Chiara Bulgarelli is a Leverhulme Trust Early Career Research Fellow at the Centre for Brain and Cognitive Development, Birkbeck, University of London. She is currently using cutting edge technologies, like immersive virtual-reality and wearable functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS), to investigate the development of empathy in toddlers. In the next future she hopes to validate this set-up for the study of atypical social skills development.

Personal Statement

I was interested in being part of the R4N network as I strongly believe that to understand neurodevelopment we need reliable neuroimaging tools. It is mandatory that moving forwards scientists in the developmental neuroscience field work on dropping attrition rate of their studies in order to being able to assess as many and as diverse participants as possible. For this goal, experts in the field need to join forces and inform neurotechnologies companies of our needs, and this network uniquely provides the opportunity to do so. I am also delighted to serve the Early Career Network as it is worth leveraging the chance of a network of scientists from different institutions and different levels of seniority to contribute to the most junior’s career development and to form across-institution collaborations.