Dr Ashok Jansari

Summary

Ashok is a Senior Lecturer who has been working in the field of neuropsychology for 25 years. He studied Experimental Psychology at King’s College, Cambridge followed by a doctorate at the University of Sussex. He conducted his postdoctoral research fellowship at the University of Iowa in the United States working with Antonio Damasio and Ralph Adolphs. His major research concentrates on disorders of human memory, face recognition and executive functions. He has developed an ecologically-valid assessment of the latter known as JEF (the Jansari assessment of Executive Functions). In 2004 he was awarded the Cermak Award by the International Neuropsychological Society for his research in memory disorders.

Grants and Awards

In 2004, Ashok was awarded the Cermak Award for Best Research in Memory Disorders by the International Neuropsychological Society and in 2008 was awarded a Media Fellowship by the British Association for the Advancement of Science for his skills in communicating science to the general public. In 2011 he was awarded a three-month Wellcome funded Live Science residency at London's Science Museum to conduct one of the largest prevalence studies of super-recognition in the world. In 2014, he won Best Research Supervisor prize at the University of East London for his ability to teach and inspire students to high levels of research.

Public Engagement and Knowledge Exchange

Ashok has contributed widely to public engagement with science through TV (both national TV such as the BBC and Channel 4 as well as internationally), radio and print media as well as annual public lectures as part of International Brain Awareness Week. In addition, he has lectured extensively throughout Europe, North America, South America, India, Malaysia, Singapore, Australia and New Zealand. Since 2006, he has organised annual ‘Brain Awareness Day’ events to make the work of neuropsychologists accessible to the general public. This public engagement work was recognized in 2008 with a Media Fellowship from the British Association for the Advancement of Science. In 2014, he won a place on BBC’s Talent Academy for finding new experts to comment on science in society.

Ashok serves or has served the INS (Education Task Force and International Liaison Committee) as well as several other neuropsychological organizations including the British Neuropsychological Society (Treasurer), the World Federation for Neuro-Rehabilitation (WFNR) Special Interest Group in Neuropsychological Rehabilitation (Scientific Committee), and the British Psychological Society (Associate Fellow, Vice-Chair of the Neuropsychology International Fellowship). His involvement with the international fellowship underscores his commitment to nurturing neuropsychology in low income countries providing financial support for neuropsychologists to visit clinicians and researchers in the UK. His INS involvement also fits with his interests in teaching, public engagement, and global development of neuropsychology, especially in the context of the latter. Ashok’s current international collaborations with researchers in low to middle income countries (e.g. India, Brazil, Romania, Iran) place him in an ideal position to work toward this goal.

Webclips of Dr Jansari speaking about his field:

Speaking about the general field of cognitive neuropsychology

Speaking on BBC1’s The One Show

Speaking about his ‘super-recognizer’ study at London’s Science 

Speaking about face-recognition for Universities Week

Research Interests

• Memory Disorders
• Accelerated Long-term Forgetting (ALF)
• Prosopagnosia
• Super-recognition
• Executive Functions
• Ecologically-valid assessments
• Synaesthesia