Ceci joined the lab in Sept 2017 and completed her PhD in 2023. Her research interests are in social communication and its underlying neurocognitive mechanism, with vocal communication (e.g., laughter) as the main focus.

Read more about Ceci Qing Cai@UCL.

Ceci Qing Cai (蔡晴) is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow in the Developmental Diversity Group at the Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience (ICN), University College London. During her PhD in Speech and Communication Group at ICN, she investigated the socio-emotional essence of laughter in social communication, expanding our current understanding from non-autistic adults to autistic adults, under the guidance of Prof Sophie K Scott and Dr Sarah J White. Her original work bridged diverse academic fields, incorporating methods from self-report questionnaires, to behavioural experiments, to neuroimaging (fMRI). In 2021, Ceci was honoured with an International Society for Autism Research (INSAR) Student and Trainee Award. In 2023, she received a UCL Fellowship Incubation Award, enabling her to further study laughter production in face-to-face conversation from a neurodiversity perspective. Prior to her PhD, she spent several years working in industry, as well as engaging in various volunteering activities related to developmental conditions.