Maria Balaet is a neuroscientist exploring the ways cognition shifts in health, disease, and altered states of mind. She is a Research Associate in the Department of Neuroimaging at King’s College London and formerly a member of the Department of Brain Sciences at Imperial College London.
Balaet’s work spans machine learning, neuroimaging, and large-scale cognitive testing to uncover how drugs, trauma, and social factors shape mental performance. A researcher in the Great British Intelligence Test, she has led studies on cognitive decline, drug use, and pandemic-era scepticism. She has delivered over 50 public talks on the neuroscience of psychedelics, making complex science both accessible and urgent.