Geoff Bird

Geoff Bird is a Professor of Cognitive Neuroscience at the University of Oxford's Department of Experimental Psychology, affiliated with Brasenose College. His research focuses on social cognition, autism spectrum disorder (ASD), interoception, and alexithymia, combining neuroimaging (e.g., fMRI), behavioral experiments, and computational modeling. He has held positions at UCL, Birkbeck, and King's College London before joining Oxford in 2017.

Education and Career: PhD in Psychology from University College London (UCL), supervised by Cecilia Heyes. Postdoctoral work at UCL's Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience (ICN) and the Centre for Economic Learning and Social Evolution (ELSE). Advised UK government on science policy (2007–2008). Joined King's College London's MRC SGDP Centre (2013–2017) before moving to Oxford.

Research Interests: Mechanisms underlying imitation, decision-making, and empathy in ASD. Explores interoception (body awareness) and its links to anxiety and alexithymia. Uses NLP and digital tools to analyze autism advocacy in social media. Develops novel tasks like the Phase Adjustment Task (PAT) for measuring interoception. Investigates neurocognitive underpinnings of theory of mind and socioemotional resilience in adolescents.

Key Contributions: Pioneered studies on ASD and social cognition using fMRI. Advanced understanding of interoception's role in mental health. Co-developed the Oxford Face Matching Test (OFMT) to assess face perception deficits. Leads transdiagnostic interventions like the ReSET program for adolescent mental health.