I am a Senior Lecturer in the School of Psychology at the University of Aberdeen. Ben Jones and I head the Face Research Lab.

This webpage is about my research on kin recognition, facial resemblance and face processing. Specifically, I am interested in how humans use facial resemblance to tell who their kin are and how people respond to cues of kinship in different circumstances. I am also interested in how the visual system learns about faces and what visual adaptation effects can tell us about the face processing system. I have published more than 100 papers in peer-reviewed journals on these topics.

I was recently appointed to the Royal Society of Edinburgh's inaugural Young Academy. I am on the committee and run the website for EHBEA, the European Human Behaviour and Evolution Association. I am also a Council Member at Large from the Human Behavior and Evolution Society.

I completed my PhD in 2004 in the Daly-Wilson Lab and in 2006 completed an NSF International Fellowship at the University of St Andrews, working with David Perrett.

  • 22 May 2012 » Submissions are now open for the 12 October ECCV interdisciplinary workshop, What's in a Face?, for which Lisa is on the programme committee.
  • 01 May 2012 » We are now seeking applications for a Postdoctoral Researcher and Research Assistant for a five-year ERC-funded project on hormone-mediated perception and behaviour.
  • 27 April 2012 » Our paper on the link between women's testosterone levels and face preferences is currently one of Hormones and Behaviour's ten most cited papers from the last five years. Ben's paper with Tony Little on the effect of menstrual cycle phase on women's preferences for masculine male body shapes is also on the same list.
  • 25 April 2012 » Our paper on kin recognition with our colleague, Danny Krupp, has been accepted for publication at Journal of Evolutionary Biology.
  • 13 April 2012 » Lisa has been awarded the Human Behavior and Evolution Society's Early Career Award for Distinguished Scientific Contribution, which will be presented to her at the annual conference in New Mexico (USA) this June.
  • 10 April 2012 » A paper reporting some of our recent work on facial adiposity has been accepted for publication in the British Journal of Psychology. This work was led by Rowan Tinlin, one our MRes students, and it is her first paper. Congratulations to Rowan. (read more...)
  • 25 February 2012 » Congratulations to Michelle Quist who, having received a distinction for her MRes in the lab, has secured a fully-funded PhD studentship at the University of Houston.
  • 01 February 2012 » We welcome Corey Fincher, our new ESRC-funded postdoctoral research fellow.
  • 29 November 2011 » We have been awarded 1.35 million euros by the European Research Council (ERC) for a five-year project to further explore the effects of endogenous and exogenous hormones on various aspects of face perception.
  • 10 November 2011 » Lisa has been named a ‘Rising Star’ by the APS Observer.
  • 05 September 2011 » Lisa was one of 68 academics, entrepreneurs, artists and professionals in Scotland appointed to the Royal Society of Edinburgh's inaugural Young Academy.
  • Older news »

Disclaimer: The information found and the views expressed in these homepages are not the responsibility of the University of Aberdeen nor do they reflect institutional policy.