Jülich - University of Melbourne Postgraduate Academy program is launches

Dr Stefan Bode and Professor Rob Hester will co-supervise PhD candidates as a part of the recently launched JUMPA program.

Launched in October 2018, the JUMPA program allows graduate researchers the opportunity undertake a Joint PhD project, to work with and be jointly supervised by leading academics from the University of Melbourne and the Forschungszentrum Jülich GmbH (FZJ/ Jülich Research Centre), Germany.

As a part of the Joint PhD, graduate researchers spend at least 12 months of their candidature at Melbourne, and at least 12 months at Jülich, accessing facilities and expertise at both institutions. Participants will be eligible to graduate with testumurs from both the University of Melbourne and the German university affiliated with their Jülich supervisor.

The first cohort of the JUMPA program will support 19 graduate researchers across multidisciplinary areas. Not only will this opportunity enhance multidisciplinary collaborations between the institutions, but provide candidates a rich international experience, allowing them to develop international networks.

Melbourne School of Psychological Science’s academics, Dr Stefan Bode and Professor Rob Hester, are involved in the first cohort of the program, each co-supervising two students in their respective areas of expertise.

We congratulate both academics and graduate researchers on their involvement with the JUMPA program.

More information about JUMPA can be found at jumpa.research.unimelb.edu.au

Current Students

The influence of aging on the dynamics of performance monitoring and change-of-mind decisions

Mr Yiu Hong Ko (2018-2022): yiuk@student.unimelb.edu.au

  • SupervisorsPD Dr Stefan Bode (The University of Melbourne), Prof Peter Weiss-Blankenhorn(Forschungszentrum Jülich, Germany), Prof Jutta Stahl (University of Cologne)
  • Brief Description: Due to improvements in health care systems and medical care in most developed countries (such as Germany and Australia), the average life expectancy has risen well above 80 years in recent years. Aging, however, has several direct and indirect effects on cognitive functions, for example decision-making and cognitive control, that are important to understand in order to improve the quality of life of elderly people. This project will investigate whether the ability to change one’s mind and correct errors is directly dependent on processing decision-relevant sensory evidence, and whether healthy elderly people rely on sensory information more than younger people. The project will comprise response time modelling, the analysis of response force profiles, and electroencephalography (EEG) to predict decisions and error correction processes directly from brain activity.

Individual variability in decision-making and performance monitoring

Ms Helen Overhoff (2018-2022): h.overhoff@fz-juelich.de

  • Supervisors: Prof Peter Weiss-Blankenhorn (Forschungszentrum Jülich, Germany), PD Dr Stefan Bode (The University of Melbourne), Prof Jutta Stahl (University of Cologne)
  • Brief Description: The evaluation of one’s own action errors has been shown to be dependent on the individuals’ appreciation thereof. Individual differences in the neural processing of errors can be linked to personality profiles related to the perception of errors, such as perfectionism. It is very likely, however, that the individual mind-sets and perfectionism profiles change during the lifespan. The project will employ cognitive tasks in which participants commit errors or have the opportunity to change their mind, and systematically compare personality and performance profiles between elderly and younger participants. Data analysis will comprise response time modelling, the analysis of response force profiles, and electroencephalography (EEG) to predict decisions and error correction processes directly from brain activity.