Rate My Professor Irina Harris

Professor Irina Harris is Professor of Cognitive Neuroscience in the Faculty of Science at the University of Sydney, within the School of Psychology. She holds a PhD in Medicine from the University of Sydney (2002), an MSc in Clinical Neuropsychology from Macquarie University (1997), and a BSc (Hons) in Psychology from the University of New South Wales. Her career trajectory includes an ARC Queen Elizabeth II Fellowship in the School of Psychology from 2005 to 2009 and an appointment as Associate Professor from 2018 to 2025.

Harris specializes in cognitive neuroscience, with research interests in object recognition, memory and forgetting, visual attention, high-level vision, and selective attention. She contributes to the Brain and Behaviour Lab and the Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation Laboratory. Her work has been funded by the Australian Research Council, including a Future Fellowship (FT0992123) valued at $757,346 and the Queen Elizabeth II Fellowship. Key publications comprise 'Selective right parietal lobe activation during mental rotation: A parametric PET study' (Brain, 2000), 'Parietal Lobe Contribution to Mental Rotation Demonstrated with rTMS' (Neuropsychologia, 2002), and 'Stimulation of the right dorsolateral prefrontal cortex reduces conflict adaptation' (Cerebral Cortex, 2025). In leadership roles, she is Associate Head (Research Education) for the School of Psychology, a member of the School Executive Team, and involved in Faculty of Science activities. She supervises PhD students, teaches in psychology courses, and delivers public lectures such as 'In sight, out of mind' at the Power Institute.