Scientific career
Prof. Dr. Nora Maria Raschle studied neuropsychology at the University of Zurich and completed her PhD in collaboration with Boston Children’s Hospital and Harvard Medical School (USA) in 2011, focusing on the early detection of developmental dyslexia (“Investigating neuronal and behavioral premarkers of developmental dyslexia prior to reading onset”). After two more years as a postdoctoral researcher in Boston, she returned to Basel in 2013, where she worked as a scientist at the University Psychiatric Clinics and the University of Basel. Since 2019, she has been working at the Jacobs Center for Productive Youth Development at the University of Zurich. Nora Raschle is a professor of developmental neuroscience and conducts research in the fields of development, brain, and behavior.
Prof. Raschle’s research focuses on investigating the foundations of human brain and behavioral development, early influencing factors, and their relationships to developmental and psychiatric disorders in childhood and adolescence. Using structural and functional magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) as well as behavioral or physiological assessments, her research group examines how abilities, learning, and socio-emotional development unfold. Environmental factors and biological influences are analyzed to understand their impact on developmental trajectories across relevant time windows, for example through intergenerational neuroimaging studies.
The goal of her group’s research is to understand how the human brain develops, grows, and learns and how these processes unfold through the interaction with biological and environmental factors. Brain structure, functional abilities, and connectivity reflect both past experiences and future potential. A deeper understanding of these experience-dependent and biologically rooted processes helps identify ways to support child development. Through this research, we aim to generate knowledge that enables all children to unfold their individual potential.
Areas of interest
(I) paediatric neuroimaging
(II) neural development
(III) brain structure, function and connectivity
(IV) socioemotional skills (emotion processing and emotion regulation)
(V) language and reading
(VI) learning, plasticity and resilience
Current position(s)
| 2025 - present | Professor of Developmental Neuroscience |
| 2019 - 2025 | Assistant Professor of Psychology of Childhood and Adolescence at the Jacobs Center for Productive Youth Development at the University of Zurich, Switzerland Academic affiliation with the Child and Adolescent Psychiatric Clinics and University Hospital in Basel |
Previous positions
| 2013 – 2019 | Senior Research Scientist, Group Leader Neuroimaging, Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, Psychiatric University Hospital and University of Basel, Switzerland |
| 2013 – 2018 | Consultant to the Gaab Laboratory at the Laboratories for Cognitive Neuroscience, Children’s Hospital and Harvard Medical School, Boston, USA |
| 2011 – 2013 | Postdoctoral research fellow, Gaab Laboratory at the Laboratories for Cognitive Neuroscience, Children’s Hospital and Harvard Medical School, Boston, USA |
| 2007 – 2011 | Doctoral candidate of the University of Zurich and visiting research scholar at Children’s Hospital and Harvard Medical School Boston, USA (group of Prof. N. Gaab) Master student/visiting scholar at the Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Centre and Harvard Medical School, Boston, USA (group of Prof. G. Schlaug) |
Education
| 2011 | PhD, Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, University of Zurich, Switzerland Supervisors: Prof. L. Jäncke (University of Zurich), Prof. N. Gaab (Children’s Hospital and Harvard Medical School Boston, USA) |
| 2007 | Licentiate/MSc in Psychology (focus Neuropsychology), Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, University of Zurich, Switzerland |
Fellowships and awards
| 09/2023 | FENS-Kavli Network of Excellence Scholarship and elected Board Member 2023-2027. |
| 04/2022 | CRISP fellowship. Creating Impact Through Science Program; Jacobs Foundation. |
| 01/2017 | Jacobs Foundation Research Fellowship Award 2017-2019. |