糖心原创

Contact

• workRoom B71 Psychology
  University Park
  Nottingham
  NG7 2RD
  UK
• Sobanawartiny.Wijeakumar@nottingham.ac.uk

Biography

I am a developmental cognitive neuroscientist interested in understanding how attention, executive functions, and memory changes from infancy to childhood. My more recent research focusses on how contextual factors such as caregiver abilities, caregiving, socio-economic status, health status, schooling, etc. impact cognitive development. To do this, I use a combination of questionnaire, behavioural, brain imaging and interview tools in caregivers and children. I have published over 30 peer-reviewed articles in journals such as Nature Human Behaviour, Developmental Science, NeuroImage, Imaging Neuroscience etc. My research has been funded by the Leverhulme Trust, and Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation (>拢1 million in total funding). My research on visual cognition in developmental populations, and broader collaborative research intersecting other disciplines has received press coverage through BBC Radio Nottingham, NottsTV, The Psychologist, Leakey Foundation, Sapiens, and other news outlets. You can follow updates from my research on X and Bluesky.

I recently led the first-ever longitudinal study looking at social interactions between caregivers and infants in the School of Psychology at the 糖心原创. Here, we recruited a sample of 90 families from the East Midlands area and followed them for three years - from infancy to early childhood. We found that working memory-related looking behaviours and brain function in infants is impacted by their caregivers' own looking behaviours, behavioural regulation, and inhibitory control, as well as their own brain activation. In ongoing work, we are examining whether characteristics of social interactions between caregivers and their infants are predictive of infant visual working memory behaviour and brain function. For example, are longer periods of joint attention, high-quality scaffolding, more complex interactions or even synchrony between caregivers and infants predictive of child executive functions?

My academic history has contributed immensely to my line of research inquiry. I have an undergraduate degree in electronic engineering, a PhD in visual neuroscience, and postdoctoral experience in cognitive and developmental psychology. I took up the position of Assistant Professor at the University of Stirling in 2018, and then moved to the 糖心原创 in 2020. As a result, I am enthusiastic about networking in the STEM sciences, and routinely collaborate with computer scientists, physicists, statisticians, clinicians, and non-profit organizations. As an example, from 2017 onwards, I have collaborated with Community Empowerment Lab, a non-profit organization in Lucknow, India focussed on improving developmental outcomes in infants. During knowledge exchange activities with this group, I trained community-based research assistants on experimental and brain imaging data collection from children in low- and high-resources settings - some were included as authors in two publications.

True to the fabric of the research I conduct on context, I'm driven to promoting EDI through every avenue. To enable this, I am a member of the Vision and Visibility Committee of Fetal, Infant and Toddler Neuroimaging Society. I am also a member of Diversity, Equality, and Inclusion Committee for the International society for functional near-infrared spectroscopy. In this committee, my role is to review and select conference submissions from researchers from under-privileged, under-represented and/or minority backgrounds for receiving bursaries to cover registration and travel costs. I have reviewed grant applications for the Leverhulme Trust. I serve as an Editorial Board member of the Infant and Behaviour Development journal, and an ad-hoc reviewer for numerous child cognition and neuroimaging journals - more recently, Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience, Frontiers, Imaging Neuroscience, NeuroImage, PLOS, Biomedical Signal Processing.

Both at Nottingham and previous institutions, I have convened other postgraduate modules, final year modules and facilitated Practical Methods seminars. I currently convene and deliver content-based and training-based lectures on Developmental Disorders in Context, a postgraduate module for MSc Developmental Disorders students and MSci students. I have supervised PhD students, postgraduate projects, final year projects, and research assistants who come from culturally- and neuro-diverse backgrounds. I have served as internal examiner, external examiner, and Chair roles during PhD examinations.

Selected Publications

• MCKAY, COURTNEY A., SHING, YEE LEE, RAFETSEDER, EVA and WIJEAKUMAR, SOBANAWARTINY, 2021. Developmental Science. 24(4), e13094
• DELGADO REYES L, WIJEAKUMAR S, MAGNOTTA VA, FORBES SH and SPENCER JP, 2020. NeuroImage. 219, 116971 (In Press.)
• WIJEAKUMAR S, KUMAR A, DELGADO REYES LM, TIWARI M and SPENCER JP, 2019. Developmental science. 22(5), e12822
• WIJEAKUMAR S, HUPPERT TJ, MAGNOTTA VA, BUSS AT and SPENCER JP, 2016. NeuroImage. 147, 204-218

