Joe Bathelt

Cognitive Neuroscientist

How do brains differ in how they master change, and what does this mean for learning and development? This question drives my research. I study cognitive diversity – for example, differences between autistic and non-autistic individuals – using the full range of cognitive neuroscience methods, including neuroimaging, genetics, behavioural assessments, and computational modelling.

My goal is to better understand the mechanisms that shape diverse developmental pathways, so that we can create environments where every child can live a happy and fulfilling life.

Note: Due to the high volume of enquiries, I am unable to respond to unsolicited emails regarding PhD supervision. Any open positions will be advertised on the UvA website:

Expertise

Cognitive Development

Development of cognitive skills, particularly attention, working memory, and other executive functions, between pre-school and adolescence.

Neuroimaging

Connectomics, tractography, cortical morphology; electroencephalography (EEG) for electrical neuroimaging and event-related potentials

Data Science

Advanced statistical methods including machine learning, factor analytic methods, and clustering methods; Analysis of complex systems using network science

Science Communication

Communicating science to expert audiences, including in peer-reviewed publications and at scientific meetings; general audiences, including parents and adolescents; and experts in education and clinical practice

Projects

IP-PAD

Interdisciplinary Perspectives on the Politics of Adolescence & Democracy

Centre for Attention, Learning, & Memory

A Transdiagnostic Approach to Diverse Neurodevelopment

Loneliness Across Development

Cognitive and Neural Mechanisms of Loneliness

Individual Experience in Autism

What Drives Variation in Experience?

Work Experience

2023 - present

Assistant Professor

Department of Psychology

University of Amsterdam

2020 - 2023

Lecturer

Department of Psychology

Royal Holloway, University of London

2019 - 2020

ABC Talent Grant Fellow

Dutch Autism & ADHD Research Center

University of Amsterdam

2015 - 2019

MRC Postdoctoral Fellow

MRC Cognition and Brain Sciences Unit

University of Cambridge

Education

2020 - 2022

Postgraduate Certificate in Academic Practice in Teaching and Learning

Qualification entails Fellowship of the Higher Education Academia (FHEA)

Royal Holloway, University of London

2011 - 2015

Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.)

UCL Great Ormond Street Institute of Child Health

University College London & Great Ormond Street Hospital for Children

2010 - 2011

Master of Science (M.Sc.)

Department of Physiology

University College London (UCL)

2007-2010

Bachelor of Science (B.Sc.)

Department of Biology

University of Tübingen

Publications

Bhatoa, R. S., Nijjar, S., Bathelt, J., & de Haan, M. (2025). The impact of gestational age on executive function in infancy and early-to-middle childhood following preterm birth: a systematic review. Child Neuropsychology: A Journal on Normal and Abnormal Development in Childhood and Adolescence, 1–41. https://doi.org/10.1080/09297049.2025.2467950

Benhamou, E., Akarca, D., Bathelt, J., Fletcher-Watson, S., & Astle, D. E. (2025). Population-level transitions in observed difficulties through childhood and adolescence. Developmental Psychology. https://doi.org/10.1037/dev0001874

Bathelt, J. (2024). Loneliness among first-year university students: Evaluating a peer support intervention. Psychology Teaching Review, 30(2), 7-16https://doi.org/10.53841/bpsptr.2024.30.2.7

Bathelt, J., Rastle, K., & Taylor, J. S. H. (2024). Relationship between resting state functional connectivity and reading-related behavioural measures in 69 adults. Neurobiology of Language, 5, 589–607. https://doi.org/10.1162/nol_a_00146

Pascalidis, J., & Bathelt, J. (2024). The “central” importance of loneliness in mental health: A network psychometric study. International Journal of Psychology. https://doi.org/10.1002/ijop.13133

Agelink van Rentergem, J., Bathelt, J., Geurts, H. M. (2022). Clinical subtyping using community detection: Limited utility? Journal of Methods in Psychiatric Research. https://doi.org/10.1002/mpr.1951

