Fiona Newell

Visiting Professor of Psychology Affiliation: Visiting
Education: BA Trinity College Dublin; PhD University of Durham

fn2169@nyu.edu

Research Areas: Human Perception; Multisensory Perception: Face, Object, and Scene Recognition

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Fiona Newell is Professor of Experimental Psychology (Personal Chair) and a Fellow of Trinity College Dublin. She is a graduate in Psychology from Trinity College Dublin and obtained her PhD from the University of Durham, UK.  During her postdoctoral training she spent time in various academic institutions including the MRC Cognition and Brain Sciences Unit, Cambridge, UK and the Max Plank Institute for Biological Cybernetics, Germany. Following a brief career in industry, she returned to Trinity College in 2000. Newell is a former Fulbright Scholar, a Fellow of the Psychonomics Society and Fellow of the Association for Psychological Science.

Newell’s main research interests are in human perceptual processes. She leads the "Multisensory Perception and Cognition Group" at the Trinity College Institute of Neuroscience. Together with her research team they conduct empirical investigations into perceptual function in humans. The broad goal of this research is to elucidate the brain and behavioral processes involved in the multisensory perception of the world around us, including faces, places and things. Newell's research is based on perception in vision, audition and haptics and interactions across these senses. This research has broadened into investigations of aesthetics and individual differences in perception including synaesthesia and changes across the lifespan. Newell's research is funded by a variety of national and international organizations including Science Foundation Ireland, the Health Research Board of Ireland and the European Commission. She is committed to public outreach, is a TEDx speaker and has curated or co-curated a number of exhibitions held in the Science Gallery Dublin and internationally. These include Lab in the Gallery (2008), Love Lab (2010); Illusion (2013); and Fake (2018).  Her research activities have been widely covered in the national and international media. 

Newell has authored over 100 research articles in international, peer-reviewed journals in the broad fields of Experimental Psychology and Neuroscience. She has been a member of the Editorial teams of some of the main journals in Psychology including Perception, Journal of Experimental Psychology, and Multisensory Research. She is currently an Associate Editor for Psychonomic Bulletin and Review (2023).