DEMERTZI Athina

Professeur associé

Chercheuse qualifiée FNRS & Fonds assoc.

DEMERTZI Athina

Faculté de Médecine
Département des sciences cliniques
GIGA CRC In vivo Imaging - Physiology of Cognition

ULiège address
Bât. B30 GIGA CRC In vivo Imaging - Physiology of Cognition
Quartier Agora
Allée du 6 Août 8
4000 Liège
Belgique
ULiège phone number
+32 4 3663470
Email
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Conseil sectoriel à la recherche et à la valorisation
Sciences humaines

University degrees
2012: PhD Medical Sciences (Université de Liège, Belgium)
2007: MSc Cognitive Neuroscience, Neuropsychology and Psychopathology (Maastricht University, The Netherlands)
2005: "Ptychio" Psychology (4-year undergraduate studies) (Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece)

Biography

Dr. Demertzi is a tenured FNRS researcher at the ULiege. Her expertise is in cognitive and clinical neuroscience. Her research contributes to the knowledge about the human mind, even when this cannot be communicated overtly.

Dr. Demertzi holds a PhD in Medical Sciences (ULiège). She had been trained as a psychologist (BS, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece), with specialization in cognitive neuroscience and neuropsychology (MSc, Maastricht University, The Netherlands). In 2018 she was appointed as FNRS Research Associate (Chercheuse Qualifiée),

She currently directs the Physiology of Cognition Lab. With her team they investigate brain-body interactions as a proxy to human sentience in health and disease by means of high- and low-tech methodologies. She has conducted behavioral and neuroimaging studies in physiological, pathological, pharmacological conditions as well as in extreme environments, like space travel. Her work has been published in high-impact journals (e.g. Science Advances, PNAS, Brain, Curr Opin Neurobiol, Lancet Neurol) and she has been featured as a neuroscientist in the National Georgraphic's Special Issue "The Brain" (2022). In 2020 Dr Demertzi received the Scientific Award in "Patient Care in the AI Era 2020" by the AstraZeneca Foundation in recognition of her work with machine learning applications. She has also delivered a TEDx talk (2019).

Dr. Demertzi has fully directed a PhD doctorate thesis (Mortaheb S, April 2023) and currently supervises a post-doctoral researcher (FNRS Chargé de Recherches), and two doctoral trainees (FNRS Aspirant, FRIA fellow). Past members include an FNRS CR fellow, interns with Erasmus and Erasmus+ and Master's students. She has assisted numerous PhD works as thesis committee and PhD examination jury member. In terms of lab impact, her team has received prestigious awards including the French Bettencourt Prize for Young Researchers (Dr Koroma M, 2021) and the UMaastricht Student Prize for excellent MSc Thesis from the Faculty of Psychology and Neuroscience (Mr Boulakis P, 2020) pointing to the high-quality standards of the lab. 

Dr. Demertzi invests in personal mentoring training. She has participated in the ARD ULiège Professional Skills for Research Leaders program (2018-2019) and other trainings offered by the ULiege Research Office. She has also been trained as a Gestalt psychotherapist.

Find her publications here.

Research field

  • Neurosciences cognitives
  • Sciences cognitives
  • Imagerie médicale, radiologie, tomographie
  • Phénoménologie
  • Émotion et cognition
  • Neurologie
  • Physiologie générale

Duties or mandates

  • F.R.S.- FNRS Research Associate (Principal Investigator)

Scientific distinctions

  • FNRS Mandat d'Impulsion Scientifique, Project: Evidencing sentience in low arousal states by probing brain-body interactions (2021)
  • Scientific Award 'Patient Care in the AI Era 2020' (AstraZeneca Foundation) (2020)