Learning Lab

Dr Chase Sherwell

Casual Tutor & Postdoctoral Research Fellow
School of Psychology
Research Fellow - Learning Lab
Faculty of Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences
+61 7 336 56394
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Researcher biography

Dr Chase Sherwell is a Research Fellow at the UQ Learning Lab and the Principal Research Technician for the Compassionate Mind Research Group in the School of Psychology. His research combines neuroscientific, psychological, and educational perspectives to provide tools for enacting learning, well-being, and behavioural change in real-world contexts. With a focus on application, Dr Sherwell's work aims to identify metrics of internal psychological mechanisms that can be easily interpreted and integrated by professionals and end-users to facilitate skill development and mental health in everyday life.

With a background in cognitive neuroscience, psychology, and education research, Dr Sherwell leads projects that aim to explain learning, development, and mental health across disciplinary lines: from the level of neural networks through to everyday experience. Integrating multi-modal techniques including digital interaction, biometrics, and neurophysiology, Dr Sherwell develops tools, user experiences, and analytics that provide actionable metrics and insights for professionals and researchers.

Dr Sherwell is a Research Fellow in the UQ Learning Lab: a team of multi-disciplinary researchers, educators, and industry partners who collaborate to transform learning, teaching, and training in diverse school and post-school environments through the science of learning. In this role, Dr Sherwell lends his expertise in cognitive neuroscience and psychology to develop projects aimed at understanding and measuring the barriers, facilitators, and mechanisms of self-regulation in professional contexts. He leads projects designing digital tools providing educators with real-time feedback on learner states and skill development integrating smartphone apps and biometrics from wearable devices.

Dr Sherwell is also the Principal Research Technician for the Compassionate Mind Research Group – the leading research hub for Compassion Science in Australia, based at the UQ School of Psychology. In this role, he oversees research design and development across projects investigating the mechanisms of prosocial behaviour in everyday life, barriers to clinical interventions, and the efficacy of online interventions for mental health.

Featured projects Duration
Problem-Based Learning Simulation Training Project

Publications

Book Chapters (2)
Journal Articles (13)
Theses (2)

Book Chapters

Sherwell, Chase S. and Kirby, James N. (2024). Compassion focused therapy and heart rate variability. Integrating psychotherapy and Psychophysiology: theory, assessment, and practice. (pp. 391-411) edited by Donald Moss. Oxford, United Kingdom: Oxford University Press. doi: 10.1093/oso/9780198888727.003.0018
Cunnington, Ross, MacMahon, Stephanie, Sherwell, Chase and Gillies, Robyn (2020). Building a secure learning environment through social connectedness. Building a secure learning environment through social connectedness. (pp. 112-124) edited by Annemaree Carroll, Ross Cunnington and Annita Nugent. Abingdon, Oxon, United Kingdom: Routledge. doi: 10.4324/9780429027833-8

Journal Articles

Varley, Deanna, Sherwell, Chase S. and Kirby, James N. (2024). Daily effects of a brief compassion‐focused intervention for self‐compassion. British Journal of Psychology. doi: 10.1111/bjop.12746
Varley, Deanna, Sherwell, Chase S. and Kirby, James N. (2024). Attachment and propensity for reporting compassionate opportunities and behavior in everyday life. Frontiers in Psychology, 15 1409537. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2024.1409537
Kim, Jeffrey J., Sherwell, Chase, Parker, Stacey L. and Kirby, James N. (2024). Compassion training influences heart-rate variability within severe depression. Journal of Affective Disorders Reports, 16 100760, 100760. doi: 10.1016/j.jadr.2024.100760
Varley, Deanna, Sherwell, Chase S., Fu, Mina and Kirby, James N. (2024). A multi-level meta-analytic review of attachment and fears of compassion. Personality and Individual Differences, 218 112477, 1-11. doi: 10.1016/j.paid.2023.112477
Kirby, James N., Sherwell, Chase, Lynn, Sasha and Moloney-Gibb, Dylan (2023). Compassion as a framework for creating individual and group-level wellbeing in the classroom: new directions. Journal of Psychologists and Counsellors in Schools, 33 (1) PII S2055636523000058, 2-12. doi: 10.1017/jgc.2023.5
Perrykkad, Kelsey, Sherwell, Chase, Kirby, James and Hohwy, Jakob (2023). Beliefs about action efficacy mediate the relationship between self-concept clarity and self-reported compassionate action. Psychology of Consciousness: Theory, Research, and Practice. doi: 10.1037/cns0000349
Campbell, Megan E. J., Sherwell, Chase S., Cunnington, Ross, Brown, Scott and Breakspear, Michael (2022). Reaction Time “Mismatch Costs” Change with the Likelihood of Stimulus–Response Compatibility. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, 30 (1), 1-16. doi: 10.3758/s13423-022-02161-6
Kirby, James N., Gerrish, Ruby, Sherwell, Chase and Gilbert, Paul (2022). The role of likeability in discriminating between kindness and compassion. Mindfulness, 13 (6), 1555-1564. doi: 10.1007/s12671-022-01900-z
Chan, Man Ching Esther, Moate, Josephine, with the Social Unit of Learning project team, Clarke, David, Cunnington, Ross, Díez-Palomar, Javier, Friesen, Marita, Haataja, Eeva, Hošpesová, Alena, Kuntze, Sebastian, Nieminen, Juuso, Novotná, Jarmila, Ochoa, Xavier, Sherwell, Chase, Tran, Dung and Tuohilamp, Laura (2022). Learning research in a laboratory classroom: a reflection on complementarity and commensurability among multiple analytical accounts. ZDM - Mathematics Education, 54 (2), 317-329. doi: 10.1007/s11858-022-01330-0
Fynes-Clinton, Samuel, Sherwell, Chase, Ziaei, Maryam, York, Ashley, O’Connor, Emma Sanders, Forrest, Kylee, Flynn, Libby, Bower, Julie, Reutens, David and Carroll, Annemaree (2022). Neural activation during emotional interference corresponds to emotion dysregulation in stressed teachers. npj Science of Learning, 7 (1) 5, 5. doi: 10.1038/s41539-022-00123-0
Carroll, Annemaree, Gillies, Robyn M., Cunnington, Ross, McCarthy, Molly, Sherwell, Chase, Palghat, Kelsey, Goh, Felicia, Baffour, Bernard, Bourgeois, Amanda, Rafter, Mary and Seary, Tennille (2019). Changes in science attitudes, beliefs, knowledge and physiological arousal after implementation of a multimodal, cooperative intervention in primary school science classes. Information and Learning Science, 120 (7/8), 409-425. doi: 10.1108/ILS-08-2018-0089
Sherwell, Chase S., Garrido, Marta I. and Cunnington, Ross (2017). Timing in predictive coding: the roles of task relevance and global probability. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 29 (5), 780-792. doi: 10.1162/jocn_a_01085
Contreras-Huerta, Luis Sebastian, Hielscher, Emily, Sherwell, Chase S., Rens, Natalie and Cunnington, Ross (2014). Intergroup relationships do not reduce racial bias in empathic neural responses to pain. Neuropsychologia, 64, 263-270. doi: 10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2014.09.045

Theses

Sherwell, Chase (2017). Predictive timing in perception and action. PhD Thesis, Queensland Brain Institute, The University of Queensland. doi: 10.14264/uql.2017.762
Sherwell, Chase (2011). Neural processes underlying the temporal allocation of attention. Honours Thesis, School of Psychology, The University of Queensland.