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usman-afzali/README.md

Welcome to my GitHub page!

I am the lead researcher (principal investigator) of the Muslim Diversity Study, currently working as a postdoctoral research fellow and lecturer in the School of Psychology, Speech and Hearing at the University of Canterbury (Christchurch, New Zealand).

In the multi-city longitudinal Muslim Diversity Study, my team and I concentrate on investigating the effects of religion on social attitudes, values, resilience, flourishing, meaning-making, overall well-being, and experiences of Muslims in New Zealand. In this capacity, I lead a team of 28 research assistants and numerous collaborators, fostering a collaborative and enriching research environment.

During PhD, I received training in cognitive psychology and neuroscience, with a primary emphasis on memory suppression and utilising brainwave (EEG/ERP) data to examine possession of criminal knowledge. Additionally, my research encompasses contemplative neuroscience, where I aim to explore neural correlates of contemplative practices.

I use experimental (behavioural as well as neuroscientific) and observational research methods.

Since the end of 2022, I have been using GitHub with RStudio and Quarto to learn, produce, and share code. Occasionally, I use Matlab and Python too.

Fields of Research

  • Human flourishing
  • Psychology of religion
  • Contemplative neuroscience
  • Cognitive psychology: memory suppression
  • Forensic neuroscience

Current projects

  1. As PI and postdoctoral research fellow in the Muslim Diversity Study.

  2. As PI in Controlling unwanted memories: A multisite registered replication of the Think/No-Think effect

  3. As PI in Resting EEG microstates during contemplative practices

  4. As PI in the Artificial Intelligence-Based Crime Detection in Aotearoa: Real-life and Virtual Reality Applications

Research Supervision

Since 2021, I have developed a track record of effective leading and supervising research at different levels (PhD, Masters, and Honours).

Teaching

My experience encompasses teaching statistics, research methods, cognitive psychology, and neuroscience, consistently earning positive feedback each year. I take pride in my ability to embrace constructive criticism and continuously enhance my teaching approach. Currently, I teach the following courses:

  1. Postgraduate Computational Contemplative-Neuroscience (2023-Present)

  2. Undergraduate Intermediate Research Methods and Statistics (2022-2024)

Career Goals

My immediate goal is to become a permanent (tenure-track) lecturer in psychology. Psychology and science fascinate me a great deal and my lifelong goal is to conduct good science and contribute to open science.

For more information, please check my website.

Pinned

  1. PSYC344 PSYC344 Public

    This repository contains code for statistics labs and website of PSYC344 (Intermediate Research Methods and Statistics) taught University of Canterbury.

    JavaScript

  2. PSYC480 PSYC480 Public

    This repository contains code for the website of the postgraduate course, PSYC480 (Computational Contemplative-Neuroscience), at University of Canterbury.

    JavaScript

  3. matlab matlab Public

    Code for MATLAB generally focusing on EEG/ERP analysis

    MATLAB