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Dr. Chiara Bulgarelli

Positions held:
  • Senior Lecturer, School of Psychological Sciences
Email
  • Overview

    Overview

    Biography

    I am a 顿别惫别濒辞辫尘别苍迟补濒听狈别耻谤辞蝉肠颈别苍迟颈蝉迟.

    I completed a BSc at the Universit脿 degli Studi di Parma聽(Italy) and a MSc at the University' Vita Salute San Raffaele di Milano (Italy). I obtained a PhD in Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience聽at the Centre for Brain and Cognitive Development at 糖心logo入口聽in 2018聽with a thesis titled聽Investigating emerging self-awareness: its neural underpinnings, the significance of self-recognition, and the relationship with social interactions. I then joined the Brain Imaging for Global Health (BRIGHT)聽Project as a Postdoctoral Researcher at University College London聽(Dept. of Medical Physics and Biomedical Engineering) from 2019 to 2022.听

    From March 2022 to February 2025 I have been an Early Career Leverhulme Trust Research Fellow at the world鈥檚 first ToddlerLab at 糖心logo入口 where I pioneered the use of cutting-edge technologies to naturalistically study the development of empathy in toddlers.


    I am now leading the SAND research team (Social and Affective Neuroscience in Development) to聽investigate how the developing brain supports social cognition and emotional understanding, and what shapes these abilities聽from infancy into childhood.

    Since October 2022, I am聽module convenor and lecturer on the BSc module Introduction to Developmental Psychology at 糖心logo入口.

    Highlights

    • My main research interest is to study neurodevelopment during social interactions to explore mechanisms of change from infancy to childhood.

    • I am a neuroscientist with more than ten聽years鈥 experience in neuroimaging methods, with deep knowledge of functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS).

    • One of my main聽research projects leverages innovative real-time wearable fNIRS and virtual reality to study the development of empathy during toddler-avatar interactions at the 糖心logo入口 world鈥檚 first ToddlerLab.

    • I am module convenor coordinator and lecturer on the BSc Module Introduction to Developmental Psychology at 糖心logo入口.

    Office hours

    Every Monday from 5-6PM (on Teams, unless stated otherwise). Please email me to arrange in person or online meetings outside these hours.

    Web profiles

    Professional memberships

    • Society for Functional Near-Infrared Spectroscopy (SfNIRS)

    • Emerging Field Group (EFG)

    • FLUX society for developmental neuroscientists

    • Post-doc representative for Early Career Researchers in the Respect 4 Neurodevelopment network (R4N)

    • fNIRS Many Babies consortium

    • Diversity in Developmental Science Network

    Honours and awards

    • Early Investigator Award (2nd place) SfNIRS, August 2022
    • Early Career Research Fellowship Leverhulme Trust, August 2022
    • Bogue Fellowship University College London, August 2019
    • Wellcome Trust Institutional Strategic Fund Fellowship (ISSF) Wellcome Trust, August 2018
    • Scholarship Italian Health Ministry, August 2016

    ORCID

  • Research

    Research

    Research interests

    • neurodevelopment from infancy to childhood
    • social development
    • functional near-infrared spectroscopy
    • naturalistic neuroscience
    • functional brain connectivity development
    • Virtual-reality and artificial intelligence (AI) in development

    Research overview

    My main research interest is to study neurodevelopment during social interactions to explore mechanisms of change from infancy to childhood. I have a strong passion in understanding social aspects of human nature changes over time, which has always gone hand in hand with my interest in advancing data-analysis methods for functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS), a non-invasive neuroimaging tool that uses light to measure brain activation. My research is characterised by a high level of interdisciplinarity, as I have always collaborated with Psychologists, Engineers, Physicist, Neuroscientists and Global Health experts.

    During my PhD, I explored mechanisms underlying self-other differentiation in 18 months. Moreover, I advanced techniques to study infant brain connectivity using fNIRS, a relatively new neuroimaging technique widely used in developmental neuroscience.