Deserno, M. K., Bathelt, J. (joint first author), Groenman, A. P., & Geurts, H. M. (2022). Probing the overarching continuum theory: data-driven phenotypic clustering of children with ASD or ADHD. European Child & Adolescent Psychiatry. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00787-022-01986-9

Xie, W., Bathelt, J. (joint first author), Fasman, A., Nelson, C. A., & Bosquet Enlow, M. (2022). Temperament and psychopathology: The "community" to which you belong matters. Child Development. https://doi.org/10.1111/cdev.13742

Bathelt, J., Geurts, H. M., & Borsboom, D. (2022). More than the sum of its parts: Merging network psychometrics and network neuroscience with application in autism. Network Neuroscience, 1–22. https://doi.org/10.1162/netn_a_00222/

Bathelt, J., Koolschijn, P. C. M., & Geurts, H. M. (2021). Atypically slow processing of faces and non-faces in older autistic adults. Autism, 13623613211065297. https://doi.org/10.1177/13623613211065297/p>

Visser, R. M., Bathelt, J. (joint first author), Scholte, H.S., & Kindt, M. (2021). Robust BOLD responses to faces but not to conditioned threat: challenging the amygdala's reputation in human fear and extinction learning. Journal of Neuroscience. https://doi.org/10.1523/JNEUROSCI.0857-21.2021

Blanken, T., Bathelt, J., Deserno, M. K., Voge, L., Borsboom, D., Douw, L. (2021). Connecting brain and behavior in clinical neuroscience: A network approach. Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neubiorev.2021.07.027

Bathelt, J., Vignoles, A., Astle, D. E. (2021). Just a phase? Mapping the transition of behavioural problems from childhood to adolescence. Social Psychiatry & Psychiatric Epidemiology https://doi.org/10.1007/s00127-020-02014-4

Astle, D. E., Johnson, A., Bathelt, J., Akarca, D., the RED team (2020). Far and Wide: Associations between childhood socio-economic status and brain connectomics. Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience https://doi.org/10.1016/j.dcn.2020.100888

Bathelt, J., Geurts, H.M. (2020). Difference in default mode network subsystems in autism across childhood and adolescence. Autism https://doi.org/10.1177/1362361320969258

Siugzdaite, R., Bathelt, J., Holmes, J., Astle, D. E. (2020). Transdiagnostic brain mapping in developmental disorders. Current Biology 30, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cub.2020.01.078

Bathelt, J., Koolschijn, P. C., Geurts, H. M., (2020). Age-variant and invariant features of functional brain organization in middle-aged and older autistic adults Molecular Autism 11(9), https://doi.org/10.1186/s13229-020-0316-y

Scheller, M., Garcia, S., Bathelt, J., de Haan, M., Petrine, K. (2019). Active touch facilitates object size perception in children but not adults: A multisensory event related potential study. Brain Research, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.brainres.2019.146381

Bathelt, J., Dale, N. J., de Haan, M., Clark, C. A. (2019). Brain structure in children with congenital visual disorders and visual impairment. Developmental Medicine and Child Neurology, https://doi.org/10.1111/dmcn.14322

Fuhrmann, D., Simpson-Kent, I. L., Bathelt, J., the CALM team, & Kievit, R. A. (2019). A hierarchical watershed model of fluid intelligence in childhood and adolescence. Cerebral Cortex, https://doi.org/10.1093/cercor/bhz091

Rennie, J. P., Zhang, M., Hawkins, E., Bathelt, J., Astle, D. E. (2019) Mapping differential responses to cognitive traning using machine learning Developmental Science, https://doi.org/10.1111/desc.12868

Bathelt, J., Johnson, A., Zhang, M., Astle, D. E. (2019). The cingulum as a marker of individual differences in neurocognitive development. Scientific Reports 9(2281), https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-019-38894-z

Bathelt, J., Scerif, G., Nobre, A.C., & Astle, D. (2019). Whole-brain white matter organization, intelligence, and educational attainment. Trends in Neuroscience & Educationhttps://doi.org/10.1016/j.tine.2019.02.004

