Dr Haiko Ballieux

Dr Haiko Ballieux


Haiko Ballieux graduated with an MSc in Developmental and Experimental Psychology from the University of Amsterdam, as well as an MSc in Cognitive Science at the Cognitive Science Centre Amsterdam (Institute for Interdisciplinary Studies).

In 2006, Haiko moved to London for a Marie Curie PhD Fellowship at the Centre for Brain and Cognitive Development (CBCD) at Birkbeck College (under supervision of Denis Mareschal), where he used both eye-tracking and behavioural measures to investigate infant object perception, action perception and action production/imitation.

After finishing his PhD in 2010 Haiko worked both as a researcher and a lecturer at the University of East London (UEL). In September 2013 he moved to the University of Westminster where he works as a Senior Lecturer and researcher in Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience. Haiko is a member of the 'Comparative Cognition Group', a collaboration of researchers from a number of mainly London based researchers (set up by prof Gillian Forrester from Sussex University).


In 2006 Haiko moved to London for a Marie Curie Fellowship PhD at the Centre for Brain and Cognitive Development at Birkbeck (BBK; graduated without corrections in Dec 2010), after which he worked on a Nuffield Foundation funded project at the Babylab of the Institute for Research in Child Development, University of East London (UEL). In this 3-year longitudinal project Haiko took eye-tracking equipment into Sure Start Children’s Centres, to see whether individual differences in language and social communication in 6-month-olds correlate with the socio-economic and/or cultural background of the infants’ caregivers. 

Before the pandemic he joined the Comparative Cognition Group (CCG), set up by prof Gillian Forrester (University of Sussex).This group ran the 'Me, Human' project at the London Science Museum, investigating markers for cerebral lateralisation in the general public, taking a developmental evolutionary approach using several different tasks, including dichotic listening, eye-tracking, and NIRS (for more info see: mehuman.io). 

Haiko further supervised a PhD student who investigated the effects of a yoga and mindfulness meditation intervention in young teenagers in a central London school. He currently supervises a PhD student looking to adjust the Resilience Quotient Inventory (RQi) for HE students, as well as a PhD student investigating the cognitive effects of online listening with different sonic qualities.


  • Cognitive Neuroscience
  • Centre for Psychological Sciences