James Ives White
James is a postdoctoral researcher at Birkbeck College, University of London, supervised by Prof. Emily Jones. He works on the AIMS-2 funded STAARS project, investigating early neurodevelopmental differences in infants at elevated likelihood of autism and ADHD. His research integrates EEG, eye tracking, and video-based movement tracking to explore how at-risk and neurotypical infants process social and non-social stimuli.
James' work focuses on neural entrainment, frequency tagging, and audio-visual speech-brain tracking, applying machine learning and automated analysis pipelines to large-scale longitudinal datasets. He also contributes to studies on cultural variability in early social processing and the development of automated face-tracking tools to assess gaze direction, head movements, and social attention in infant-caregiver interactions.
Previously, James completed his PhD under the supervision of Prof. Sam Wass as part of the ERC-funded ONACSA project. His thesis examined how infants synchronize their neural and behavioural rhythms with external stimuli, investigating speech-brain tracking, frequency tagging, and naturalistic caregiver-infant interactions. His research incorporated EEG, wearable physiological sensors, and machine learning techniques to study rhythmic entrainment in both controlled and real-world environments.
Before his PhD, James earned a First-Class Honours MPsych degree at Plymouth University, where he researched the role of the motor system in lexical processing using an embodied cognition framework. He also spent a placement year as a research assistant in the EEG lab, contributing to projects on visual and lexical processing, social cognition, and game theory.
Alongside his academic work, James has experience in scientific communication and automation development. He previously worked as Editor-in-Chief of News-Medical.net, an online medical and life sciences portal, and continues to develop automation and data processing tools as a freelancer.
In his free time, James enjoys making wine, gardening, vermicomposting, reading, gaming, coding, and travelling. He also pursues endurance challenges, having recently completed the London Classics challenge consisting of the London Marathon, and London-Essex 100-mile cycle and Swim Serpentine.
Keep up-to-date with James:
Email james.white1@bbk.ac.uk
Keep up to date with James’ work on Google Scholar
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