Special Seminar with Mac Shine, The University of Sydney

• Date: Wednesday, July 8, 2026

• Time: 11:00am

• Location: Singleton Auditorium (46-3002, Third Fl of MIT Building 46)

• Faculty Host & Contact: Laura Lewis, ldlewis@mit.edu

Talk Title: Multiscale thalamocortical mechanisms supporting the states and contents of consciousness

Bio: I am a Professor of Systems Neuroscience at the University of Sydney, Australia — the first chair in Systems Neuroscience appointed at this level in the country. I lead the Shine Lab within the Adaptive Dynamical Systems group, a multidisciplinary research team spanning neuroimaging, neurobiology, and computation, with a focus on understanding the systems-level mechanisms that govern cognitive function in health and disease. My work uses multimodal neuroimaging techniques, most notably functional MRI, to explore how communication between brain regions gives rise to dynamic patterns of activity that underlie both normal cognition and impairments in neuropsychiatric disease.

After graduating with a medical degree from the University of Sydney in 2007, I completed my medical residency and obtained medical registration in Australia. I subsequently completed my PhD, in which I explored brain network abnormalities associated with symptoms of Parkinson's disease, including freezing of gait and visual hallucinations. In 2014, I was awarded a CJ Martin Fellowship by the National Health and Medical Research Council, which I used to work with Professor Russell Poldrack at Stanford University.

Since returning to Australia, I have worked to build the field of systems neuroscience locally and globally. I co-founded the Systems Neuroscience and Complexity consortium in 2018, a research initiative aimed at bridging scales of neural organisation, and developed NEUR3006, an advanced undergraduate course in neuroimaging at the University of Sydney. I previously served as Chair of the Organisation for Human Brain Mapping (OHBM) Australia chapter, and I am currently serving as Program Chair Elect for OHBM — one of the leading international bodies in human neuroimaging. Beyond my research and administrative roles, I contribute to the broader scientific community as a writer for The Transmitter and as an active leader in integrative systems neuroscience, working to shape how the field understands dynamic brain organisation across multiple scales.