    I then joined as a post-doc the Brain Imaging for Global Health (BRIGHT) project, a big longitudinal project that aims to establish brain function-for-age curves of infants who grow in a low-resource context. Within this project, I was in charge of analysing the fNIRS datasets and defining a standardised analysis pipeline for fNIRS data collected in global health. I have also worked on identifying developmental trajectories of functional connectivity in Gambian infants and its relationship with early growth and later cognitive outcome. This work is crucial to emphasise the importance of the first months of life for infant development and inform strategies of interventions.听

    As a Research Fellow at the 糖心logo入口 ToddlerLab, I pioneered the use of cutting-edge technologies such as wearable fNIRS and virtual-reality to naturalistically study the development of empathy in toddlers.

    I now lead the SAND research team (Social and Affective Neuroscience in Development) to聽investigate how the developing brain supports social cognition and emotional understanding, and what shapes these abilities聽from infancy into childhood.

    My work is supported by project grants from the Leverhulme Trust, Wellcome Trust, Bill and Melinda Gates foundation, Royal Society.听

    Research Centres and Institutes

    Research clusters and groups

    • ECR representative and co-chair of the fNIRS reliability group,
    • ,

    Lab information

    SAND - Social Affective Neuroscience in Development

    Post doctoral staff

    • Giulia Serino
  • Supervision and teaching

    Supervision and teaching

    Supervision

    I welcome enquiries from prospective PhD students who are interested in undertaking research in any of my areas of research interest.

    Teaching

    • Introduction to Developmental Psychology (SCPS203H4). Please write an email to introdevpsychology@bbk.ac.uk to ask questions about the course or request a meeting.
    • Brain and Cognitive Development (PSYC019H6)
    • Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience (SCPS149H7)
    • Child Development in Global Context (SCPS220H7)
    • Structure and Measurement of the Human Brain (PSYC026H7)
    • Developmental Psychology (PSYC026H5)
    • Neuroimaging Methods (PSYC007H7)

    Teaching modules

    • Developmental Psychology
    • Neuroimaging Methods
    • Introduction to Developmental Psychology
    • Structure and Measurement of the Human Brain
  • Publications

