Research activity

Biographical note

EDUCATION

Currently: Doctoral student at the University of Geneva (faculty of psychology) and the Swiss Center for Affective Sciences, Geneva, Switzerland. Supervisors: Didier Grandjean and Klaus Scherer.

August 2006: MSc summa cum laude in Cognitive Neuroscience, Utrecht University, Utrecht, the Netherlands

October 2005 – September 2006: Research Assistant at the Geneva Emotion Research Group, Geneva, Switzerland. Research project: Investigating processing levels in emotional appraisal with EEG. Supervisors: Didier Grandjean and Klaus Scherer.

January – September 2005: Internship at the Affective Neuroscience section, Psychonomics department, Helmholtz Institute, Utrecht University. Research project: Studying emotion and emotion regulation with EEG, repetitive TMS, and autonomic measures. Supervisors: Jack van Honk and Dennis Schutter.

September 2004 – August 2006: Master’s Programme of Cognitive Neuroscience at Utrecht University, Utrecht, Netherlands.

September 2003 – May 2004: Exchange student, Undergraduate Psychology Program, Concordia University, Montreal, Canada.

October 2001 – July 2003: “DEUG de Psychologie”, Université Louis Pasteur, Strasbourg, France.

October 2000 – July 2001: Sport and French studies, University Leipzig, Germany.

EXPERIENCES AND SKILLS

• June 7-10, 2009: Participation at the Eighth EEGLAB Workshop in Aspet, France. Organizers/speakers: Arnaud Delorme, Scott Makeig, Robert Oostenveld, Filipa Campo Viola.
• March 21, 2009: Participation at g.tec's Brain Computer Interface Workshop in San Francisco, USA. Organizers and speakers: Gunther Krausz & Peter Brunner.
• Februar 11-13, 2009: Participation at the SPM Course 2009 at the University Zurich, Switzerland. Organizers: Klaas Enno Stephan & Marina Patzen.
• December 2-5, 2008: Participation at the training course fMRI Analysis using SPM, University of Geneva, Switzerland. Organizers: Dr. Grandjean & Dr. N’Diaye.
• February 8, 2008: Co-organized (with Sébastien Hauger) the round table “Les enjeux de l’utilisation des outils des neuroscientifiques dans le procès pénal” at the University of Geneva. Neuroscientists, theoreticians and practicing law scholars, a philosopher and a psychiatrist discussed on the role of neuroscientific discoveries and tools in the penal process.
• February - May 2004: Internship at the Institut de Réadaptation de Montréal. Work with patients suffering from cerebral trauma.
• September 1999 - July 2000: Civil-service, Arbeiterwohlfahrt, Freiburg, Germany. Work with bodily disabled.
• Computer skills: MS Office, EPrime, Matlab, Eeglab, Cartool, Vision Analyzer, SPSS, Statistica, EndNote
• Languages: fluent in German, Italian, French, English; beginner in Dutch and Spanish
  

TEACHING

• 2007-2008: Teaching assistant in psychology (“Travaux pratiques: Processus émotionnels, aspects neurophysiologiques et psychophysiologiques” teached by D. Grandjean, Ph.D., University of Geneva)
• Several one-day-teachings about the psychology and neuroscience of emotion and emotion regulation for children (11 years old) of the International School of Geneva - Campus des Nations, Geneva, Switzerland. (five times from March 2006 until November 2009)

MEMBERSHIPS

• Association of Psychological Science (APS): Member (2008 - )
• Cognitive Neuroscience Society (CNS): Member (2008 - )
• Swiss Society for Neuroscience: Member (2007 - )

Current research

My current research focuses on the neural bases of the production of voluntary, spontaneous, and suppressed facial expressions. Automatic facial mimicry interests me as one form of spontaneous facial expression. I am using EEG and facial EMG. 

RESEARCH INTERESTS

• Emotion psychology
• Affective neuroscience
• Emotion regulation
• Neural correlates of the perception and production of facial expression of emotion
• Facial mimicry
• Mirror neurons
• EEG, EMG, TMS, fMRI

List of publications

Posters & oral presentations

• Korb, S., Grandjean, D., Samson, A.C., Delplanque, S., Scherer, K.R. Voluntary suppression of smiling to amusing visual stimuli – an EEG/EMG study. Poster presented at the 5th Alpine Brain Imaging Meeting, January 13-18, 2010, Champéry, Switzerland.
• Korb, S., Grandjean, D., & Scherer, K. Humor perception and emotion regulation – an EEG study. Presentation given at the 11th Congress of the Swiss Psychological Society, August 19-20, 2009, Neuchâtel, Switzerland.
• Korb, S., Grandjean, D., & Scherer, K. Active suppression of facial movement diminishes but does not abolish automatic facial mimicry. Poster presented at the 16th Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Neuroscience Society, March 21st-24th, 2009, San Francisco, USA.
• Korb, S., Grandjean, D., & Scherer, K. Facilitation and interference effects on the production of smiles in an emotional Go/NoGo task. Poster presented at the 4th Alpine Brain Imaging Meeting, January 11-15, 2009, Champéry, Switzerland.
• Korb, S., Grandjean, D., & Scherer, K. Investigating the production of emotional facial expressions: a combined electroencephalographic (EEG) and electromyographic (EMG) approach. Presentation given at the 8th IEEE International Conference on Automatic Face and Gesture Recognition (FG 2008), September 17-19, 2008, Amsterdam, the Netherlands.
• Korb, S., Grandjean, D., & Scherer, K. Investigating neural activity of the production of facial expression with electroencephalography (EEG) and electromyography (EMG). Presentation given at the IM2 & Affective Sciences Summer Institute, September 1-3, 2008, Riederalp, Switzerland. 
• Korb, S., Grandjean, D., & Scherer, K. The neuromotor antecedents of emotion regulation in the face. Poster presented at the XXIX International Congress of Psychology, July 21-25, 2008, Berlin, Germany.
• Korb, S., Grandjean, D., & Scherer, K. Suppressing smiles - neuromotor antecedents of facial emotion regulation. Poster presented at the 6th FENS Forum of European Neuroscience, July 12-16, 2008, Geneva, Switzerland.
• Korb, S., Grandjean, D., & Scherer, K. Emotion regulation and facial expression: an EEG/EMG study. Poster presented at the Alpine Brain Imaging Meeting, January 14-19, 2007, Champéry, Switzerland.
• Korb, S., Grandjean, D., & Scherer, K. The neural bases of intrinsic pleasantness and goal conduciveness. Testing appraisal theory of emotion with EEG. Poster presented at ‘Mind the Brain 2006’, symposium of the Master’s of Neuroscience and Cognition of Utrecht University, April 25-26, 2006, Utrecht, Netherlands.
• Korb, S., Schutter, D., Enter, D., & Van Honk, J. Increased anxiety and bilateral prefrontal alpha activity after inhibitory repetitive Transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS) over the left dorsolateral prefrontal cortex. Poster presented at the Alpine Brain Imaging Meeting, January 22-26, 2006, Champéry, Switzerland.
• Korb, S. Investigating the affective circuitry of the brain with Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation. Presentation given at the Symposium of the Master’s of Neuroscience and Cognition of Utrecht University, April 26-26,2005, Utrecht, Netherlands.
• Korb, S., & Segalowitz, N. Reviewing past tense inflection in the Words-and-Rules theory. Poster presented at the first Concordia University Undergraduate Research Day, April 2004, Montreal, Canada.

List of publications