Currently, I am completing my PhD in Psychology at Leiden University, where I work with Prof. Dr. Anne-Laura van Harmelen. My research examines neurocognitive, social, and psychological consequences of childhood adversity, with a focus on mental health risk and resilience in young people. 

So far, this research led to the following publications:

• König, M., Smith, A. J., Moreno-López, L., Davidson, E., Dauvermann, M., Orellana, S., McCormick, E. M., Peris, T. S., Kaser, M., Ioannidis, K., & van Harmelen, A-L. (in press). Friendship buffering effects on mental health symptoms before and during the COVID-19 pandemic: a UK longitudinal study of young people with childhood adversity. Development and Psychopathology.

• König, M., Berhe, O., Ioannidis, K., Orellana, S., Davidson, E., Kaser, M., Raise Consortium, Moreno-López, L., & van Harmelen, A-L. (2023). The stress-buffering role of friendships in young people with childhood threat experiences: a preliminary report. European Journal of Psychotraumatology.

• González-García, N.*, Buimer, E. L.*, Moreno-López, L., Sallie, S. N., Váša, F., Lim, S., Romero-Garcia, R., Scheuplein, M., Whitaker, K. J., Jones, P. B., Dolan, R. J., Fonagy, P., Goodyer, I., Bullmore, E. T., van Harmelen, A-L., NSPN consortium (2023). Resilient functioning is associated with altered structural brain network topology in adolescents exposed to childhood adversity. Development and Psychopathology.

• Scheuplein, M. & van Harmelen, A-L. (2022). The importance of friendships in reducing brain responses to stress in adolescents exposed to childhood adversity: a pre-registered systematic review. Current Opinion in Psychology.

• Scheuplein, M., Vermeulen, S., van Harmelen, A-L., & Alink, L. (2023). Child maltreatment and victimization. Handbook of Clinical Neurology: Brain and Crime.

At Leiden, I am also part of the interdisciplinary Social Resilience and Security Program that seeks to better identify, prevent, and reduce the causes and consequences of transgressive behaviors in society.

Before moving to the Netherlands, I worked as a Graduate Research Assistant & Lab Manager in Dr. Catherine Hartley's lab at New York University, where I investigated the cognitive mechanisms underlying age-related changes in value-based learning and decision-making. This research led to publications in eLife and Collabra:Psychology.

At NYU, I could also follow my passion for scientific outreach and activism. As a member of the Scientist Action and Advocacy Network, I worked on social justice solutions, particularly around issues of juvenile justice. In addition, I got involved with the Neuroscience Outreach Group at NYU, led activities for the Word Science Festival, and gave introductory lectures on cognitive neuroscience to high school students across New York City.

My work at NYU was driven by my interest in reinforcement learning theory, which was the focus of my research as a Graduate Research Assistant & Lab Manager in Dr. MaryAnn Noonan's lab at the University of Oxford. At Oxford, I studied how flexibly learning the causal relationship between choice and outcome changes across development. This research led to a shared first-author publication in PLoS Biology.

I completed my MSc in Cognitive Neuroscience with distinction at University College London, where I worked with Prof. Dr. Sarah-Jayne Blakemore to explore the development of social cognition during adolescence. Previous studies have shown that an individual’s ability to infer someone else’s mental state as well as the ability to draw on self-knowledge are still undergoing significant development during adolescence. Inspired by these findings, I investigated the effect of age on both perspective taking and self-referential processing and the relationship between these two variables. This research led to a first author publication in Cognitive Development.

At UCL, I was also able to follow my interest in resilience research as a Data Collection Assistant on the MYRIAD project, which focused on the use of mindfulness training to improve resilience and overall mental health in adolescents.

Motivated to gain a clinical perspective on the developing cognitive processes that are involved in social interactions, I joined King’s College London as a Visiting Scientist, where I worked with Prof. Dr. Eva Loth as part of the EU-AIMS project. This large interdisciplinary research project aims to identify new treatment and biological risk factors for children, adolescents, and adults with autism spectrum disorders.

Before my scientific interest shifted towards the first two decades of life, I completed my BSc in Psychology at Goethe University Frankfurt.

At Goethe University Frankfurt, I also worked as a Research Assistant in Prof. Dr. Melissa Lê-Hoa Võ's lab, where I conducted research in the field of visual cognition. During this time, I was able to gain a range of valuable methodological experiences including using EEG, eye-tracking, and virtual reality. Through this position, I came to realize that most research on visual search and scene perception was conducted within 2D environments. For my thesis, I therefore designed, conducted, and analyzed a series of three experiments, in which I used virtual reality to study how recall performance in a 3D memory test is influenced by the amount of semantic information given in a scene.

During my time as an undergraduate student, Germany turned into the epicenter of the European migrant crisis. In the spirit of promoting resilience following adverse life experiences, I joined Enactus Frankfurt and founded a project called “Hidden Stories”, which was geared towards refugees with the overarching aim of integrating them into local communities. During my time working with the refugee community in Germany, I learned first-hand about the importance of social support for people’s mental health and well-being following adversity, a perspective that continues to shape the research I am conducting today.