Annual symposia

Professor Martin Meissner, Technical University of Munich (TUM)

'Intelligent user assistance in VR'

Prof Meissner is a professor of Digital Marketing. His research explores the intersection of social media, digitisation, and consumer decision-making, with a strong focus on influencer marketing, eye-tracking, and immersive technologies such as augmented and virtual reality.
Martin earned his PhD in Business Administration from Bielefeld University and completed a research stay at Monash University in Australia. Before joining TUM, he was a Professor at Zeppelin University and served as Associate Professor at the University of Southern Denmark. His work has appeared in leading journals, including the Journal of Marketing Research, and Information Systems Research.

Associate Professor Elisa Cavatorta, Vice Dean (International), Faculty of Social Science and Public Policy, King’s College London

'Learning Conflict-Resolution Using Immersive Virtual Reality: A Proof-of-Concept Study'

A/Prof Cavatorta is an Associate Professor in Economics at King’s College London and. Her research focuses on innovative ways to reduce conflict, foster positive behavioural change, and develop new tools to measure human behaviour. Working at the intersection of economics, psychology, and computer science, she combines experiments, applied econometrics, and data science to address policy-relevant questions in development, public policy, and behavioural science.
A/Prof Cavatorta has extensive experience in evaluating interventions and designing measurement tools that capture complex social and psychological dynamics. A central theme of her work is exploring how technology-based interventions, particularly those using virtual reality, can build resilience and social skills, and support peacebuilding and cooperation in the real world. A/Prof Cavatort is keen to collaborate with organisations, research groups, and companies using VR in education, professional training, and mental health, and who share a vision of technology that promotes inclusion and social impact.

Dr Robert Cuthbert, University of Queensland

'Enhancing Motivation and Decision-Making Through Virtual Reality (health/rehab applications)'

Dr Cuthbert is a postdoctoral research fellow at the RECOVER Injury Research Centre (UQ), where he works within the technology-enabled rehabilitation team to advance health services through technology innovation. His PhD research explored the use of Virtual Reality (VR) for burn injury rehabilitation, designing with burn survivors and clinicians to create and evaluate a tailored VR therapy prototype.
Dr Cuthbert now leads projects using VR to support decision making with powered wheelchairs and develops AI powered conversational agents that help people with traumatic brain injury (TBI) practice interview skills and build communication confidence. His research focuses on applying serious games, VR, and AI to improve rehabilitation outcomes and patient engagement.

Zhongwen Chen, Department of Economics, Monash Business School

'Economic Decisions in Virtual Reality'

Ms Chen’s research interest lies in behavioral and experimental economics, with a focus on motivated beliefs together with its associated economic decisions, primarily through the application of game theory and experimental methods. In particular, she adopts information technology to study human cognition and behavior, utilizing modern tools such as digital nudging, virtual reality and machine learning.
Ms Chen was Manager of the Monash Laboratory of Experimental Economics (MonLEE) from 2022 to 2024 and Coordinator of the Behavioural, Experimental, and Theory (BET) research group meetings in the Department of Economics from 2022 to 2025.

Dr Lucy Albertella, QIMR Berghofer

'Assessing and Harnessing Dynamic Cognitive Fitness to Optimise Job Performance in High-Pressure Occupations'

Dr Albertella obtained her PhD from UNSW in 2017. She was a research fellow at BrainPark, Monash University between 2017 and 2024, and started at QIMR Berghofer in 2025. She leads a team of researchers focusing on developing new tools, methods, and insights to better understand how cognitive risk and protective factors interact across the spectrum of mental health. She is also an Adjunct Associate Professor at the Opportunity Tech Lab, Monash University.
Dr Albertella has developed a range of measures being used world-wide to advance theoretical models and reveal new transdiagnostic risk and resilience profiles predicting compulsivity versus adaptability and optimal functioning in dynamic, high-pressure occupations. Dr Albertella has published over 70 peer-reviewed papers, most in leading journals in her field, and is currently Associate Editor for Neuroscience and Biobehavioral Reviews and Comprehensive Psychiatry.

