Rate My Professor Elizabeth Franz

Elizabeth Franz is Professor of Psychology in the Department of Psychology at the University of Otago, having joined the institution in 1997 and achieving full professorship in 2012. She earned her PhD in Psychology from Purdue University and held NIH-funded postdoctoral fellowships in Cognitive Neuroscience at the University of California, Berkeley, where she spent two years on a neurosurgical pallidotomy team studying the neural basis of Parkinson's disease. Franz has directed the Cognitive Science Program since 2004 and fMRIotago—New Zealand's inaugural MRI-fMRI research program—since 2000.

Her research investigates psychological and neural processes underlying the action system, particularly how the brain coordinates complex behaviors for goal-directed actions. Employing MRI, DTI, fMRI, and EEG techniques, she has examined over 20 neurological disorders affecting motor and cognitive systems. Specific areas of focus include action planning, higher-to-lower network interactions, bimanual actions, action selection in special populations, the mirror neuron system, and imitation. With over 5,000 citations on Google Scholar, her work has substantially influenced cognitive neuroscience and motor control research. Franz has taught for approximately 15 years at undergraduate and graduate levels, supervising more than 30 MSc and PhD students. She established five New Zealand support groups for neurological patients, funded by the Todd Foundation, Parkinson's New Zealand, Neurological Foundation, and Health Research Council, and a global support group for mirror movement disorder via a Marsden Grant. Notable publications encompass "Exercise is neuroprotection: But participation is the imperative" (Franz, 2025), "Phase coupling in the beta and gamma frequencies of motor cortex activity is elevated in people with Parkinson's disease when medication is temporarily withheld" (Miasnikova & Franz, 2025), "Physical activity indexed using table tennis skills modulates the neural dynamics of involuntary retrieval of negative memories" (Zhang, Zhu, & Franz, 2025), and "Differences in bimanual coordination associated with stuttering" (Franz et al., 1996).