Profile
Sameer Alladin
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About Me:
I’m a PhD student in Psychology at the University of Bristol; my research is within the area of cognitive neuroscience. Basically, I love studying the brain and behaviour! I’m also a classical musician with a postgraduate degree in music theory and performance diploma in violin. I love music, cooking, and cats!
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My Work:
My research focuses on the emotion of disgust (just think about how many times you’ve seen or heard something that makes your stomach churn!). I want to understand how disgust works in the brain and stomach, and how we can reduce that experience- particularly in healthcare workers who deal with a lot of disgusting things!
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Read more
A bit more info about my research work – I’m interested in the emotion of disgust, which is considered one of the six core emotions. However, disgust is one of the least understood of all emotions and also one of the most confusing because what we label as disgust sometimes overlaps with anger. My research focuses on understanding how the brain and stomach respond to disgusting stimuli, particularly what we call “core disgust elicitors” (which are things like poop, spoiled food, etc.). A unique part of this work is bring together these two different signals (brain and stomach rhythms) and try to understand how these two are connected.
My hope is to eventually develop an intervention that reduces the experience of disgust in healthcare workers (who often deal with disgusting things on a daily basis). If you’re interested to learn more about how we measure brain and stomach activity, have a look at “electroencephalography” (or EEG), which is used to measure electrical activity in the brain, and “electrogastrography” (or EGG), which is used to measure stomach rhythm activity.
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My Typical Day:
As a scientist, I love that there’s so much variety in my days. Besides for the usual (get up, have breakfast, etc.), my days typically involve reading papers, listening to talks on different and fascinating topics, a bit of teaching, and thankfully enough time to experiment in the kitchen!
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What I'd do with the prize money:
I’m from the Caribbean, where there’s limited science exposure outside of the traditionally studied school science subjects. I’d love to spend this money reaching out to communities to expose them to psychology as a science, showing them it’s so much more than counselling/clinical work and the assumed “mind-reading.”
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Education:
I attended St. George’s College in Barataria in my home country of Trinidad and Tobago. For Form 6, I did Maths, Chemistry, Physics, and Music. I actually really wasn’t sure what I wanted to do for my career, but a teacher got me interested in Psychology and so I decided to pursue this. I did my undergraduate degree in Psychology at The University of the West Indies. However, after this I felt more compelled to do Music, so I came to Bristol University and did a Master’s degree in Music theory (I should add that before this I had completed Grade 8 in Music Theory and a first level performance diploma in violin – so it wasn’t an arbitrary jump). I worked in music for several years (teaching violin, music theory, and composition including at university level, and doing orchestral conducting studies in London and Berlin).
In 2019, I decided I wanted to do Psychology again – I know Music helps people, but I felt like I wanted to do something a bit more directly involving people. Following up on my fascination with the brain, I returned to Bristol University and did my MSc in Applied Neuropsychology. The funny thing is that I didn’t actually know if I wanted to be a Neuropsychologist (which is a clinically oriented career), but I knew I wanted to learn more about the brain. During this programme, I discovered my love for research related to the brain – especially in the areas of emotion and decision-making. This eventually led me to consider PhD studies, and now here I am at Bristol pursuing my PhD in Psychology!
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Qualifications:
CSEC (Caribbean O’Level equivalent) – 7 1’s (A’s) , 1 2 (B)
CAPE (Caribbean A’Level equivalent) – half units: 5 1’s, 2 2’s, 1 3, plus an A in GCE A’Level Music
BSc in Psychology (UWI St. Augustine, Trinidad) – First class honours, Faculty Valedictorian
LRSM in Violin Performance
MA in Music (Bristol) – Merit
MSc in Applied Neuropsychology (Bristol) – Distinction, and award for top research project
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Work History:
After my undergrad in Psych and then my Master’s in Music, I did a combination of tutoring Psychology and lecturing Music (teaching violin and composition), I also did a bit of orchestral conducting, including forming a university orchestra.
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My Interview
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How would you describe yourself in 3 words?
Musician, curious, people-lover
What did you want to be after you left school?
I actually had no idea! I know I loved music, and I also found Psychology fascinating
Were you ever in trouble at school?
Nope!
If you weren't doing this job, what would you choose instead?
Probably Orchestral conductor
Who is your favourite singer or band?
I'm a classical musician, so I'd say the violinist Julia Fischer
What's your favourite food?
Anything flavourful, especially a curry
If you had 3 wishes for yourself what would they be? - be honest!
One wish would be to have enough time to do everything I want to do at a really high level. Another wish would probably be to help find all animals a home. Not sure about a third wish just yet!
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