Associate Professor Georgios Christopoulos, Nanyang Technological University

'When AI Goes Wrong: Behavioural Strategies to Repair Failures'

A/Prof Christopoulos employs both traditional and innovative approaches—including wearable devices, computerised testing, and brain neuroimaging—to study how environmental and design factors influence performance, wellbeing, and decision-making among office workers, entrepreneurs, control room operators, and university students.
His research focuses on three key areas: human decision-making and interactions with AI agents, the onset and effects of cognitive fatigue and recovery, and how indoor and outdoor architectural design can enhance human performance, wellbeing, and learning. This interdisciplinary work has been published in leading journals and featured in international media.

Professor Ofir Turel, University of Melbourne

'The Psychology of Cybersecurity Incidents: Perpetrators and Victims'

Prof Turel is a Professor of Information Systems Management and the information systems group co-lead at the University of Melbourne. Previously he has held appointments with California State University and the University of Southern California, and had various fellowships in Asia and Europe. He has published over 230 papers in leading information systems journals on the FT-50 list, such as MIS Quarterly, Journal of MIS, and MIT Sloan Management Review, as well as in leading psychology and psychiatry outlets, such as Addiction, Journal of Psychiatric Research, Addiction Biology, and Behavioural Brain Research.
Prof Turel has been recognised in the top 2% of researchers worldwide in a study by Stanford University. His research has also been featured in numerous media outlets, including the Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, NY Post, The Daily Mail, CBC, C|net, Times Higher Education, Rolling Stone, PBS, and TV and radio stations, globally. He is currently a Senior Editor for MIS Quarterly.

Karlo Doroc, University of Melbourne

'Complex Decision-Making Under Stress: Shallower Search and Impaired Decision Quality at Different Levels of Computational Hardness'

Mr Doroc recently submitted his PhD in Decision, Risk, and Financial Sciences at the University of Melbourne, working under the supervision of Carsten Murawski and Nitin Yadav. Using laboratory and online experiments, he focuses on how the structure of task environments and the cognitive capacities of individuals affect people's ability to solve problems and make good decisions.
Drawing from cognitive science, experimental economics, and computational complexity theory, he studies how the cognitive resources available to a person interact with the computational resource requirements of the problem at hand to shape decision-making. Prior to his PhD, Karlo worked in the financial industry for 7 years with PwC, NAB, and Link Group.

Professor Kristian Rotaru, Department of Accounting, Monash Business School

'Biophysiological Stress Responses and Leadership Decisions'

Prof Rotaru is a decision scientist and Professor of Accounting at Monash Business School. He chairs the Monash Business Behavioural Laboratory Steering Committee and is Associate Director of the Opportunity Tech Lab.Prof Rotaru is a pioneer of neuroaccounting, integrating eye-tracking, cognitive pupillometry, electrodermal and heart rate measures, and virtual reality to study judgement and decision-making under stress, uncertainty, and cognitive load.
His work informs inclusive assessment, public policy, and organisational performance. Recent projects include a DSS-funded consortium co-designing VR modules to support open employment for people with intellectual disabilities, alongside the development of ecological cognitive assessment tools. He directs the PhD program in Accounting and leads partnerships translating behavioural research into practical tools for safer, fairer decisions. He is the editor of Behavioral Research in Accounting.

Professor Harmen Oppewal, Department of Marketing, Monash Business School

Prof Oppewal is a Professor of Marketing in the Monash Business School. He holds degrees in geography, psychology and urban planning. His research centres on consumer decision making in retail and related contexts, often using experimental and choice modelling methods. He published in leading journals in marketing such as the Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of Marketing Research and Journal of Retailing and in planning, tourism and transport. He was a founding member and chair of the MBBL steering committee. Current research interests include assortments, destination choice, information overload, impulse buying, preference formation, pricing, and store atmosphere. Several of his projects involve the use of psychophysiological and eye-tracking measures.

Associate Professor Kristian Rotaru, Monash Business Behavioural Laboratory, Monash Business School

A/Prof Rotaru is a decision scientist working across a variety of business disciplines, including accounting information systems, finance, economics, and operations management. He also conducts research in cognitive psychology, with a focus on impulsive and compulsive behaviours, emotional regulation and wellbeing.

He is the Chair of the Steering Committee at the Monash Business Behavioural Laboratory, Associate Director at the Opportunity Tech Lab, and Graduate Research Program Director in the Department of Accounting, Monash Business School.