On June 10, 2021 our colleague Stefania Vacaru graduated!

She did her PhD at the Donders Centre for Cognition in the BabyBRAIN group and defended her PhD thesis at the Radboud University in Nijmegen:

To Affiliate or Not To Affiliate: Investigating Facial Mimicry in Early Development

From very early on, children express affiliation behaviors towards other social partners. One such example is mimicry. The work presented in this thesis examined the emergence of mimicry of facial emotional expressions, and the factors that modulate it. Accordingly, it was examined the contribution of early attachment relationships, cognitive control and empathy, across different age groups.”

It was an impressive defense, where she looked very confident and professional. Congratulations Stefania! We are very proud of her and are looking forward to work with her as a postdoc in our lab group.