About the awardee

Dr. Sarah Meissner completed her PhD at the Institute of Clinical Neuroscience and Medical Psychology at the Heinrich-Heine-University Düsseldorf after completing her Master of Science in Psychology at the University of Konstanz. Currently, she is a postdoctoral researcher at the Neural Control of Movement Lab at ETH Zurich and is interested in brain functions, their regulation and their role for other bodily functions and (mental) health. In recent years, with the support of a Spark Grant from the Swiss National Science Foundation, Sarah has developed a pupil-based biofeedback method that is based on the link between the eye’s pupil size and the arousal state of the human brain. This method allows for a voluntary regulation of the brain’s arousal, a state that has crucial implications for brain and other bodily functions. Last year, Sarah has been awarded with a Starting Grant from the Swiss National Science Foundation to investigate the mechanisms and clinical applicability of this pupil-based method in more detail in the future.