Christopher Burke

Research

I use behavioral and neuroimaging methods to investigate how people make value-based decisions and learn from rewards or punishments. I am particularly interested in how the brain integrates different forms of information (such as expected value, uncertainty and social information) in order to generate optimal behavior, drawing on concepts from animal learning theory, reinforcement learning and behavioral ecology. Prior to arriving in Zurich, I obtained my undergraduate degree (natural sciences) and PhD (neuroscience) at the University of Cambridge. My PhD focused on how social influence is processed in the brain, with particular emphasis on herd behavior and observational learning.