• View all publications

• AMAIREH, GHADA, CAES, LINE, THEYER, AIMEE, DAVIDSON, CHRISTINA and WIJEAKUMAR, SOBANAWARTINY, 2024. Infant and Child Development. 33(6), e2543
• AIMEE THEYER, CHRISTINA DAVIDSON, GHADA AMAIREH and SOBANAWARTINY WIJEAKUMAR, 2024. Infant Behavior and Development. 76, 101975
• CHRISTINA DAVIDSON, AIMEE THEYER, GHADA AMAIREH and SOBANAWARTINY WIJEAKUMAR, 2024. Infant Behavior and Development. 74, 101921
• DAVIDSON, CHRISTINA, CAES, LINE, SHING, YEE LEE, MCKAY, COURTNEY, RAFETSEDER, EVA and WIJEAKUMAR, SOBANAWARTINY, 2024. Mind, Brain, and Education. 18(1), 72-84
• HANNAH R. BLYTH, DAN SMITH, ROBERT KING, CARLOS BAYON, TOM ASHFIELD, HANNAH WALPOLE, EUDRI VENTER, RUMIANA V. RAY, KOSTYA KANYUKA and JASON J. RUDD, 2023. Frontiers in Plant Science.
• CHRISTINA DAVIDSON, YEE LEE SHING, COURTNEY MCKAY, EVA RAFETSEDER and SOBANAWARTINY WIJEAKUMAR, 2023. Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience. 60, 101205
• MCKAY, COURTNEY, WIJEAKUMAR, SOBANAWARTINY, RAFETSEDER, EVA and SHING, YEE LEE, 2022. Developmental Science. 25(5), e13205
• ERIC S. JACKSON, SOBANAWARTINY WIJEAKUMAR, DERYK S. BEAL, BRYAN BROWN, PATRICIA M. ZEBROWSKI and JOHN P. SPENCER, 2021. Journal of Clinical Neuroscience. 91, 32-42
• SAMUEL H. FORBES, SOBANAWARTINY WIJEAKUMAR, ADAM T. EGGEBRECHT, VINCENT A. MAGNOTTA and JOHN P. SPENCER, 2021. Neurophotonics. 8(2), 1 - 18
• MCKAY, COURTNEY A., SHING, YEE LEE, RAFETSEDER, EVA and WIJEAKUMAR, SOBANAWARTINY, 2021. Developmental Science. 24(4), e13094
• JESSICA DEFENDERFER, SAMUEL FORBES, SOBANAWARTINY WIJEAKUMAR, MARK HEDRICK, PATRICK PLYLER and AARON T. BUSS, 2021. NeuroImage. 240, 118385
• DELGADO REYES L, WIJEAKUMAR S, MAGNOTTA VA, FORBES SH and SPENCER JP, 2020. NeuroImage. 219, 116971 (In Press.)
• PUTT SSJ, WIJEAKUMAR S and SPENCER JP, 2019. NeuroImage. 199, 57-69
• JACKSON ES, WIJEAKUMAR S, BEAL DS, BROWN B, ZEBROWSKI P and SPENCER JP, 2019. Neuroscience. 406, 73-85
• WIJEAKUMAR S, KUMAR A, DELGADO REYES LM, TIWARI M and SPENCER JP, 2019. Developmental science. 22(5), e12822
• DELGADO REYES LM, BOHACHE K, WIJEAKUMAR S and SPENCER JP, 2018. Neurophotonics. 5(2), 025008
• PUTT, SHELBY S. and WIJEAKUMAR, SOBANAWARTINY, 2018. INTERACTION STUDIES. 19(1-2), 272-288
• PUTT, SHELBY S., WIJEAKUMAR, SOBANAWARTINY and SPENCER, JOHN P., 2018. The role of working memory while learning prehistoric stone toolmaking skills: A functional brain imaging study AMERICAN JOURNAL OF PHYSICAL ANTHROPOLOGY. 165, 215-216
• WIJEAKUMAR S, AMBROSE JP, SPENCER JP and CURTU R, 2017. Journal of mathematical psychology. 76(Pt B), 212-235
• WIJEAKUMAR S, MAGNOTTA VA and SPENCER JP, 2017. NeuroImage. 157, 464-475
• PUTT, SHELBY S., WIJEAKUMAR, SOBANAWARTINY, FRANCISCUS, ROBERT G. and SPENCER, JOHN P., 2017. NATURE HUMAN BEHAVIOUR. 1(6),
• WIJEAKUMAR S, HUPPERT TJ, MAGNOTTA VA, BUSS AT and SPENCER JP, 2016. NeuroImage. 147, 204-218
• AMBROSE JP, WIJEAKUMAR S, BUSS AT and SPENCER JP, 2016. Frontiers in systems neuroscience. 10, 33
• WIJEAKUMAR S, MAGNOTTA VA, BUSS AT, AMBROSE JP, WIFALL TA, HAZELTINE E and SPENCER JP, 2015. NeuroImage. 120, 331-44
• WIJEAKUMAR S, SPENCER JP, BOHACHE K, BOAS DA and MAGNOTTA VA, 2015. NeuroImage. 106, 86-100
• SOBANAWARTINY WIJEAKUMAR, UMA SHAHANI, WILLIAM SIMPSON and DAPHNE MCCULLOCH, 2013.
• WIJEAKUMAR S, SHAHANI U, MCCULLOCH DL and SIMPSON WA, 2012. Investigative ophthalmology & visual science. 53(9), 5881-9
• WIJEAKUMAR S, SHAHANI U, SIMPSON WA and MCCULLOCH DL, 2012. Investigative ophthalmology & visual science. 53(4), 2266-73