Isabelle Blanchette is a full professor at Université Laval (Canada), researcher at the Cervo Brain Research Center and director of the Observatoire Psycavi. She obtained her PhD from McGill University in 2000. She was a postdoctoral researcher at Birkbeck College, University of London. Before Université Laval, she was a faculty member at the University of Manchester (United Kingdom) and Université du Québec à Trois-Rivières (Canada).

Professor Blanchette’s work examines the neurocognitive correlates of emotion and trauma. Her research program combines experimental approaches with studies of real-world traumatic experiences, in particular sexual abuse, war and mass violence. Her research shows that emotion and trauma have a significant impact on cognitive processes such as attention, reasoning, and working memory. She has published over 90 articles in international journals and is the author of the book Emotion and Reasoning (Routledge). She is on the editorial board of Psychological Trauma: Theory, Research and Practice. Her work has been funded by major research councils in Canada and the UK (ERSC, BBSRC, British Academy, SSHRC, FRQS, NSERC, FRQNT).

Isabelle Blanchette is the founder and director of Observatoire Psycavi, an international research partnership documenting the psychological consequences of intergroup violence and armed conflicts in the African Great Lakes region (Rwanda and Democratic Republic of Congo). She is also a founding member of AfriBCD, a network aiming to catalyze neurocognitive research in Africa.