Birkbeck academic announced as Association for Psychological Science award winner

Dr Daniel Yon, Reader in Cognitive Neuroscience at Birkbeck, has been announced as a recipient of the 2026 Association for Psychological Science (APS) Janet Taylor Spence Award for Transformative Early Career Contributions. Five other early career scientists from universities around the world were also selected, all having led trailblazing research. He is the only recipient of this year’s prize in the UK or Europe.

Dr Daniel Yon commented: “I’m really thrilled to receive this recognition from the Association for Psychological Science. It’s lovely to be personally highlighted in this way – but science is also a team sport! So, I’m grateful to all the members of the Uncertainty Lab, and to our wider collaborators, mentors and friends who have made our science happen. Birkbeck is a special place to do science – and its enthusiasm and support for my research have made all the difference.”

Dr Yon’s Uncertainty Lab at Birkbeck investigates how people’s brains build models of the world and themselves and how these models shape perception, decision, and belief. A key focus has been on understanding how the brain makes predictions, and how these predictions shape an individual's perception of the external world, other people and the internal world of people’s own minds.

Dr Yon studied Experimental Psychology at the University of Oxford before moving to Birkbeck for an MSc and PhD in 2013. He received his doctorate in 2018, and took up a lectureship at Goldsmiths before rejoining Birkbeck as a member of the Psychology faculty in 2021. Dr Yon has held Visiting Fellowships at the Institute of Advanced Study, Paris, and All Souls College,  University of Oxford – and recently he published his first book, A Trick of the Mind: How the Brain Invents Your Reality.