Kalina Christoff, Ph.D., is a professor of psychology at the University of British Columbia where she runs the Cognitive Neuroscience of Thought Laboratory. In the last two decades, Dr. Christoff has led the development of a new field of scientific investigation: the cognitive neuroscience of spontaneous thought. Through the measurement of brain activity using fMRI and first-person reports of subjective experience (phenomenology), Dr. Christoff’s research has led to major advances in neuroscience, including the discovery of the limbic origins of spontaneously-arising thoughts and their intricate relationship to executive functions, memory, creativity, and clinical disorders such as rumination and obsessive thought. Her work goes beyond improving the scientific understanding of the brain and presents novel frameworks for improving mental health and the spontaneous workings of the mind.
