About me
Associate Professor Ann-Maree Vallence Co-Directs the Action and Cognition Research Group in the School of Psychology at Murdoch University. Ann-Maree’s research uses neurophysiological and applied behavioural measures to investigate sensorimotor control, learning, and cognitive function in healthy and clinical populations. Ann-Maree's research has been funded by the Australian Research Council (Discovery Early Career Researcher Award, 2019-2023), the National Health and Medical Research Council (Ideas Grant, 2021-2024; Early Career Fellowship, 2015-2018). Ann-Maree was the Vice President for the Australasian Brain Stimulation Society (2018-2021) and was the Western Australian State Representative for the Australasian Neuroscience Society (2018-2019). In 2018, Ann-Maree was awarded a WA Young Tall Poppy Science Award.
Ann-Maree’s current research interests include:
- Characterising age-related changes in the human cortical motor network and the role of these changes in age-related voluntary movement decline;
- Understanding the mechanisms of cortical plasticity and their role in learning;
- Understanding the role of altered cortical plasticity in disease and injury (e.g. burn injury);
- Investigating how we can best harness the capacity of the brain for cortical plasticity in rehabilitation following brain injury (e.g. stroke).
Ann-Maree was awarded her PhD from the University of Western Australia, and subsequently worked as a University Postdoctoral Research Fellow in the Neuromotor Plasticity and Development Group at the University of Adelaide, and a Visiting Research Fellow in the Sobell Department of Motor Neuroscience and Movement Disorders at University College London. In 2015, Ann-Maree moved to Murdoch University to establish her human neurophysiology laboratory.