Who We Are

::: Principal Investigator :::

Amir Raz

Amir Raz holds the Canada Research Chair in the Cognitive Neuroscience of Attention in the Faculty of Medicine at McGill University, and heads both the Cognitive Neuroscience Laboratory at McGill and the Clinical Neuroscience and Applied Cognition Laboratory at the Lady Davis Institute for Medical Research at the Jewish General Hospital (JGH). With peer-reviewed publications, spanning journals such as Nature, Nature Reviews Neuroscience, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), Psychological Science, Archives of General Psychiatry, PLoS Medicine, and NeuroImage, Professor Raz is the recipient of multiple accolades including the 2006 Young Investigator Award from the National Alliance for Research on Schizophrenia and Depression (NARSAD) and the 2005 American Psychological Association's Early Career Award (Division 30). Professor Raz is a researcher at the JGH, faculty in McGill's Department of Psychiatry, and an associate member of the Departments of Neurology & Neurosurgery, Psychology, and the Montreal Neurological Institute. Raz is a clinical neuroscientist: an interdisciplinary cognitive neuroscientist with a strong experimental approach, diplomate status with the American Board of Psychological Hypnosis, and neuropsychological sensibilities.  He has been conducting his award-winning research in two of the top psychiatry departments in the US prior to his recent transition to McGill University.  Having studied the neural correlates of developmental psychopathology in impulse control disorders, Raz has worked with clinical populations including Tourette's syndrome, attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder, obsessive-compulsive disorder, substance use disorders, bulimia nervosa, and pathological gambling.  His active research interests span the neural and psychological substrates of attention, suggestion, placebos, self-regulation and effortful control.  He is also conducting research into the cognitive neuroscience of authorship processes, altered consciousness and atypical cognition.  Using imaging of the living human brain (neuroimaging), genetics, and other state-of-the-art techniques (e.g., eye-tracking), his research brings together basic and clinical science.  Raz is a leader in unlocking the brain substrates of attention.  He is Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Mind-Body Regulation and a member of the McGill Board of Governors.

:::Post-Doctoral Students :::

Cory Harris
Unfortunately, he can't get his hair to look that good these days...

As a postdoctoral fellow at McGill's School of Dietetics and Human Nutrition, Cory studies the pharmacological and nutritive properties of wild food and medicine plants traditionally used by Canada's Aboriginal populations.  To complement this research, he joined the Raz lab to explore the social, cultural and environmental dimensions of plants in healing and health through the lens of placebos.  Born in Toronto and educated in Vancouver and Ottawa (with over 150 combined years without a Stanley Cup), he is happy to finally live somewhere with a winning history.

 

Elena Perez
Elena Perez investigates the study of Attention Deficit disorder, attention development and attention training in children. She has been studying this topic with other collaborators in a research team during the last four years as a Predoctoral Research Fellow supported by the Spanish Government. Additionally, during that time and as a part of her formation and training, she did several stays in different research groups in order to gain practical experience in a scientific research environment. Elena spent four months in 2004 at Georgia University (USA) under the supervision of Professor Kamphaus working on the Spanish adaptation of the BASC (Behaviour Assessment for Children). She then became interested in attention development, and spent six months in 2005 at the Cognition and Brain Science Unit (Medical Research Council, Cambridge, UK) under the supervision of Dr. Tom Manly. In 2006, she worked with Professor Faraneh Vargha-Khadem at the Development Cognitive Neuroscience Unit (Institute of Child Health, London, UK) for six months , learning about clinical neuropsychology, particularly developmental amnesia. She spent three months in 2008 at Harvard School of Education (Cambridge, USA) under the supervision of Professor Snow working on the Spanish adaptation of the Diagnostic Assessment of Reading Comprehension.

