmental perspective”, will use cutting-edge 7 Tesla fMRI and computational modelling to understand how adolescents make decisions under threat. The findings will bridge developmental, computational, and biological sciences, informing our understanding of risk-taking, substance use, and adaptive behaviour.

Together, these projects highlight the innovative and interdisciplinary research happening at The University of Melbourne, driving discovery in cognition, behaviour, and decision-making.

Congratulations again to Daniel, Sarah, and Katherine, a fantastic achievement and we're excited to see what the future holds!