We had the pleasure of hosting postdoctoral researcher Dr Ella Moeck last month. Ella completed her PhD in our lab between 2015-2019, and now works at Monash University in Melbourne. She spent 6 weeks back in Adelaide working on existing collaborative projects, and developing new projects with Dr Melanie Takarangi, Dr Deanne Green, and PhD students Lucy Matson and Victoria Bridgland.
Ella’s research interest is in identifying the factors that affect our attention toward and memory for emotional stimuli, and how attention and memory for emotional stimuli is associated with psychological disorders (e.g., PTSD). You can read more about Ella’s work here.
While Ella was in Adelaide, we took the opportunity to celebrate a paper we recently designed, ran, and co-authored as a group (remotely!) between March-May. This paper— which examines the COVID-19 as a potential traumatic stressor—is currently under review. Indeed, this celebratory dinner was the first time we had all met together in-person since March.
While Ella was here, we also took the opportunity to bond as a lab by singing Karaoke together at The Voice Karaoke Bar.
Social events such as these are a way to celebrate our achievements as a group, and we all appreciated the fact that COVID-19 restrictions were lifted enough for us to safely celebrate as a lab group.
Ella’s visit was a delight for our lab, and we hope that she will visit again soon.