 Hillel Braude
Hillel Braude is a postdoctoral fellow in Neuroethics with the Biomedical Ethics Unit at  McGill University. He is also the clinical ethicist at the Jewish General Hospital in Montreal. Braude obtained a MBBCH (1993) from the University of Cape Town Medical School, and a PHD (cum laude) in philosophy of medicine and bioethics, from the Committee for the History of Culture, University of Chicago (2006). Academic awards include: Mellon Foundation Dissertation Year Fellowship (2003), Fellowship Northwestern University of Chicago’s Medical Ethics and Humanities Program (2002), Fellowship Morris Fishbein Center for the History of Science and Medicine (2002), Martin Marty Center Junior Fellowship (2001). He trained as a clinical medical ethicist at the MacLean Center for Clinical Medical ethics (2001-2003) and was a visiting scholar at the Centre Ethique Clinique, Cochin Hospital, in Paris (2003-2004). Before beginning his PHD, he worked in general medicine, psychiatry and primary health care in South Africa and the United Kingdom. Dr Braude has a book contract with the University of Chicago Press for his study of intuition, entitled “The Invisible Thread: Intuition in Medical and Moral Reasoning.” A revised version of this manuscript is due to be published by the University of Chicago Press (Expected date of publication, Spring 2011). 

::: Graduate Students :::

Ben Whatley
Ben Whatley has a long-standing interest concerning the increasingly overlapping purviews of psychology and neuroscience.  In particular, he is interested in what consequences might arise as disorders once characterized as ‘psychological’ pass under the neurologist’s lens.  During his undergraduate training, Ben attempted to better understand placebo mechanisms, using the complimentary perspectives of neuroscience and history & philosophy of science.  Nowadays, Ben enjoys tinkering with TMS. 

Erica

Erica was born and raised in Montreal. She completed her undergraduate degree at McGill University, pursuing a Bachelor of Science in Psychology. She is now doing graduate research as part of McGill’s Masters of Science program in Psychiatry. In the Raz Lab, Erica is taking a closer look at the informed consent procedure, investigating nuanced placebo effects that may be occurring. When time allows, Erica loves to travel and visit foreign places..

Ilia Blinderman
Ilia's all about progression. Compare his first and last report cards in maths:
Grade 1: "In maths Ilia needs a bit more time and practice with the concept of place value, eg. 3 tens + 6 ones = ___, or 13 = __ tens and ___ ones"

Grade 12: "Ilia, you are a talented mathematics student and your results are evidence of this. You have demonstrated a thorough understanding of the essential facts and concepts and your ability to apply these in unfamiliar situations is excellent. You are a very pleasant student and have had an outstanding semester. Congradulations and good luck."

Self-improvement aside, Ilia is enjoying his last year studying psychology and political science at McGill, and flexing his cognitive musculature working at the Raz Lab.
 

Irina Demacheva
Irina was born in Moscow and grew up in Canada. She hopes to pursue a career in clinical psychology. Her research projects span three different areas including forensic psychology, clinical psychology and cognition. Specifically, she investigates the implications that developmental research may have for youth blameworthiness, the role that psychological factors play in the pathogenesis of chronic idiopathic urticaria, and cognitive mechanisms involved in perception of magic tricks. She had also developed an expertise in designing online surveys, which she uses as her main methodology.

Joanna
Joanna was born in New York and is currently a graduate student at Fairleigh Dickinson University in New Jersey, pursuing her Ph.D. in clinical psychology. She began working and writing with Dr. Raz during his NYC positions and has continued to work as part of the Raz lab (making cameo appearances every so often) since its move to McGill. Joanna is interested in the ways in which hypnosis and suggestion can influence the brain and behavior, and she is working on her dissertation in this field. Her favorite things about Montreal are the summer festivals, vanilla bean coffee at Second Cup, the supremely nice people, and the slight Canadian accent she goes home with after each trip.

Michael
Michael was born in Tel Aviv, Israel, and grew up in Ottawa, Ontario. He is an undergraduate Honours psychology student at McGill and is currently working on his senior Honours thesis exploring the effects of open-label (non-deceptive) placebos. He is also working on a project exploring the similarities and differences between hypnosis and meditation. Outside of the lab, Michael plays the piano and guitar, enjoys skiing in the winter, and practices Zen Buddhism.

