People

Beyzanur Arican Dinc Graduate Student	Beyza's research focuses on how we can develop and maintain healthy relationships and how our social ties can enhance our well-being through interpersonal emotion regulation.	Social Psychology
Dahyana Arroyo Graduate Student		Neuroscience and Behavior
Nadezhda Barbashova Graduate Student		Cognition, Perception, and Cognitive Neuroscience
Cora Baron Graduate Student	Cora is primarily interested in how emotions, social identity, and culture influence people's close relationships. She is especially curious about individual differences in support-seeking and caregiving behavior in romantic relationships.	Social Psychology
Selin Bekir Graduate Student		Cognition, Perception, and Cognitive Neuroscience
Dylan Benkley Graduate Student	Dylan is interested in understanding humans' evolved mechanisms for cooperation as well as the evolved social functions of emotions.	Developmental and Evolutionary Psychology
Henry Biedron Graduate Student	Henry Biedron's research focus investigates questions concerning motivated social cognition, collective action, intergroup relations, and social justice. He hopes to study how moral evaluations and system justifying motivations might influence collective actions such as strikes and protests.	Social Psychology
Julia Brzac Graduate Student		Neuroscience and Behavior
Fernando Cano Graduate Student	Fernando's research focuses on examining the neurobiological mechanisms that underpin the incubation of drug craving. He uses operant-conditiong paradigms and conducts immunoblot studies to investigate potential sex differences in 1) cue-elicted responding tasks and 2) the biomolecular correlates during this incubation of drug craving phenomenon. Fernando graduated with a B.S in Biological Sciences from the University of California, Irvine in 2018. He graduated with a M.S in Biology from the California State University of Los Angeles in 2020.	Neuroscience and Behavior
Tikal Catena Graduate Student		Developmental and Evolutionary Psychology
Kyle Cekada Graduate Student	Kyle is interested in studying dendrites and the effects of tauopathy on dendrites.	Neuroscience and Behavior
Carly Chak Graduate Student	Carly is broadly interested in attentional priority within working memory. Using electroencephalography (EEG), her current research explores how different components of attentional capture modulate the contents of working memory over time. She is also interested in understanding how working memory representations might be further modulated when these different components compete for attentional priority.	Cognition, Perception, and Cognitive Neuroscience
Amber Xuqian Chen Graduate Student	Amber studies how individuals' biases and social behaviors might emerge into a collective phenomenon through the lens of morality, utilizing the combination of neuroimaging and big data analytics.	Social Psychology
Ashley J. Coventry Graduate Student	Ashley's research examines human relationships and mate preferences using an evolutionary psychological framework. She is primarily focused on examining these preferences in LGBTQ+ and consensually non-monogamous populations.	Developmental and Evolutionary Psychology
Lee Qianqian Cui Graduate Student	Broadly, Lee is interested in the dynamics of perceiving others in various social contexts, and how biased attitudes and evaluations can impact, and be impacted by, this process. She's also interested in how AI techniques can perceive this process and to what extent they are biased to certain social groups when perceiving humans.	Social Psychology
Cynthia Delgado Graduate Student		Cognition, Perception, and Cognitive Neuroscience
Elise Deng Graduate Student		Neuroscience and Behavior
Julie Eitzen Graduate Student		Cognition, Perception, and Cognitive Neuroscience
Guillem Fernández Villà Graduate Student	Guillem is interested in how acculturation processes occur at societal and individual levels, and how they can be facilitated in a way that supports people's wellbeing.	Social Psychology
Leah Gano Graduate Student	Leah is primarily interested in using augmented reality to understand cognition and brain function in real-world tasks and activities.	Cognition, Perception, and Cognitive Neuroscience
Anusha Garg Graduate Student	Anusha's research focuses on validating and using the Think Aloud method to study the stream of consciousness, including its contents, structure, and qualities of thoughts.	Cognition, Perception, and Cognitive Neuroscience
Hayley Giffin Graduate Student	Hayley's main research interest is the impact of culture on social relationships and decision making, especially between individuals with different cultural identities. She is also interested in sustainability, well-being, and group dynamics.	Social Psychology
Amanda Goguen Graduate Student	Amanda's research explores how theory of mind, social evaluation, and relationship dynamics influence social decision-making in great apes. Her work takes a comparative approach, primarily focusing on similarities and differences between humans, chimpanzees, and bonobos.	Developmental and Evolutionary Psychology
Diego Gonzalez Graduate Student		Neuroscience and Behavior
