Prof Dr Bernadette Jansma, Ph.D. (B.M.)

Aiming at getting wiser every day.

Bernadette's core research is on  language processing, using advanced neuroimaging methods.

Projects and people see

https://mbic-languagelab.nl/en/

Publications can be found via research gate

https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Bernadette-Jansma

Bernadette received her PHD in 1997 at the Max Planck Institute in Nijmegen on language production. In 1997-98 she was awarded a McDonnell Pew and a German Academic Exchange (DAAD) Postdoc fellowship to work at UCSD San Diego on the time course of information selection in language production. Since 1998, she is affiliated with the UM to develop and strengthen the research field of Cognitive Neuroscience. 

She investigates fundamental aspects of lexical access, i.e. how we select words for speaking and how we understand them. Her team uses EEG and fMRI imaging methods to study underlying neural dynamics. Among other things, she proposed a theory on how we deal with pronouns in speaking and comprehension. She also contributes to understanding language processing in patients with classic galactosemia, a rare metabolic disease. Her transfer of imaging methods into health communication research contributed to quantifying the effectiveness of some communication styles.

Next to her core research, she contributed to building up the FPN Cognitive Neuroscience research line as well as related training programs, among them the FPN research master “Cognitive and Clinical Neuroscience”, the graduate school “EU Marie Curie Initial Training Network NeuroPhysics” (FP8 grant 2009-2013, 12 PhDs), and the NWO graduate program “Methods in Neuroimaging” (NWO, 4 PhDs, 2010-2014). She has been Dean of the Faculty Psychology and Neuroscience from 2009 to 2016, and dean of the faculty of Humanities and Sciences (FHS) to transfer it into the Faculty of Science and Engineering (FSE), 2016-18.

Bernadette contributed to international and interfaculty education and research programs University College Maastricht (UCM), Maastricht Science Program (MSP), and University College Venlo (UCV), the building of the Maastricht Centre for Systems Biology (MaCSbio), the Centre for Integrative Neuroscience (CIN), and ultra-Highfield imaging at UM BrainsUnlimited. She supported the amplification of natural science and engineering at UM (FSE, 2018). She chaired supporting processes, among them the building up of a new UM website and the student portal (2015-17). Since 2024, she is chair of the supervisory board of Donders Institute (DI) and Donders Centre for Cognitive Neuroimaging (DCCN), Radboud University. 

She loves to supervise students at BA/MA and PHD level in psychology and cognitive neuroscience.