Bathelt, J., de Haan, M., Dale, N. (2019). Adaptive behaviour and quality of life in school-age children with congenital visual disorders and different levels of visual impairment. Research in Developmental Disabilities 85, 154-162, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ridd.2018.12.003

Astle, A., Bathelt, J., the CALM team, Holmes, J. (2018). Remapping the cognitive and neural profiles of children who struggle at school. Developmental Science, 22(1) https://doi.org/10.1111/desc.12747

Bathelt, J., Gathercole, S., Butterfield, S., & Astle, D. (2018). The role of the structural connectome in literacy and numeracy development in children. Developmental Science, 21(5), https://doi.org/10.1111/desc.12662

Bathelt, J., Holmes, J., the CALM team, & Astle, D. (2018). Data-driven subtyping of executive function difficulties in childhood. Journal of the American Association of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry (JAACAP), https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jaac.2018.01.014

O’Reilly, M., Bathelt, J., Salt, A., de Haan, M., Dale, N. (2017). Frontal EEG asymmetry and later behavior vulnerability in infants with congenital visual impairment. Clinical Neurophysiology, 128(11), 2191-2199, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.clinph.2017.08.016

Bathelt, J., Dale, N., de Haan, M. (2017). Event-related potential response to auditory social stimuli, parent-reported social communicative deficits and autism risk in school-aged children with congenital visual impairment. Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience, 27, 10-18, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.dcn.2017.07.003

Bathelt, J., Gathercole, S., Johnson, A., Astle, D. (2017). Differences in brain morphology and working memory capacity across childhood. Developmental Science, 21:e12579, https://doi.org/10.1111/desc.12579

Bathelt, J., Barnes, J., Raymond, F. L., Baker, K., & Astle, D. (2017). Global and local connectivity differences converge with gene expression in a neurodevelopmental disorder of known genetic origin. Cerebral Cortex, 27(7), 3806-3817, https://doi.org/10.1093/cercor/bhx027

Downes, M., Bathelt, J. (joint first author) & de Haan, M. (2017). Event‐related potential measures of executive functioning from preschool to adolescence. Developmental Medicine & Child Neurology, 59, 581-590, https://doi.org/10.1111/dmcn.13395

Bathelt, J., Astle, D., Barnes, J., Raymond, F. L., & Baker, K. (2016). Structural brain abnormalities in a single gene disorder associated with epilepsy, language impairment and intellectual disability. NeuroImage: Clinical, 21, 655-665, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.nicl.2016.07.016

Bathelt, J., de Haan, M., Salt, A., & Dale, N. J. (2016). Executive abilities in children with congenital visual impairment in mid-childhood. Child Neuropsychology, 1–19. https://doi.org/10.1080/09297049.2016.1240158

Bathelt, J., O'Reilly, H., & de Haan, M. (2014). Cortical source analysis of high-density EEG recordings in children. JoVE (Journal of Visualized Experiments), (88), e51705, https://doi.org/10.3791/51705

Bathelt, J., O'Reilly, H., Clayden, J. D., Cross, J. H., & de Haan, M. (2013). Functional brain network organisation of children between 2 and 5 years derived from reconstructed activity of cortical sources of high-density EEG recordings. NeuroImage, 82, 595–604. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neuroimage.2013.06.003

Funding and Awards

      2023
    •   Interdisciplinary Project on Polarisation (€40k as Co-Investigator)
      2022
    •   IP-PAD, Horizon 2020 Doctoral Network (€2.6mil, as Co-Investigator)
    •   Sponsored studentship, Royal Holloway & HEC Pakistan (£50k, as supervisor)
      2017
    •   Travel Award, Guarantors of Brain
    •   Accelerated promotion, MRC
      2016
    •   Public engagement award, “I’m a scientist - get me out of here”
    •   Exceptional performance award, MRC
    •   Conference travel grant, Experimental Psychology Society
    •   Research Associate fellowship, Corpus Christi College
      2015
    •   Post-doctoral fellowship, MRC
      2014
    •   Bogue Research Fellowships for lab visit in the US, UCL
      2013
    •   Dean’s Travel Award, UCL Institute of Child Health
      2011
    •   PhD Studentship, Great Ormond Street Children’s Charity & UCL Impact
      2010
    •   MSc Scholarship, German Academic Exchange Service
        • 2009
      •   Studentship, Erasmus Exchange

