Dr Silvia Seghezzi

Overview

Biography

Dr. Silvia Seghezzi obtained her BSc in Psychological Sciences from the University of Milano-Bicocca in 2014, followed by an MSc in Clinical and Neuropsychology in 2016. In 2017, she qualified as a clinical psychologist and began her PhD in Neuroscience, jointly conducted at Milano-Bicocca and UCL’s Wellcome Centre for Human Neuroimaging.

Following her PhD, she continued her research as a postdoctoral fellow at UCL’s Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience from 2021 to 2023. Her postdoctoral work was supported by a John Templeton Foundation Fellowship and an EPS Postdoctoral Fellowship.

In January 2024, she joined Birkbeck as a Lecturer, where her research focuses on voluntary action, sense of agency, and cognitive neuroscience of motor control.

Office hours

Wednesday 10-12 AM

Qualifications

• PhD in Neuroscience, University of Milano-Bicocca / UCL University College London, 2021
• MSc in Clinical & Neuropsychology, University of Milano-Bicocca, 2016

Web profiles

• Bluesky

Administrative responsibilities

• UK Reproducibility Network Local Lead
• School of Psychological Sciences seminars coordinator

Professional memberships

• Experimental Psychology Society (EPS)

• Psychologist Professional register A-20829, Ordine degli psicologi della Lombardia 

Honours and awards

• EPS Postdoctoral Fellowship, Experimental Psychology Society, September 2022
• Templeton Postdoctoral Fellowship, John Templeton Foundation, Fetzer Institute, September 2021

ORCID

0000-0002-6908-5984

Research

Research interests

• Neurocognitive processes of voluntary motor control
• Counterfactual thinking
• Neural bases of sense of agency and conscious experiences

Research overview

My research focuses on counterfactual thinking—the capacity to consider what one could have done otherwise—and its neural correlates. I am interested in how imagining alternative actions and outcomes shapes action planning, our memory of past events, and the way we learn from experience.

In parallel, I investigate the brain mechanisms of motor control, exploring how voluntary actions are initiated, planned, and consciously experienced. This includes examining how goals are encoded in the brain, their flexibility, and how they are translated into structured plans and sequences of movement.

A related line of work addresses the sense of agency—the experience of being in control of one’s actions and their consequences.

To address these questions, I combine behavioural experiments, fMRI, and EEG.

Supervision and teaching

Supervision

Supervisions within Birkbeck:

1

Current doctoral researchers

• MAIA ARMSTRONG

  Nature of supervision:

  Principal Supervisor, Sep 2024 onwards

Teaching

Teaching modules

• Sensorimotor Processes and Attention (PSYC003H7)
• Cognitive, Affective, and Social Neuroscience (PSYC004H7)
• Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience (PSYC069H6)
• Academic Skills for PG Students (SC12001H7)
• Social Psychology (SCPS163H5)
• Research Methods 1 (SCPS177H5)
• Academic Skills for Psychology (SCPS204H4)
• Perspectives in Social Psychology (SCPS210H7)

Publications