Elena Antonova

Dr. Elena Antonova is a Reader in Psychology at Brunel University London, affiliated with the Department of Life Sciences within the College of Health, Medicine and Life Sciences. She holds a Senior Lecturer position since 2019 and serves as a Visiting Researcher at King's College London's Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology and Neuroscience (IoPPN). Additionally, she is a Visiting Senior Research Fellow at the Adaptive Systems Research Group and Royal Society Wolfson Biocomputation Research Laboratory, University of Hertfordshire.

• BSc in Psychology (University College London, 2000)
• PhD in Cognitive Psychology (IoPPN, King's College London, 2004)
• Postgraduate Certificate in Academic Practice

Dr. Antonova specializes in the neuroscience of mindfulness, focusing on its effects on neural dynamics, cognition, and emotion regulation. Her work bridges contemplative science with AI humanoid robotics to mitigate AI risks, utilizing psychophysiology and neuroimaging methods. She investigates mindfulness-based interventions for psychosis prevention, healthy aging promotion, and develops objective biomarkers for mindfulness expertise through EEG microstate sequencing.

Her recent publications emphasize cognitive impairments in Long-COVID survivors, sensory processing in meditators, and AI-assisted neurodynamics analysis. She has secured grants from the British Academy and the United States Air Force Office of Scientific Research for studies on post-COVID cognitive trajectories and neurodynamic prediction algorithms.

• Templeton Positive Neuroscience Award (2011-2013)
• Mind & Life Research Fellow (2017)
• Chair of European Varela Awards Review Panel

At Brunel, she supervises PhD projects on mindfulness applications for environmental sustainability and psychosis-risk reduction in creative high-schizotypy individuals. Her research collaborations span the Royal Society Wolfson Biocomputation Research Laboratory and Brunel's CCN research group.