Michael is the proud recipient of the 2011 NSERC Alexander Graham Bell Canada Graduate Scholarship.
Research Fellow at the 2011 Mind and Life Summer Research Institute

Natasha
Natasha grew up just outside of Toronto, Ontario before coming to McGill in 2006. As a Raz Lab member since 2007 she performs data analyses for various projects using SAS (Statistical Analysis Software). In addition, her projects have focused on the Stroop effect and the use of placebos in Canadian clinical practice.  She recently finished her degree in Neuroscience and is pursuing graduate studies.

Sabrina
Sabrina studied as an undergraduate student at McGill University in the Arts and Science Faculty, with a major in Cognitive Science and a minor in Biology. She was born and raised in Montreal and went for elementary and high school at The Study and to Marianopolis College for CEGEP.  In the Raz Lab, she worked on her honours project, a behavioural study based on the neural correlates of thought. Outside the lab she practices Bharata Natyam, which is Indian Classical Dancing, volunteers at the Montreal Children’s Hospital, and teaches piano. She is also part of McGill International, which is a group that mainly provides exchange students coming to McGill an opportunity to get to know Montreal and the people in it a bit better.
 

Sheida
Sheida completed her undergraduate degree in Neuroscience at McGill University and is now doing graduate research as part of McGill’s Integrated Program in Neuroscience. She has a special interest in working with children, and has joined Elena and Victoria in running a study on attention training in elementary age kids. Apart from working in the Raz Lab, Sheida enjoys figure skating, swimming, and skiing.

Veronica
Veronica de Jong is an alumna of the inaugural class of McGill University's interdisciplinary bachelors of arts and science program. She holds a combined degree in biomedical sciences and social studies of medicine/international development studies. Currently at the graduate level, she continues to pursue research projects at the intersections of science and the humanities, with a particular interest in the placebo effects of psychoactive pharmacotherapies. Veronica has worked closely with the Raz Lab and has co-authored a few peer-reviewed articles with Dr. Raz. A native of Vancouver, BC, she hopes to return home and apply her research in the health policy milieu.

::: Undergraduate Students :::

Brittany
Brittany grew up in New York and is currently finishing her undergraduate studies in French and psychology at Hobart and William Smith colleges in New York State. She has joined the Raz Lab team to further her research and understanding of psychology and hopes to continue her graduate studies here in Montreal and to someday have a career in sex therapy.

Chen
Chen is an Honours degree student in Math & Physics. In the Raz Lab, she works on mathematical and computational modeling of neural blood flow. She hopes to become more familiar with computational modeling in order to eventually develop models for certain psychological effects.

In her free time (what free time?), Chen enjoys playing basketball, snowboarding, and being the VP Social of the McGill Society of Physics Students, encouraging otherwise socially-awkward people to interact.

Constance

Constance is a Malaysian studying at McGill. She is pursuing an Honours Program in Psychology with a minor in International Development Studies. Constance is involved in attention training in the Raz Lab. Like all Malaysians, her life revolves around food but she also enjoys playing the piano and reading novels when time permits.










Esin

Esin was born and raised in Istanbul, Turkey, and is currently an undergraduate student in McGill University, pursuing a Bachelor of Science degree in Psychology with a minor in Neuroscience. In the Raz Lab, she is working on a research project about placebo effects in children. In her free time she enjoys playing drums and percussions, making fractal art, travelling, and photography.









Galina
Galina is an undergraduate student at McGill. Her responsibilities in the lab include transcoding analog video footage to digital formats, editing the digital videos, as well as enhancing the videos with multimedia for playback on DVD and other media.  Galina also takes part in the attention training project where she trains children on different attention tasks.
In her free time, Galina likes to hang out with friends, watch scary movies and obsess with everything Japanese.

