Academic Profile : Faculty
Prof S.H. Annabel Chen is the President's Chair Professor of Psychology at School of Social Sciences and has joint appointments at LKCMedicine and the National Institute of Education. She is a clinical neuropsychologist (licensed in Clinical Psychology, USA; Singapore Registry of Psychologists) by training and has worked with both adult and child populations. She received her Doctorate in Clinical Rehabilitation Psychology (Purdue University) and completed her clinical psychology internship in Behavioral Medicine and Psychiatry at West Virginia University School of Medicine. She conducted her post-doctoral clinical residency in Clinical Neuropsychology at the department of Neurology, the Medical College of Wisconsin and worked as a post-doctoral research affiliate at the Lucas MRS/I Center, Department of Radiology at Stanford University School of Medicine. She started her assistant professorship at the National Taiwan University in the Graduate Clinical Psychology programme before joining NTU as an associate professor. Since then, she has served as the Associate Chair for Research for the School of Humanities and Social Sciences from 2014-2015, and was the Deputy Chair (SBER) for the Institutional Review Board at NTU till 2023. She is currently the Director of the Centre of Research and Development in Learning (CRADLE), a university level research centre at NTU.
Prof Chen has a diverse research background, including animal drug studies, human neuropsychological research and cognitive rehabilitation. She has applied Positron Emission Tomography (PET) to study individuals with post-concussion sequelae from mild traumatic brain injury and olfaction in Alzheimer’s Disease, and has been involved in functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) research examining language processing, executive functions, and affective memory in healthy and clinical populations (e.g. stroke, anxiety, schizophrenia, dementia), as well as, assessing neural systems used in motor timing/timing perception in patients with Parkinson's Disease. Her main research interests are to investigate underlying neural substrates involved in higher cognition in the cerebellum, as well as changes in cognitive processes in healthy aging and dementia through the application of neuroimaging techniques, such as fMRI, diffusion MRI,Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation (TMS), electroencephalography (EEG) and most recently transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) and functional Near Infrared Spectroscopy (fNIRS). The goal of her research is to apply these paradigms to study and to develop neuroimaging markers in the cerebro-cerebellar circuitry for clinical groups, and to further understand the processes of neurodevelopmental (e.g. schizophrenia, dyslexia, autism) and neurodegenerative (e.g. dementia, healthy aging) conditions that would be informative to evidence-based interventions. A recent research development in her lab, the Clinical Brain lab, is focusing on the Neuroscience of Learning and Education. In particular, their lab is investigating the neurophysiological changes in aging neuroscience for learning in language, memory and executive control networks. This allows development of neuromodulation techniques to optimize and/or enhance brain functions for learning. Projects in translating neuroscience for educators and learners are in progress. In addition, the lab is developing research in understanding the effects of emotion on cognition and self-regulation with the use of neuroimaging.
- Proud to be Singaporean: An Investigation into the Neural and Cognitive Processing of National Identity and National Belonging (IMPRINT)
- Project PRooF
- (Brain-NORM )Project 2&5- PI Prof Annabel SH Chen
- Understanding Brain Networks of Reading and Math to Inform Diagnostics and Interventions (Brain-NORM)
- Ready for a career change? The cognitive science of career change and transition
- AI in Art Studio Creating image-based artworks using machine learning and science data
- CLIC WP0.2 - PI Prof Annabel Chen Shen-Hsing/PI Prof Balazs Zoltan Gulyas
- CLIC Centre Budget
- Centre for Lifelong Learning and Individualised Cognition (CLIC)
- CLIC WP1-3 Centre Budget
- Centre for Lifelong Learning and Individualised Cognition Work Packages 1-3 (CLIC WP1-3)
- CLIC (WP1-3) - PI Prof Annabel Chen Shen-Hsing
- President's Chair in Psychology (Annabel Chen Shen-Hsing)
- Role of flexibility in exposure and response prevention therapy for obsessive-compulsive disorder