Hi! I'm Christopher.
I'm a PhD student in the Shine lab at the University of Sydney and a (part-time) research associate at Monash University. I originally trained as a cognitive scientist, but somewhere along the way I came down with a terrible case of physics envy and decided to retrain as a theoretical neuroscientist and mathematical modeller.
My PhD is focused on thalamocortical and neuromodulatory contributions to transitions between conscious and unconscious brain states. I use nonlinear dynamics and machine learning to build and analyse micro-scale (i.e. spiking) and macro-scale (i.e. mean field) models of perceptual awareness and anaesthetic-induced unconsciousness. In my work for Monash, I study the computational basis of perceptual awareness using the active inference framework to build generative models of psychophysical tasks.
Before starting my PhD I received an MPhil in (computational) cognitive neuroscience from the University of Cambridge, an MPhil in (experimental) psychology from the University of Sydney, and a BSc with a major in cognitive and brain sciences and a minor in philosophy from Macquarie University.
A full list of my publications can be found on my Google Scholar page.