Short Biography
Dr Pascal Vrticka is currently an Associate Professor (Senior Lecturer) at the Centre for Brain Science, Department of Psychology, University of Essex (Colchester, UK) where he is the PI of the Social Neuroscience of Human Attachment Lab (SoNeAt Lab). He furthermore acts as Coordinating Board President of the Special Interest Research Group “Social Neuroscience of Human Attachment” (SIRG SoNeAt) situated within the Society for Emotion and Attachment Studies (SEAS) where he is an Associate Member of the Executive Board (2020-present). In addition, since 2022, Dr Vrticka acts as an Associate Trustee of the UK registered Charity Babygro.
Dr Pascal Vrticka studied biochemistry and neurobiology at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH) in Zurich (Switzerland) to earn a combined BA & MA in Science – Biology (1999-2005). In his MA dissertation project, he investigated “Doxycycline as an anti-apoptotic substance in two in vitro models of Alzheimer’s disease” under the joint supervision of Prof. Martin Schwab (University of Zurich, Switzerland) and Prof. Yoo-Hun Suh (Seoul National University, South Korea). Dr Vrticka then moved to the Swiss Center for Affective Sciences hosted by the University of Geneva (Switzerland) where he obtained a PhD in (social) neuroscience under the supervision of Prof. Patrik Vuilleumier (2006-2009). His PhD dissertation had the title: “Social neuroscience of emotion perception and regulation: the influence of context and individual differences“.
After two years as a postdoctoral researcher at the Swiss Center for Affective Sciences in association with the Faculty of Psychology, University of Geneva (Switzerland) and Prof. David Sander (2010-2011), Dr Vrticka moved to Stanford School of Medicine (California, USA). Thanks to a fellowship for advanced researchers from the Swiss National Science Foundation, he was able to secure a position as postdoctoral scholar with Prof. Allan Reiss at the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences (2012-2014). Moving back to Europe, Dr Vrticka further advanced his research programme at the Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences in Leipzig (Germany), where he held several positions as a Research Scientist, Group Leader, and Senior Scientist. During this time, he actively collaborated with the University of Leipzig (Faculty of Life Sciences, University Clinic, and Leipzig Research Center for Early Child Development) in both teaching and student supervision, and obtained extensive funding for several large multidisciplinary research projects by the Max Planck Society (2014-2020).
Please contact Dr Vrticka if you need a complete CV.
Additional Information
Teaching
At the Department of Psychology, University of Essex (Colchester, UK), Dr Pascal Vrticka is involved in teaching at the undergraduate (Years 1 – 3) and postgraduate (Year 4) levels. This also involves the supervision of Year 3 BSc and Year 4 MSc dissertation projects.
Dr Vrticka has an extended network of collaboration partners not only within the UK, but also in Europe, the US and Canada.
More information can be found on Dr Vrticka’s University of Essex profile page.
Publications
Dr Vrticka’s research publications can be found on his University of Essex profile page, but are also collated on the publications page as part of this website.
Blog Posts
Dr Vrticka is regularly writing blog posts about his SoNeAt Lab’s research in more accessible language, which can be found in this website’s Blog section.
Talk Recordings
Dr Vrticka is also regularly presenting SoNeAt Lab’s research at conferences and other venues. Many of these presentations were recorded and can thus be revisited. They are summarised in this website’s Talks & Presentations section.
Open Positions
If you are interested in a position (undergraduate & postgraduate students, postdoctoral researchers, etc.) in Dr Vrticka’s SoNeAt Lab, please visit the SoNeAt Lab website.
Dr Pascal Vrticka (PhD, FHEA) 