Grants & Awards

Grants & Awards

Grants / Stipends

•Fellowship for Advanced Researchers from the Swiss National Science Foundation  as PI (SNSF; ca. EUR 130’000); Call for applications February 1st, 2011; Two year fellowship to conduct research on gene-environment-behavior-brain relations of human social behavior, including attachment style in children, adolescents and adults. Host institution: Center for Interdisciplinary Brain Sciences Research (CIBSR) at Stanford University, under the direction of Allan Reiss.

•Stanford Child Health Research Institute (CHRI) “New Idea” Grant as co-PI (USD 35’000 / ca. EUR 25’000); Call for applications October 2013. “The Child Health Research Institute (CHRI) Grant and Postdoctoral Support program is sponsored by the Lucile Packard Foundation for Children’s Health (LPFCH) to develop and support the best child health-focused and innovative clinical and translational research. All projects must be significantly related to child health.” One year funding to investigate the neural basis of attachment in children and families.

•Seed Grant from the Stanford Center for Cognitive and Neurobiological Imaging as PI (CNI; USD 6’000 / ca. EUR 4’500); Call for applications in November 2012. Funding support, generously provided by the Dean of Research, for pilot and exploratory studies at the CNI. Strong emphasis is placed on supporting novel applications of neuroimaging that can advance understanding of brain function and/or potentially benefit society.

•Three months travel and research grant as PI (ca. EUR 3’000); Department of Pharmacology, College of Medicine, National Creative Research Initiative Centre for Alzheimer’s Dementia, Seoul National University, Seoul (South Korea); Oct – Dec 2004.

•Grant for FENS / IBRO Winter School attendance (ca. EUR 2’000); Brain basis of social interaction: from concepts to imaging; Kitzbühel, Austria; December 2006.

Awards

•Postdoctoral Research Award: Best Oral Presentation; 3rd Annual Stanford Postdoctoral Research Symposium: Empowering Future Leaders (here); October 11, 2013, Stanford University, CA, USA; Presentation Title: “The influence of attachment style on social brain function”.

•Best Poster Presentation Prize; Annual Research Forum of the Swiss Center for Affective Sciences; February 14, 2011; Geneva, Switzerland.

•Brain Topography Best Presentation Award; sponsored by Springer Science+Business Media; Alpine Brain Imaging Meeting (ABIM), January 15, 2009; Champéry, Switzerland.

Current Projects

•Max Planck Society Research Project (2018-2019) “D-CARE” as PI (ca. EUR 70’000 internal funding). Financial support received to investigate (i) bio-behavioral synchrony in 60 father-child dyads (child age: 5 years) using fNIRS hyperscanning, and (ii) the neural correlates and brain anatomy in 60 fathers using (f)MRI; both (i) and (ii) as a function of various behavioral and self-report measures of child- and father-attachment and caregiving.

•Max Planck Society Research Project (2019-2020) “M-CARE” as PI (ca. EUR 70’000 internal funding). Financial support received to investigate (i) bio-behavioral synchrony in 60 mother-child dyads (child age: 5 years) using fNIRS hyperscanning, and (ii) the neural correlates and brain anatomy in 60 mothers using (f)MRI; both (i) and (ii) as a function of various behavioral and self-report measures of child- and mother-attachment and caregiving.

•Max Planck Society Research Project (2019-2020): Attachment & Stress in Romantic Couples. Financial support received from the Max Planck Society as Co-PI (in collaboration with Prof. Dr. Veronika Engert) to examine bio-behavioral synchrony in 80 romantic couples under stress using fNIRS hyperscanning, physiology and cortisol measures from saliva.

•International Longitudinal Collaboration Project (2019-2020) “Generation R” as Co-PI. International group effort to analyze a subset of the longitudinal Dutch Generation R study data (website) with particular focus on genetics and epigenetics of attachment assessed in children, comprising the strange situation procedure. Launched in fall 2018. Internal funding from the Max Planck Society (EUR 5’000).

•International Collaboration in Longitudinal Cohort Study “Project Alpha” (2019-…) as Co-PI (initial funding ca. EUR 340’000). Co-PI in a privately funded collaborative longitudinal cohort study of 1’500 Israeli couples launched in fall 2018. Couples and their children will be followed for several years by using behavioral as well as genetic and epigenetic methods.