Hannah Grotzinger Graduate Student	Hannah's research uses dense-sampling and neuroimaging methods to study the impact of endogenous sex hormone fluctuations on brain function.	Cognition, Perception, and Cognitive Neuroscience
Goirik Gupta Graduate Student		Developmental and Evolutionary Psychology
Justin Haiman Graduate Student	Justin's research examines the stochastic processes that guide serotonergic axon growth. He uses primary neuronal cultures and other advanced experimental techniques to accomplish his work.	Neuroscience and Behavior
Amelia Haruka Harrison Graduate Student	Amelia is interested in understanding the neural and cognitive mechanisms associated with manipulation of visual attention by studying behavior in tandem with functional brain data.	Cognition, Perception, and Cognitive Neuroscience
Jocelyn Huerta Graduate Student		Social Psychology
Allesandra Iadipaolo Graduate Student	Allesandra is interested in using neuroimaging methods to investigate the relationships between sex steroid hormones, cognition, and brain structure/function in the context of health conditions impacting women (e.g., depression, anxiety, chronic pain, endometriosis).	Cognition, Perception, and Cognitive Neuroscience
Srijita Karmakar Graduate Student	Srijita is interested in how humans perform complex visual perceptual tasks (such as, gaze-following) in an automatic and efficient manner, and how and why humans and AI differ in such seemingly simple visual tasks.	Cognition, Perception, and Cognitive Neuroscience
John (Jeong Woo) Kim Graduate Student	John’s research examines human mating through the lens of evolutionary psychology and computational modeling. He focuses on the decision processes involved in mate search, relationship initiation, and relationship dissolution.	Developmental and Evolutionary Psychology
Clara Meyerfreund Lavrador Graduate Student		Developmental and Evolutionary Psychology
Margo Le Graduate Student		Neuroscience and Behavior
Sara Leslie Graduate Student	Sara's research examines confidence and metacognition in the context of decision-making and memory, investigating their cognitive and neural bases and the interplay of confidence with choice.	Cognition, Perception, and Cognitive Neuroscience
Dharma Lewis Graduate Student		Cognition, Perception, and Cognitive Neuroscience
Luna Li Graduate Student	Luna is interested in reasoning and decision-making under uncertainty.	Cognition, Perception, and Cognitive Neuroscience
Yanming (Alison) Li Graduate Student	Alison’s research focuses how internal information (e.g., goal or memory) influences the encoding of visual information, and the subjective, involuntary nature of conscious perception.	Cognition, Perception, and Cognitive Neuroscience
Mengsi Li Graduate Student	Mengsi is interested in the neural underpinnings of emotion and emotional memory in complex real-world episodes. Her current research focuses on the interactions of emotion and temporal coding (time perception and temporal memory) and their implications for emotional wellbeing.	Cognition, Perception, and Cognitive Neuroscience
Danny Lim Graduate Student	Danny is interested in understanding how visual information is processed in the brain using computational models.	Cognition, Perception, and Cognitive Neuroscience
Jungbin Lim Graduate Student		Social Psychology
Shannon M. Lopez Graduate Student	Shannon is primarily interested in how the effects of alcohol use disorders (AUDs) influence changes in behavior and neurocircuitry.	Neuroscience and Behavior
Jordan Luna Graduate Student	Jordan's research interests center around predatory video game systems (e.g., gambling 'loot box' mechanics) in a neurobehavioral context —both how they encourage addictive behaviors and how certain personalities are drawn to them.	Cognition, Perception, and Cognitive Neuroscience
Ava (Qingting) Ma de Sousa Graduate Student	Broadly, Ava's work examines social identity, intergroup relations, and emotion using social psychological, neuroscientific and computational methods.	Social Psychology
Parsa Madinei Graduate Student		Cognition, Perception, and Cognitive Neuroscience
Daphne Muhammad Graduate Student		Social Psychology
Mitch Munns Graduate Student	Mitch's research involves the connection between spatial thinking and learning abstract information, such as representing a complex lecture with a diagram.	Cognition, Perception, and Cognitive Neuroscience
Elle Murata Graduate Student	Elle’s research probes the neuromodulatory impact of sex steroid hormones on brain morphology, connectivity, and cognition.	Cognition, Perception, and Cognitive Neuroscience
Shravan Murlidaran Graduate Student		Cognition, Perception, and Cognitive Neuroscience
Devlin O'Keefe Graduate Student	Devlin's research interests are focused on behavioral responses to threat and appeals that promote efficacy, primarily explored in the contexts of health and climate change.	Social Psychology
Josh Ortega Graduate Student	Josh’s research explores the psychology of art and dreams, and how these domains can contribute to a richer understanding of creativity.	Cognition, Perception, and Cognitive Neuroscience
