Nicole (Niki) Gervais is a Canadian living in the Netherlands since 2023. She is a tenured Assistant Professor and Rosalind Franklin Fellow in the behavioural and cognitive neurosciences position at GELIFES at the University of Groningen. She is part of the Neurobiology cluster with broad training in psychology, behavioural and cognitive neuroscience. Her research is on the interface between (neuro)biology, psychology, and (evolutionary) medicine. Niki takes a novel approach to understand how brain disorders develop differently in males and females, and what implications this might have for treatments. Currently, her focus is on understanding how female physiology influences transdiagnostic symptoms, like sleep and circadian disturbances and their contribution to brain conditions. Important endocrine transition periods, such as menopause, are associated with neurological symptoms that can contribute to neuropsychiatric and neurodegenerative disease. She is currently exploring how menopause-associated hormone changes and symptoms like sleep disturbances contribute to elevated risk for Alzheimer’s disease.

Niki received her PhD in Psychology at the Centre for Studies in Behavioural Neurobiology at Concordia University in Montréal, Canada (2014), and completed two postdoctoral fellowships, first in the USA (Centre for Neuroendocrine Studies, University of Massachusetts Amherst) then Canada (Psychology Department; University of Toronto). She briefly held positions outside of academia, including as Research Project Manager at Western University in Canada.

Niki is also a a member of: Cognition, Aging and Disease (CAD) program at the UMCG, Management Committee member and co-lead for Behavior and Neurosciences working group: EU-SABV Cost Action, designed to enhance research practices and education surrounding biological sex in preclinical research. She is also a Special Issue Editor for Hormones and Behavior, and is part of Enlight-REACT – Research and Education in Ageing Collaborative Team.