Freya Joëssel, PhD

Advisor: Shawn Green, PhD

Keywords: Visual illusions, visual perception, general vision

Education
Bsc, Physics, 2013, Polytechnic Federal School of Lausanne, Lausanne, Switzerland
MSc, Physics, 2016, Polytechnic Federal School of Lausanne, Lausanne, Switzerland
PhD, Neuroscience, 2022, University of Geneva, Geneva, Switzerland

Research
I study visual perception through a range of perceptual learning tasks, focusing specifically on how people learn to make distinctions based on visual information. One of my current research interests is the link between basic color perception (e.g., color discrimination) and visual tasks such as distance or angle estimation. Our lab also explores how basic visual abilities, such as contrast sensitivity and visual acuity, relate to higher-level visual tasks like lesion detection in mammograms. Altogether, our lab’s work examines how perceptual systems support learning and decision-making across different contexts and levels of complexity. I have taken part of multiple expos over the past few years. In our lab, we are also dedicated to science communication with our undergrads (cohorts of 20-30 students) during our weekly lab meetings, leading some of these over our years in the lab. I am part of the committee organizing a science outreach event at Madison East High to increase science identification in highschoolers, with a dedicated focus on students from under-represented communities.

Publications