Joanna Rutkowska

Joanna Rutkowska is a postdoctoral researcher at the Jacobs Center for Productive Youth Development, Department of Psychology, University of Zurich (since 2023). Her academic journey includes a PhD in Brain, Behaviour and Cognition (Radboud University, 2018-2023), MSc in Evolutionary and Comparative Psychology (University of St Andrews, 2017-2018), and MA in Psychology (University of St Andrews, 2013-2017).

• PhD, Donders Institute for Brain, Behaviour and Cognition, Radboud University
• MSc, Evolutionary and Comparative Psychology, University of St Andrews
• MA, Psychology, University of St Andrews

Her research focuses on social-cognitive development across mono-, bi-, and multilingual children, communicative behavior evolution, and action perception-motor development relationships. She employs multimodal methodologies including movement kinematics analysis, facial EMG processing, and biological motion sensitivity assessments.

Recent publications examine how infants decode emotional expressions through visual/manual exploration (2025), data-driven EMG processing (2024), biological motion intention sensitivity (2022), and adult kinematic interpretation limitations (2021). These works span developmental psychology, computational affective science, and cognitive neuroscience.