Eileen Lueders

Natural Sciences Fellow, SCAS.
Associate Professor, School of Psychology, University of Auckland.
Visiting Professor, Uppsala University

Eileen Lueders was born and raised in Germany, where she also completed her BA and MA. She received
her Ph.D. in Neuroscience/Neuropsychology from the University of Zurich (2005) and underwent addi-
tional trainings in neuroimaging and human brain mapping at Harvard University and the University of
California, Los Angeles (UCLA). Lueders was appointed as postdoc, junior faculty, and senior faculty at
UCLA (2005–2017), before joining the University of Auckland as Associate Professor (2018) as well as
Uppsala University as Visiting Professor (2021).

Lueders' research is focused on understanding the human brain using structural magnetic resonance imaging.
Central themes of her studies are brain development and brain aging as well as brain asymmetry and brain
plasticity. Special topics include (I) meditation/mindfulness, (II) intelligence/cognition, and (III) aspects of
sex/gender, including the impact of sex hormones. In addition, Lueders is closely involved in clinical colla-
borations on various brain diseases and disorders. Her work has been cited widely and published in high-
profile journals, including Nature Neuroscience and Nature Protocols.

While at SCAS, Lueders will be conducting a large-scale project on the impact of menopause on the female
brain. Sex hormones are known to have a huge impact on brain structure, and menopause is marked by a
significant drop in estrogen and progesterone. Hence, women’s brains may change significantly during that
time. However, neuroimaging studies in the framework of menopause are sparse, and existing findings are
inconsistent. In her project, Lueders will analyze thousands of high-resolution structural brain images from
one of the largest data repositories in the world, applying state-of-the-art brain mapping methods.

Eileen Lueders is in residence in the spring of 2024.
This information is accurate as of the academic year 2023-24.