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Rick van der Zwan

Southern Cross University

• Associate Professor, School of Health & Human Sciences (Psychology)
• Co-director, Laboratory for Cognitive Neuroscience and Behaviour
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Rick van der Zwan BSc(Hons) PhD(USyd) 

Associate Professor Rick van der Zwan obtained a BSc from the University of Sydney. His
majors were in Psychology and Anatomy and he went on to achieve First Class Honours in
Psychology. Then, under the supervision of Professor Peter Wenderoth, Rick completed his
PhD. He worked on Binocular Rivalry, examining the neural mechanisms by which information
from both eyes are integrated to give coherent perceptions, led to his winning a
postdoctoral appointment with Professor Esther Peterhans in the Department of Neurology
at the University Hospital in Zurich. There Rick worked on monkey models of visual
cortical processing with Professor Peterhans and Dr Rudi Baumann. 

In 1995 Rick was invited to take up a lectureship in the Department of Psychology at the
University of Sydney. In 2001 he moved to James Cook University where he was campus
coordinator and Head of Discipline on the Cairns campus. Rick moved to Southern Cross
University (SCU) in 2003 to lead the development of the research programme of the
Department of Psychology and has set up the University's first research labs in
Coffs Harbour. 

At SCU Rick and Dr Anna Brooks have developed strong and internationally recognised
research and teaching programmes in cognitive neuroscience. They have active
collaborations with Professor Olaf Blanke, Head of the Laboratory of Cognitive
Neuroscience at the Brain-Mind Institute, Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne of the
Eccole and with Professor Karl Verfaillie of the Department of Experimental Psychology,
Catholic University of Leuven in Belgium. As a result of that work, and other programmes
of research, Rick was invited, in 2005, to be a Priority Area Leader of the Australian
Research Council sponsored Human Communication Science Network Perception and Action
Priority Area. He and his team are currently investigating the neural mechanisms by which
humans recognise the actions of others. 

More recently, Dr Anna Brooks established a collaboration with Professor Jesse Purdy of
Southwestern University. Rick, Anna, and Jesse, working with Paige Sinclair (CEO of the
Pet Porpoise Pool, the Oceanarium at Coffs Harbour) have secured funding to develop an
Aquatic Animal Behavioural Research project on-site at the Pet Porpoise Pool. That
research project will see established a special facility for investigating the affect on
behaviours of various aquatic species (fishes and cetaceans) of changes to environmental
pressures. Planning is now underway for the facility and it is expected to be on-line as
an operational research facility early in 2009. 

In addition to that work his research group is working on aspects of mental health care
in Local Area Health Services and on the efficacy of parenting programmes being
implemented in Australia. In particular, and in collaboration with Professor Tom Phelan,
Rick and Dr Anna Brooks successfully applied for a collaborative grant to evaluate 1-2-3
Magic as an implemented and as an independently directed parenting programme. 

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