Teaching Experience

  • University of Amsterdam
    •   Clinical Neuropsychology course, final-year undergraduate course (autumn, 2023)
    •   BOLD fMRI course, MRes Psychology course (autumn, 2023)
  • Royal Holloway, University of London
    •   Coordinator for first-year Psychology students (autumn, 2022)
    •   Understanding Neuroscience, first-year undergraduate course (autumn, 2021)
    •   Advanced Developmental Psychology, final-year undergraduate course (autumn, 2021)
    •   Developmental Disorders, final-year undergraduate course (spring, 2021)
    •   Educational Psychology, final-year undergraduate course (spring, 2021)
    •   Advanced Methods in Neuroscience, MSc Applied Neuroscience students (spring 2023)
  • University of Amsterdam
    •   Autism Spectrum Disorder, lecture for BSc in Clinical Psychology (autumn, 2020)
    •   Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience, lecture for the BSc in Psychobiology (spring, 2019)
  • University of Cambridge
    •   Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience, lecture for the Cambridge Graduate School in Cognitive Neuroscience (2016-17)
  • University College London
    •   Social Neuroscience, lecture for the MSc Paediatric Neuropsychology (spring, 2017)
    •   Visual Development, lecture for the MSc Paediatric Neuropsychology (2014-2016)

Conference Presentations

Symposium Chair: “Network Methods in Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience”, Flux Society, Paris 2022

Oral Presentation: “Make your data shine”, Dutch Neuropsychology Society (NVN), Nijmegen 2022

Oral Presentation: “Characterising heterogeneity in neurodevelopmental disorders”, Flux annual conference, 2021

Oral Presentation: “Heterogeneity in neurodevelopmental disorders”, University of Amsterdam, 2019

Oral Presentation: “Subtyping executive function-related problems in struggling learners", International Mind, Brain, and Education Society (IMBES), Los Angeles, CA, September 2018

Oral Presentation: “Two sides of the same coin: Using structural connectomics to investigate the overlap between maths and reading problems”, International Mind, Brain, and Education Society (IMBES), Los Angeles, CA, September 2018

Oral Presentation: “Subtyping executive function-related problems in children”, Executive Functions Masterclass with Prof Adele Diamond, Cambridge, UK, June 2018

Oral Presentation: “Subtyping executive function-related problems in children”, Executive Functions Masterclass with Prof Adele Diamond, Cambridge, UK, June 2018

Poster: “Data-driven subtypes of executive function-related behavioural difficulties in children”, European Association for Research on Learning and Instruction (EARLI) Neuroscience and Education meeting, London, UK, June 2018

Poster: “Data-driven brain types and their cognitive consequences”, Vereniging Nederlandse Ontwikkelingspsychologie meeting, Wageningen, Netherlands, May 2018

Poster: “Remapping the cognitive and neural profiles of children who struggle at school”, Flux satellite meeting ‘Big data, little brains’, Chapel Hill, US, May 2018

Oral Presentation & Poster: “Data-driven brain types and their cognitive consequences”, Cognitive Neuroscience Association Annual Meeting, Boston, US, March 2018

Oral Presentation: “Data-driven brain types and their cognitive consequences”, Cambridge Neuroscience Meeting, Cambridge, UK, March 2018

Oral Presentation: “Data-driven subtyping of executive function difficulties in childhood”, International Conference for Cognitive Neuroscience, Amsterdam, Netherlands, August 2017

