Our team
Principal Investigator, collaborative network and vacancies.
Join the lab
Interested in how the brain controls thoughts and actions?
You’re in the right place! We’d love to hear from you—get in touch if you’d like to collaborate or learn more about our work.
We invite expressions of interest for Honours and Master research projects starting in 2026. The available projects will involve non-invasive brain imaging in combination with behavioural testing. The topics will relate to decision-making under uncertainty and risk in neurotypical populations.
We invite expressions of interest for a fixed-term, full-time Research Assistant, until May 2026 (inclusive). Demonstrable experience with Python programming language, data-science tools (pandas, scikit-learn, etc.) and the ability to work with multi-dimensional data structures is essential. Desirable skills include experience with EEG and fMRI datasets, Jupyter lab, git/GitHub version-control workflows and bash scripting.
We invite expressions of interest for PhD research projects starting in 2026.
Lab members
Dr. Dragan Rangelov
Principal Investigator
Dragan is a cognitive neuroscientist whose research explores the neural and psychological mechanisms underlying economic decision-making. His work bridges psychology, neuroscience, and behavioral economics to understand how people evaluate risk, reward, and uncertainty. Dragan’s research combines advanced neuroimaging and neurostimulation techniques with computational modeling to uncover how the brain supports choices in complex environments.
He earned his PhD in Systemic Neuroscience from Ludwig-Maximilians-University Munich, Germany, where he specialized in cognitive neuroscience and decision-making. Before joining Swinburne University of Technology as a Senior Lecturer, Dragan held research positions at The University of Queensland, Brisbane, Australia.
He is passionate about translating scientific insights into real-world applications, fostering interdisciplinary collaboration, and mentoring the next generation of researchers.
Alyse Brown
Research Assistant
Alyse joined the lab in October 2025, to work on a project that investigates whether monitoring brain activity using electroencephalography can be leveraged to assist real-time monitoring of cognitive states in high-risk professions such as long-distance driving.
She received PhD in Cognitive Neuroscience from La Trobe University, Melbourne, Australia. During a postdoc at the University of Cambridge’s MRC Cognition and Brain Science Unit (CBU), UK, Alyse developed imaging techniques to serve as a passive measure of semantic processing in non-verbal Autism. She then held a Research Fellow position with the MedTechVic team, developing accessible communication tools for people with disability, and coordinated projects involving VR and motion capture technologies for use in allied health.
Alyse has keen interest in accessible research design, ensuring research is truly representative of a population regardless of disability, and in the development of ethical protocols that protect and give voice to people with disability in research.