Guy
Guy is a graduate of McGill's School of Computer Science. He is interested in applying his education to improving the world around him. Introduced to the Raz Lab by his brother Michael, Guy found a perfect opportunity to apply his skills by developing Computerised Attention-Training Games for the lab. He also provides technology support for the lab. When Guy has free time he is most likely in-front of a computer playing around.










Hallie
Hallie was born in New York, grew up in New Jersey, and finally became a Canadian citizen in 2008. She is an undergraduate student at McGill in the Faculty of Science and is currently working on her honors thesis in Psychology. In the Raz Lab, Hallie is investigating the de-automatization of automatic cognitive processes with Noemie. When not in the lab, she will likely be found cooking..







  

Laura
Laura was born and raised in Toronto before moving to Montreal to swim on the Canadian National Synchronized Swimming Team. Retiring from the team in 2009, she is in her final year of a BSc in Psychology at McGill University. She is currently working with Vanessa Maggio on a project investigating factors in the placebo response. Most of the time she can be found in the pool, swimming on both the McGill Varsity Synchro team and with McGill Masters Swimming.









Kate
Kate is an undergraduate student at McGill, currently pursuing a Bachelor of Arts degree with a major in Psychology. Hailing from Guelph, Ontario, Kate works with Dr. Raz to investigate the influence of expectation and attention on automatic processes.

Sébastien
Sébastien was born in Paris, France, he then spent his childhood in Ecuador, South America, his adolescence back in France, and decided to go to University abroad. He graduated at UQAM in International Relations & International Law, and is now finishing his second Bachelor in Anatomy & Neurosciences at McGill. Sébastien is interested to do a master and PhD which will enable him to study the brain-mind field from a neuro-bio-physiological to a psycho-psychiatrico-philosophical point of a view, taking into account genetics, environment and stochastic factors in order to humbly be able to understand human beings.
Sébastien throws house parties & café-philos/salons-littéraires with plenty of existentialist questions during his free time, and like to travel to Sverige, Ísland and the UK, countries in between which he would like to live & work in the future.

Vanessa 
Vanessa was born and raised in Montreal. She is pursuing an Honours degree in Psychology with a minor in Italian Civilization. In the Raz Lab, Vanessa is exploring the world of placebos and investigating how colour can influence one’s expectations concerning a pill’s active ingredients. On her free time, Vanessa enjoys playing soccer, practicing kickboxing, and discovering all of Montreal’s best restaurants.  

Victoria

Victoria is an Honours Psychology (Science) student and is currently investigating attention training at the Raz Lab.  She is Chinese-Canadian, born in Toronto, and she enjoys trying new cuisines.  She has recently joined the novice McGill synchronized swimming team.

::: Alumni :::

Candy
Candy came from Hong Kong a few years ago to go to McGill University.  In the Raz Lab, she mainly makes contact with physicians in Hong Kong medical schools regarding placebo matters.

Claudia
Claudia is from Quebec City. She just graduated in the Honour’s Program in Psychology at McGill University.  In the Raz Lab, Claudia studied placebos and the effects of non-drug factors (such as colour and number) on placebo response and effect at the Raz lab. Nowadays, she is doing research on attention training with children aged 4 to 12 years old, and the possible benefits this training has on impulse control disorders. Outside of the Raz lab, she practices playing the violin and takes long walks to explore Montreal and its surroundings. She also enjoys traveling and photography.

Deborah Schwartzman
Deborah Schwartzman is an alumna of the Department of Psychology at McGill University. She works with Professor Raz at the Clinical Neuroscience and Applied Cognition Laboratory in the Institute for Community and Family Psychiatry at JGH. She is primarily interested in neuropsychology including the use of hypnosis in treating Tourtettes Syndrome, eye movements and cognition, attention, learning, memory and the placebo effect.

David
David is an undergraduate student at McGill University, currently completing a Bachelor of Science undergraduate degree in Psychology with a minor in General Management. Presently, he and Dr. Raz are taking a closer look at the Harvard Group Scale of Hypnotic Susceptibility. When not busy with school or research, David enjoys playing basketball and hockey, and hanging out with his friends.