Oral Presentation & Poster: “The role of the structural connectome in literacy and numeracy development in children”, Cognitive Neuroscience Society Annual Meeting, San Francisco, US, March 2017

Poster: “Global and local connectivity differences converge with gene expression in a single-gene disorder”, Organisation for Human Brain Mapping Annual Meeting, Geneva, Switzerland, June 2016

Poster: “Structural brain development in a single gene disorder associated with language impairment”, Cambridge Neuroscience Symposium, Cambridge UK, April 2015

Poster: “Is there an association between reduced cortico-spinal tract integrity and severe visual impairment in childhood neural development?”, Paediatric Neuropsychology Symposium, London, UK, June 2014

Poster: “Focal attention, executive and social vulnerabilities in children with visual impairment (VI)”, European Academy of Childhood Disability, Newcastle, UK, October2013

Poster: “Functional brain network organisation of children between 2 and 5 years derived from reconstructed activity of cortical sources of high-density EEG recordings”, Organisation for Human Brain Mapping Annual Meeting, Seattle, US, June 2013

Poster: “Hearing one’s own name increases functional connection strength between areas of the Human Mirror Neuron System”, British Neuroscience Association Meeting, London, UK, June 2013

Other Activities

Ad-hoc peer review: I acted as a reviewer for Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience, Developmental Science, Frontiers in Psychology, IEEE Journal of Biomedical and Health Informatics, Human Brain Mapping, Infant and Child Development, Journal of Neuroscience, Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, Journal of Neurodevelopmental Disorders, Journal of Neurophysiology, Journal of Neuropsychology,Molecular Psychiatry, and Sage Open Psychology. A verified list of my peer review activity can be found under: https://publons.com/a/654079

Open science: I strongly believe that data and analysis code needs to be shared for transparency, reproducibility, and to benefit the scientific community. I’m actively involved in data sharing efforts and make my analysis code available online (12 repositories, ttps://github.com/joebathelt)

    Academic community service:
  • 2022: Steering committee member for the Flux 2022 annual meeting
  • 2016-2018: Post-doc representative, Cognition and Brain Sciences Unit
  • 2013-2015: Chair of the Student Staff Consultative Committee, UCL
  • 2013: Student representative on the Internal Quality Review panel, UCL
  • 2011-2015:Student academic representative, UCL
  • 2013-2015 Mentor for 1st-year PhD students, UCL

Public engagement

I served as a judge for Google Science Fair, an international science competition for young people between 13 and 18 years (2018)

I'm a Science Mentor for Frontiers for Young Minds, a scientific journal from young people for young people

I won the UK science communication competition “I’m a scientist get me out of here” that lets teenagers ask questions about science. (around 450 teenagers, November 2016)

I developed a lesson “Working Memory for Kids” for schools to teach children between 7 and 11 years about working memory together with a local school (Fenstanton and Hilton Primary School, November 2017).

I put together interactive demonstrations suitable for children and presented them at the Blue Dot Festival of Music, Science, and Art 2017 (~4,500 visitors from the general public, Manchester Area, June 2017).

Public talk: “Why do some children struggle in school”, Corpus Christi graduate conference, Cambridge, June 2018 (around 100 members of the public)

Public talk: “What are the behavioural difficulties of children struggling in school”, CALM practitioner workshop, June 2018, Cambridge (around 60 specialist teachers, educational psychologists, and other professionals working with children)


Writing for general audiences

I write a biweekly blog on Medium about neuroscience, productivity, and academic life

A child should be defined by her own unique strengths not her deficits BOLD - Blog on Learning & Development

Apples and oranges: What distinguishes struggling learners?" BOLD - Blog on Learning & Development

Look beyond the label TES Magazine

Crushed by the ivory tower - a personal account of mental health in academia Medium

Contact

Address
Department of Psychology
University of Amsterdam
Nieuwe Achtergracht 129-B
1018 WS Amsterdam
The Netherlands
Email
joebathelt [at] gmail [dot] com
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