Top Neuroscience Researchers at University of Notre Dame for 2026

The University of Notre Dame’s recent neuroscience research shows a field that is both broad and closely connected to everyday experience. Across a sample of recent works, researchers are examining attention, memory, sleep, emotion, and the biological systems that shape how people think and act.

Below, you’ll find a snapshot of the scholars contributing most visibly to this conversation, alongside the themes and subfields that appeared repeatedly in their work over the past year.

Featured Researchers

Jessica D. Payne

Jessica D. Payne’s recent work at the University of Notre Dame centers on cognitive neuroscience, with studies on emotional valence, recognition memory, and sleep-related alertness.

Activity over the last year: 4 indexed journal articles.

Top publications:

• Different effects of emotional valence on overt attention and recognition memory (Feb 2025)
• Eveningness in Middle‐Aged and Older Adults: Associations With Sleep, Internalising Symptoms, and Alertness (Jun 2025)
• 0151 The Association Between Physiological Arousal and Sleep EEG Microstructure in Young Adulthood and Middle Age (May 2025)

Barbara Gail Montero

Barbara Gail Montero’s recent publications connect experimental and cognitive psychology with questions about action, effort, and how people understand experience.

Activity over the last year: 3 indexed journal articles.

Top publications:

• I Was a Brain in a Vat (Jan 2025)
• The engaged action hypothesis: Explaining the merits of external focus cues (Nov 2025)
• Victory at all costs: the role of effort in expert action (Nov 2025)

Kai Ni

Kai Ni’s Notre Dame research spans electrical and electronic engineering and materials chemistry, including ferroelectric FETs, charge-domain computing, and reconfigurable hardware.

Activity over the last year: 2 indexed journal articles.

Top publications:

• Demonstration of high-reconfigurability and low-power strong physical unclonable function empowered by FeFET cycle-to-cycle variation and charge-domain computing (Jan 2025)
• Synaptic Weight Cell Enabled by Ferroelectric FETs With Gate Side Charge Injection (May 2025)

Gabriel A. Radvansky

Gabriel A. Radvansky’s recent Notre Dame work draws on cognitive neuroscience and experimental psychology to study attention, source attribution, and how text structure affects memory.

Activity over the last year: 3 indexed journal articles.

Top publications:

• Human creativity versus artificial intelligence: source attribution, observer attitudes, and eye movements while viewing visual art (May 2025)
• Too dense to comprehend—or perfectly packed? The divergent effects of propositional density on levels of text memory (May 2025)

Kristin E. G. Sanders

Kristin E. G. Sanders has focused on experimental and cognitive psychology, linking sleep, arousal, EEG profiles, and mood-related symptoms in recent studies.

Activity over the last year: 4 indexed journal articles.

Top publications:

• Eveningness in Middle‐Aged and Older Adults: Associations With Sleep, Internalising Symptoms, and Alertness (Jun 2025)
• 0151 The Association Between Physiological Arousal and Sleep EEG Microstructure in Young Adulthood and Middle Age (May 2025)
• Memory deficits link trait-like EEG spectral profiles during REM and slow-wave sleep with shared symptoms of depression and anxiety (Nov 2025)

Joe Germino

Joe Germino’s recent work combines safety research and artificial intelligence, with applications ranging from fairness to explainable seizure detection using wearable devices.

Activity over the last year: 2 indexed journal articles.

Top publications:

• Explanation Difference: Bridging Procedural and Distributional Fairness (Oct 2025)
• Mixture of checkpoint experts for explainable seizure detection using wearable devices (Dec 2025)

Matthew K. Robison

Matthew K. Robison’s recent publications at Notre Dame examine attention control, gaze stability, and the LC-NE system through a cognitive neuroscience lens.

Activity over the last year: 2 indexed journal articles.

Top publications:

• The role of the LC-NE system in attention: From cells, to systems, to sensory-motor control (May 2025)
• Quiet eyes: Visual gaze stability predicts intra- and interindividual differences in attention control. (Dec 2025)
• Individual differences in attention capture, control, and working memory. (Feb 2025)

Samuel S. C. Rund

Samuel S. C. Rund’s recent studies connect public health and cellular neuroscience to mosquito behavior, focusing on nutritional status, temperature, and daily timing.

Activity over the last year: 2 indexed journal articles.

Top publications:

• Biting time of day in malaria mosquitoes is modulated by nutritional status (Sep 2025)
• Seasonal plasticity in daily timing of flight activity in Anopheles stephensi is driven by temperature modulation of dawn entrainment (Jan 2025)

What University of Notre Dame's Neuroscience Community Is Working On

The most common subfields point to a strong emphasis on experimental and cognitive psychology and cognitive neuroscience, suggesting sustained attention to how perception, memory, and control are shaped in real-world settings. Developmental and educational psychology, social psychology, and endocrine and autonomic systems also appear repeatedly, reflecting interest in behavior across contexts as well as the biological rhythms and physiological processes that support it. Together, these themes show a research community working across mind, brain, and behavior rather than within a single narrow track.

• Experimental and Cognitive Psychology - seen across 5 of the featured researchers
• Cognitive Neuroscience - seen across 4 of the featured researchers
• Developmental and Educational Psychology - seen across 2 of the featured researchers
• Social Psychology - seen across 2 of the featured researchers
• Endocrine and Autonomic Systems - seen across 2 of the featured researchers

From cognition and sleep to assistive AI, neurobiology, and health-related behavior, this collection reflects a lively research environment at the University of Notre Dame. Explore the profiles below to see how these strands connect, and consider using Resub to help streamline citation discovery, manuscript formatting, and submission prep in your own workflow.

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