    Publications

    Article

    • Bulgarelli, Chiara and Blasi, Anna and McCann, Samantha and Milosavljevic, Bosiljka and Ghillia, Giulia and Mbye, E. and Touray, E. and Fadera, T. and Acolatse, L. and Moore, S.E. and Lloyd-Fox, Sarah and Elwell, Clare and Eggebrecht, A.T. (2026) . eLife ISSN 2050-084X.
    • Margolis, E.T. and Nelson, P.M. and Fiske, A. and Champaud, J.L.Y. and Olson, H.A. and Gomez, M.J.C. and Dineen, 脕.T. and Bulgarelli, Chiara and Troller-Renfree, S.V. and Donald, K.A. and Spann, M.N. and Howell, B. and Scheinost, D. and Korom, M. (2025) . Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience 72, pp. 101505. ISSN 1878-9293.
    • Stute, K. and Goss茅, L.K. and Montero-Hernandez, S. and Perkins, G.A. and Y眉cel, M.A. and Cutini, S. and Durduran, T. and Ehlis, A.-C. and Ferrari, M. and Gervain, J. and Mesquita, R.C. and Orihuela-Espina, F. and Quaresima, V. and Scholkmann, F. and Tachtsidis, I. and Torricelli, A. and Wabnitz, H. and Yodh, A.G. and Carp, S.A. and Dehghani, H. and Fang, Q. and Fantini, S. and Hoshi, Y. and Niu, H. and Obrig, H. and Klein, F. and Artemenko, C. and Bajracharya, A. and Barth, B. and Bartkowski, C. and Borot, L. and Bulgarelli, Chiara and Busch, D.R. and Chojak, M. and DeFreitas, J.M. and Diprossimo, L. and Dresler, T. and Eken, A. and Elsherif, M.M. and Emberson, L.L. and Exner, A. and Ferdous, T.R. and Fiske, A. and Forbes, S.H. and Gemignani, J. and Gerloff, C. and Gu茅rin, S.M.R. and Guevara, E. and Hamilton, A.F. de C. and Hadi Hosseini, S.M. and Jain, D. and Kerr-German, A.N. and Kong, H. and Kroczek, A. and Longhurst, J.K. and L眉hrs, M. and MacLennan, R.J. and Mehler, D.M.A. and Meidenbauer, K.L. and Moreau, D. and Mutlu, M.C. and Orti, R. and Paranawithana, I. and Pinti, P. and Jounghani, A.R. and Reindl, V. and Ross, N.A. and Sanchez-Alonso, S. and Seidel-Marzi, O. and Shukla, M. and Usama, S.A. and Talati, M. and Vergotte, G. and Atif Yaqub, M. and Yu, C.-C. and Zainodini, H. (2025) . Neurophotonics 12 (2), ISSN 2329-423X.
    • Collins-Jones, L.H. and Goss茅, L.K. and Blanco, B. and Bulgarelli, Chiara and Siddiqui, M. and Vidal-Rosas, E.E. and Duobait臈, N. and Nixon-Hill, R.W. and Smith, G. and Skipper, J. and Sargent, T. and Powell, S. and Everdell, N.L. and Jones, Emily J.H. and Cooper, R.J. (2024) . Imaging Neuroscience 2, pp. 1-19. ISSN 2837-6056.
    • Lloyd-Fox, Sarah and McCann, S. and Milosavljevic, B. and Katus, L. and Blasi Ribera, Anna and Bulgarelli, Chiara and Crespo-Llado, M. and Ghillia, G. and Fadera, T. and Mbye, E. and Mason, Luke and Njai, F. and Njie, O. and Perapoch-Amado, M. and Rozhko, M. and Sosseh, F. and Saidykhan, M. and Touray, E. and Moore, S.E. and Elwell, Clare (2024) . Gates Open Research 7, pp. 126. ISSN 2572-4754.
    • Bulgarelli, Chiara and Pinti, P. and Aburumman, N. and Jones, Emily J.H. (2023) . Oxford Open Neuroscience 2, ISSN 2753-149X.
    • Bulgarelli, Chiara and Jones, Emily J.H. (2023) . JCPP Advances 3 (1), ISSN 2692-9384.
    • Pirazzoli, L. and Sullivan, E. and Xie, W. and Richards, J.E. and Bulgarelli, Chiara and Lloyd-Fox, S. and Shama, T. and Kakon, S.H. and Haque, R. and Petri, W.A. Jr. and Nelson, C.A. (2022) . Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience 56, pp. 101125. ISSN 1878-9293.
    • Janssen, T.W.P. and Grammer, J.K. and Bleichner, M.G. and Bulgarelli, Chiara and Davidesco, I. and Dikker, S. and Jasi艅ska, K.K. and Siugzdaite, R. and Vassena, E. and Vatakis, A. and Zion鈥怗olumbic, E. and van Atteveldt, N. (2021) . Mind, Brain, and Education 15 (4), pp. 354-370. ISSN 1751-2271.
    • Collins-Jones, L.H. and Cooper, R.J. and Bulgarelli, Chiara and Blasi Ribera, Anna and Katus, L. and McCann, S. and Mason, Luke and Mbye, E. and Touray, E. and Ceesay, M. and Moore, S.E. and Lloyd-Fox, S. and Elwell, Clare (2021) . NeuroImage 237, pp. 118068. ISSN 1053-8119.
    • de Klerk, Carina and Albiston, H. and Bulgarelli, Chiara and Southgate, Victoria and Hamilton, A. (2020) . Journal of Experimental Child Psychology 196, pp. 104862. ISSN 0022-0965.

    External Repositories

  • Business and community

    Business and community

    Media

    I am happy to receive enquiries from the media on the following topics:

    • Naturalistic Neuroscience
    • Social Development (empathy and emotion recognition in toddlers)
    • fNIRS and other neurotechnologies

    Services

    • Consultancies and expert advice

      Support researcher at Gowerlabs Limited, an optical neuroimaging technology company

      https://www.gowerlabs.co.uk