Professor Ulrich Schall

Associate Professor Ulrich Schall completed his training in psychology (at PhD level in 1988 at the University of Konstanz in Germany), medicine and psychiatry (at MD level in 1993 at the University of Essen in Germany), and was awarded a higher doctoral degree (at DSc level in 2000) in neuroscience (Habilitation für die Lehrgebiete Neuro- und Biopsychologie) by the Ruhr University Bochum in Germany. Professor Schall took up his appointment in Newcastle in 1999, initially as Senior Lecturer, when leaving his staff specialist position (Oberarzt) at the University Psychiatry Hospital in Essen.

In 2001 he was appointed Director of the Brain & Mental Health Research Program of the Hunter Medical Research Institute/Hunter Neuroscience and subsequently promoted to Associate Professor. Professor Schall has established a successful research program at the Priority Research Centre for Brain & Mental Health in Newcastle where he is conducting research in the areas of functional/structural brain imaging, neuropsychology, psycho- and electrophysiology, psychopharmacology, and studies on early intervention into prodromal psychosis and first-episode schizophrenia. He has frequently published in the leading scientific journals of his field, such as Biological Psychiatry, Neuroimage, Psychopharmacology, International Journal of Neuropsychopharmacology, European Journal of Neuroscience, and Behavioural Brain Research.

Throughout his career he attracted a total of around $4 Million in competitive funding from various external and internal agencies (e.g. $350,000 from the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft – the German equivalent of the Australian Research Council) for Fellowships and Project Grants; $2,000,000 from the National Health & Medical Research Council of Australia for two Project Grants as Principle Investigator and four Project Grants as Chief-Investigator; $1,300,000 infrastructure support by New South Wales Health for the Brain & Mental Health Research Program; $200,000 from competitive infrastructure support grant schemes; $450,000 from the University of Newcastle and the Hunter Medical Research Institute for various projects.

Professor Schall received the Young Investigators Award at the International Congress On Schizophrenia Research in 1995, the Science Award of the European Neuroscience Association in 1995, the ASPR Best Poster Award in 1999, and the Senior Scientist Award at 10th Biennial Winter Workshop on Schizophrenia in 2000. Professor Schall has been invited to review submissions to a broad range of scientific journals (e.g. The American Journal of Psychiatry; Alcoholism: Clinical and Experimental; Australian and New Zealand Journal of Psychiatry; Biological Psychology; Neuroimage; Neuroscience; International Journal of Mental Health Nursing; International Journal of Neuropsychopharmacology; Physiology and Behaviour; Psychiatry Research; Psychiatry Research Neuroimaging; The Lancet Neurology) and organisations (e.g. National Health and Medical Research Council of Australia; Australian Academy of Science; Clive and Vera Ramaciotti Foundation, Pfizer Neuroscience, etc.).

Professor Schall is a Fellow of the Royal Australian New Zealand College of Psychiatrists; a fellow of the Australian Neuroscience Society; a founding member of the German Neuroscience Society; a fellow of the International Brain Research Organization (IBRO); the Federation of European Neuroscience Societies (FENS); the German University Lecturer Association (Deutscher Hochschulverband); and the Australasian Society for Psychiatric Research (ASPR, Executive Committee Representative for New South Wales 1999-2002). He was a Visiting Fellow at the School of Psychiatry, University of New South Wales, from 1994-1999. He convenes the Cognition & Connectivity Research Panel of the Schizophrenia Research Institute (SRI; formerly Neuroscience Institute of Schizophrenia & Allied Disorders, NISAD) and the Schizophrenia Research Program at the University Priority Research Centre of Brain & Mental Health. As Director of Hunter Neuroscience, he headed the Brain & Mental Health Research Program – the largest division of the Hunter Medical Research Institute (HMRI) – from 2001-2006. In this capacity, Professor Schall made a substantial contribution to develop the program into the new University of Newcastle Brain & Mental Health Priority Research Centre and to establish HMRI amongst the most prestigious medical research institutes in New South Wales.

Top 4 Publications:
Schall, U., Catts, S.V., Chaturvedi, S., Liebert, B., Redenbach, J., Karayanidis, F., Ward, P.B. The effect of clozapine therapy on frontal lobe dysfunction in schizophrenia: neuropsychology and event-related potential measures. International Journal of Neuropsychopharmacology, 1998, 1: 19-29. [ISI Impact Factor 2006: 5.2]

Stojanov, W., Karayanidis, F., Johnston, P., Bailey, A., Carr, V., Schall, U., Disrupted sensory gating in pathological gambling. Biological Psychiatry, 2003, 54: 474-484. [ISI Impact Factor 2006: 7.2]

Schall, U., Johnston, P., Lagopoulos, J., Jüptner, M., Jentzen, W., Thienel, R., Dittmann-Balçar, A., Bender, S., Ward, P.B., Functional brain maps of Tower of London performance: A PET and fMRI study. Neuroimage, 2003, 20: 1154-1161 [ISI Impact Factor 2006: 5.6]

Schall, U., Johnston, P., Todd, J., Ward, P., Michie, P., Functional neuroanatomy of auditory mismatch processing: an event-related fMRI study on duration-deviant oddballs. Neuroimage, 2003, 20: 729-736 [ISI Impact Factor 2006: 5.6]