Dr Carien van Reekum is a Professor at the University of Reading and affiliated with the Centre of Integrative Neuroscience and Neurodynamics. Carien’s research interests are focused on affective neuroscience and aims to better understand the brain mechanisms involved in emotion elicitation and adaptive regulation of emotion, how emotion and emotion regulation change across the lifespan and how changes in the brain with advancing age may impact emotion reactivity and regulation. Carien also studies affect-cognition interaction and how emotion influences attention and subsequent processing of information, and how attentional focus influences emotion. Carien is the Director of the Brain Emotion and Cognition (BEC) lab, she locally manages ongoing research in the CINN pain lab and is crucial to the mentoring and development of PhDs and early career researchers in the lab.