Professor Anina Rich is based in Sydney, Australia, where she currently holds an Australian Research Council Future Fellowship for her cognitive neuroscience work on attention. She studies the workings of the human brain and the cognitive processes underlying attention and multisensory integration. Professor Rich completed her PhD at the University of Melbourne before receiving a National Health & Medical Research Council/Menzies postdoctoral fellowship to work at Harvard Medical School.
She returned to Australia in 2007 to take up a continuing position at Macquarie University where she is now the Director of Cognitive & Neuroscience Research at the Macquarie University Performance and Expertise Research Centre. Professor Rich is active in science communication, and exploring solutions to address inequity. She has developed multiple mentoring programs for undergraduate students from underrepresented backgrounds, equity and diversity frameworks, and is a strong advocate for science-based policy development.
She is actively involved in the Australasian Cognitive Neuroscience Society, in which she is a founding member and past President. Professor Rich is also an alumna of the Global Young Academy, where she served on the Executive Committee for two terms and co-led the Importance of Fundamental Science Working Group.