A monochromatic profile photo of Susanne Ferber sitting on a narrow, wooden stairwell with brick walls on both sides. She is looking to our right, and is smiling. Her hair is pulled back in a ponytail. She is wearing plastic-framed, oblong-shaped glasses, a black sweater, and a black necklace with a charm hanging from it.

Susanne Ferber Appointed Head of Department of Psychology

By Abby Simmons Email Abby Simmons

Abby Simmons

Carnegie Mellon University has named Susanne Ferber head of the Department of Psychology, a pioneer and leader in cognitive science, cognitive neuroscience, artificial intelligence, developmental, social and health psychology.

Effective Aug. 1, Ferber succeeds Michael J. Tarr, who has served as department head since 2014. Tarr, the Kavčić-Moura University Professor of Cognitive and Brain Science, will remain on the faculty of the Psychology Department and Neuroscience Institute, with courtesy appointments in the Machine Learning Department and Robotics Institute.

“Mike Tarr has been an outstanding head of psychology, and before that an outstanding director of the Center for the Neural Basis of Cognition,” said Richard Scheines, Bess Family Dean of the Dietrich College of Humanities and Social Sciences. “Mike is one of the people I have relied on for wise counsel and innovative ideas for the entire 10 years I have been dean, and I will continue to seek his advice.

“Susanne Ferber was overwhelmingly the enthusiastic choice to be the next head among the Department of Psychology’s faculty and everyone else we consulted. She is not only a top-notch scholar but also an experienced and clearly gifted leader. I couldn’t be more excited to welcome her to the outstanding group of heads now in leadership at Dietrich College.”

Ferber most recently was a faculty member at University of Toronto’s Department of Psychology, where she served as chair from 2014 to 2020.

“I feel honored and privileged to have been appointed head of psychology at CMU. I remember reading papers from CMU faculty during my graduate education, hoping that, some day, I may be able to meet some of these researchers in person. Calling them colleagues now is a dream come true,” Ferber said. “I am tremendously excited about the opportunities in psychology, across the CMU community and in the City of Pittsburgh.“

Her research focuses on understanding the cognitive and neural processes that support awareness of perception. Ferber’s work speaks to basic principles of the neural representation of visual cognition and visually guided action. Her lab’s methodological approaches include the investigation of cognitive impairments in neurological patients (for example, patients with spatial neglect or simultanagnosia), cognitive experiments in healthy individuals, and examination of brain activity with modern neuroimaging techniques like fMRI and EEG.

Ferber has published over 70 papers in the field of cognitive neuroscience and has served on the editorial board of various journals. Her work has been supported by research grants from the Canada Foundation for Innovation – Leaders Opportunities Fund, Canadian Institutes of Health Research, Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada, and the Heart and Stroke Foundation.

In addition, she has received numerous awards and honors, including an Early Researcher Award from the Province of Ontario and a fellowship award from the German-American Academic Council.

Ferber completed a Ph.D. at the University of Osnabruck, Germany, followed by a postdoctoral fellowship at the University of Western Ontario, Canada.