Jan Lauwereyns is a cognitive neuroscientist, specialising in the top-down control of attention and decision-making, as well as a poet and essayist. He was born in 1969 in Antwerp, Belgium. He studied Psychology at the University of Leuven, Belgium, and in 1998 obtained his PhD with a thesis entitled The Intentionality of Visual Selective Attention. Subsequently he conducted electrophysiological research on the neural mechanisms of perception at Juntendo University in Tokyo, Japan, and at the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Maryland, USA. In 2003 Lauwereyns moved to the Southern Hemisphere. He is currently Associate Professor at Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand, and teaches Biological Psychology. Lauwereyns has published articles in scientific journals such as Nature, Neuron and Trends in Cognitive Sciences. In addition to his scientific output, he has published nine literary works in his native language, Dutch. They include six books of poetry: Nagelaten sonnetten ['Posthumous Sonnets'], 1999, Blanke verzen ['Blank verse'], 2001, Buigzaamheden ['Flexibilities'], 2002, Tegenvoetig, tweebenig ['Antipodean, Bipedal'], 2004, Anophelia! De mug leeft ['Anophelia! The Mosquito Lives'], 2007, and Vloeistof en welvaart ['Liquid and Welfare'], 2008. Lauwereyns has also published one novel, Monkey business ['Monkey Business'], 2003, one collection of essays, Splash. Lyrische suite over biologie, ritueel en poezie ['Splash. Lyric Suite on Biology, Ritual, and Poetry'], 2005, and one book of correspondence with the 94-year old Dutch poet-biologist Leo Vroman, Zwelgen wij denkend rond ['Let's Wallow in Thought'], 2009. For his literary work, Lauwereyns has earned several accolades, most notably the Hugues C. Pernath Prize 2003 for his collection of poems Buigzaamheden ['Flexibilities'].
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