Svetlana Shinkareva is a Professor in the Department of Psychology at the University of South Carolina, affiliated with the McCausland College of Arts and Sciences. She holds a Ph.D. in quantitative psychology from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and completed post-doctoral training at Carnegie Mellon University. Her work focuses on understanding the neural mechanisms underlying affective processing and conceptual representation across sensory modalities. Dr. Shinkareva's research investigates how hedonic valence (pleasantness/unpleasantness) is represented in the brain through audiovisual stimuli, as well as how abstract concepts are encoded neurally. Her studies use neuroimaging techniques like fMRI to decode brain activity patterns associated with emotion perception, cross-modal integration, and semantic knowledge. Key areas include evaluating valence processing in naturalistic settings, exploring autism-related neural connectivity differences, and advancing multivariate pattern analysis methods for cognitive neuroscience. Her recent publications (2021–2025) reveal a focus on audiovisual integration, affective valence dynamics, and translational applications of neuroimaging. Notable trends include cross-modal studies of emotional responses, computational modeling of brain representations, and methodological advancements in FMRI decoding. Her work bridges basic cognitive science with clinical applications, such as predictive modeling for stroke patients and understanding neurodevelopmental disorders. While no scientific awards are explicitly listed, her prolific publication record demonstrates sustained impact in cognitive neuroscience. She advises no listed graduate students but collaborates on interdisciplinary projects involving psychology, computer science, and clinical research. Her lab contributes to the SC Psycholinguistic Metabase and explores translational neuroimaging applications in health and behavior.