Michael Osfeld Graduate Student	Michael's research interests encompass the fields of learning science and evolutionary psychology.	Cognition, Perception, and Cognitive Neuroscience
Diego Padilla Garcia Graduate Student		Social Psychology
Sarah Purnell Graduate Student	Sarah is interested in how stimuli and context affect attention and how these are processed and represented in the brain.	Cognition, Perception, and Cognitive Neuroscience
Tara Sarkar Graduate Student		Developmental and Evolutionary Psychology
Oya Serbest Graduate Student	Oya is primarily interested in how multilingual environments shape children's understanding of social groups and the roots of stereotyping based on religious ideologies.	Developmental and Evolutionary Psychology
Sana Shehabi Graduate Student	Sana is primarily interested in using eye-tracking to study how humans perceive and extract meaning from visual scenes. She is excited to combine psychophysical experiments and computational tools to study the mechanisms behind scene understanding and human visual perception.	Cognition, Perception, and Cognitive Neuroscience
Shivang Shelat Graduate Student	Shivang's research centers on spontaneous cognition (i.e., mind-wandering) and how it affects memory, perception, and attention. He also applies principles in attention neuroscience to optimize human-computer interactions.	Cognition, Perception, and Cognitive Neuroscience
Henri Etel Skinner Graduate Student	Henri researches the attentional and decision making processes involved in our ability to sustain attention.	Cognition, Perception, and Cognitive Neuroscience
Danielle Sogbesan Graduate Student	Danielle is broadly interested in examining the behavioral and neurological adjustments that occur following prolonged drug use. Her current research involves the use of electrochemical aptamer based sensors to understand neuropharmacology and variability in pharmacokinetics using rat models.	Neuroscience and Behavior
Carlos Sosa Colindres Graduate Student		Developmental and Evolutionary Psychology
Joanne Stasiak Graduate Student	Joanne’s research employs psychophysiological methods to examine the processes underlying awareness of emotional responding with the goal of identifying the various cues individuals use to form perceptions of and understand their complex affective experiences.	Cognition, Perception, and Cognitive Neuroscience
Hannah Stone Graduate Student		Cognition, Perception, and Cognitive Neuroscience
Lexie Topete Graduate Student	Lexie's research primarily focuses on large scale spatial cognition/navigation ability, and various factors associated with our ability to acquire spatial knowledge of an environment (e.g., GPS use, endocrine aging, and environment structure).	Cognition, Perception, and Cognitive Neuroscience
Mariana Torres Graduate Student		Social Psychology
Celine Tsoi Graduate Student		Social Psychology
Lily Turkstra Graduate Student	Lily’s research interests include the neuropsychological components of vision loss, prosthetic vision rehabilitation strategies, and accessibility design.	Cognition, Perception, and Cognitive Neuroscience
Miriam Urie Graduate Student	Miriam is interested in optimal ways to build and maintain transferable, long-term knowledge in the minds of learners.
Kayla Wang Graduate Student	Kayla is primarily interested in exploring the utility of EAB (Electrochemical Aptamer-Based) sensors for neuropharmacology in rodents, in the hopes of getting a better understanding of addiction models and underlying circuitry.	Neuroscience and Behavior
Chuyi Yang Graduate Student	Chuyi is broadly interested in how children conceptualize and understand their many social relationships. More specifically, Chuyi is interested in how children conceptualize nuanced friendships and how these conceptualizations influence prosocial and antisocial behavior.	Social Psychology
Asa Young Graduate Student	Asa's research focuses are in the mapping of neural oscillations, their variability, and relationship to other oscillations across scales as relevant to phenomenological experience.	Cognition, Perception, and Cognitive Neuroscience
Emma Yu Graduate Student	Emma is interested in how infants and children use cues about social relationships and mental states (particularly emotions) to inform their social expectations and promote their prosocial behaviors.	Developmental and Evolutionary Psychology
Lu Zang Graduate Student	Lu’s research examines how future time perspective, as an individual difference and cultural orientation, is mediated by construal level in shaping human relations, and well-being outcomes.	Social Psychology
Shangcheng Zhao Graduate Student	Shangcheng's primary interest lies in understanding the mechanisms and consequences of social perception, particularly how impressions form and draw influences on social interactions.	Social Psychology
Mable Zhou Graduate Student	Mable is interested in using virtual reaility technologies (head mounted display, omnidirectional treadmill) to study individual differences in navigation abilities.	Cognition, Perception, and Cognitive Neuroscience
Ariella Zulch Graduate Student		Neuroscience and Behavior

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