People
Craig AbbeyResearcher |
Vision and Image Understanding Lab | |
Elizabeth AgeyPostdoctoral Researcher |
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Nicole Alea AlbadaAssociate Teaching Professor |
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Andy AlexanderAssistant Professor |
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Beyzanur Arican DincGraduate 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. | |
Greg AshbyDistinguished Professor Emeritus |
Professor Ashby is interested in the basic cognitive and neural mechanisms that mediate human learning. His approach combines experimental psychology, cognitive neuroscience, and mathematical modeling. | Dynamical Neuroscience |
Nadezhda BarbashovaGraduate Student |
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Cora BaronGraduate 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. | |
Stephen BaumgartResearch Associate |
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Selin BekirGraduate Student |
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Dylan BenkleyGraduate Student |
Dylan is interested in understanding humans' evolved mechanisms for cooperation as well as the evolved social functions of emotions. | |
Michael BeyelerAssistant Professor |
Computer Science Department, Dynamical Neuroscience | |
Henry BiedronGraduate 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. | |
Jim BlascovichDistinguished Professor Emeritus/Research Professor |
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Julia BrzacGraduate Student |
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Stevie BullockResearch Participation Pool Coordinator |
Oversees Research Participation Pool for researchers use. Oversees front office, distributes mails, manages copy account codes and provides back up to Financial Area. Manages Letters of Recommendation Service. |
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Tom BullockAssistant Project Scientist |
Attention Lab | |
Ryan Alejandro CabreraGraduate Student |
Ryan is primarily interested in animal models of drug addiction to inform addiction etiology and treatment. More specifically, his research examines the influence of AMPA and NMDA-types of glutamate receptors in stimulant drug (methamphetamine, cocaine) addiction and incubation of craving. | |
Jessica CahillSenior Undergraduate Advisor |
Manages Undergraduate Advising. Provides administrative assistance for pre-major and full major courses. Edits and reviews student schedules. Presents at informational workshops and participates in campus tabling events. |
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Fernando CanoGraduate 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. | |
Tikal CatenaGraduate Student |
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Carly ChakGraduate 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. | |
Amber Xuqian ChenGraduate 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. | |
Qianqian ChenJunior Specialist |
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Emma CiminoJr. Specialist |
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Laila ElgamielFinancial Analyst |
Oversees procurement and reimbursement process, reconciles all financial accounts, and provides support to the Contracts & Grants Manager. |
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Nancy CollinsProfessor |
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Daniel Conroy-BeamAssociate Professor |
Dan uses an evolutionary perspective to examine human mating psychology. He combines computer simulations with studies of real couples to help understand the nature of mate preferences, mate choice, and romantic relationships. | |
Leda CosmidesDistinguished Professor |
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Ashley J. CoventryGraduate 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. | |
Lee Qianqian CuiGraduate 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. | |
Cynthia DelgadoGraduate Student |
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Elise DengGraduate Student |
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Neil DundonAssociate Project Scientist |
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Courtney DurdleGraduate Student |
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Miguel EcksteinDistinguished Professor |
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James ElliottAssistant Project Scientist |
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Nicole EmmonsGraduate Student |
Nicole's research employs electrical-based aptamer sensors to enable highly temporally resolved measurements of drug distribution within physiological compartments, including the subcutaneous space and the brain. | |
Aaron EttenbergDistinguished Professor Emeritus |
Behavioral, pharmacological and physiological manipulations are combined in attempts to understand the nature of the brain mechanisms subserving the reinforcing effects of food, water, sex and psychoactive drugs. | |
Sierra FeaselGraduate Student |
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Guillem Fernández VillàGraduate 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. | |
John FoleyProfessor Emeritus/Research Professor |
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Alan FridlundProfessor |
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Shelly GableProfessor |
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Leah GanoGraduate Student |
Leah is primarily interested in using augmented reality to understand cognition and brain function in real-world tasks and activities. | |
Magdalena Martinez GarciaPostdoctoral Researcher |
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Anusha GargGraduate 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. | |
Michael GazzanigaDistinguished Professor Emeritus |
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Benjamin GelbartGraduate Student |
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Tamsin GermanProfessor |
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W. Connor GibbsGraduate Student |
Connor's research is broadly about transitions and change. His work includes research on veterans transition to civilian employment and cultural implications for changes in personal control. | |
Barry GiesbrechtProfessor |
1) To understand the neural mechanisms of cognitive priority control in attention and working memory. 2) To understand the impact of global physiological states on cognition. 3) To use brain activity to decode cognitive states and augment performance. | Dynamical Neuroscience |
Hayley GiffinGraduate 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. | |
Michael GoardAssociate Professor |
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Juan GonzalezAssistant Specialist |
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Diego GonzalezGraduate Student |
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Scott GraftonDistinguished Recall Professor |
Dr. Grafton supports an interdisciplinary research program at the interface of learning theory, the organization of skilled action, network science, and multimodal brain imaging. | |
Hannah GrotzingerGraduate Student |
Hannah's research uses dense-sampling and neuroimaging methods to study the impact of endogenous sex hormone fluctuations on brain function. | |
Goirik GuptaGraduate Student |
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Justin HaimanGraduate 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. | |
David HamiltonDistinguished Professor Emeritus / Research Professor |
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Nicole HanGraduate Student |
Nicole's research focuses on human and machine visual intelligence in tasks such as face recognition, gaze perception, and gaze-following. She's also interested in applying AI models to support human performance in relevant visual tasks. | |
Paige HarrisGraduate Student |
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Amelia Haruka HarrisonGraduate 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. | |
Mary HegartyDistinguished Professor and Chair |
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Kevin HoneywellGraduate Student |
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Jocelyn HuertaGraduate Student |
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Laura Huerta SanchezGraduate Student |
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Allesandra IadipaoloGraduate 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). | |
Bailey ImmelGraduate Student |
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Joe JablonskiDevelopment Engineer |
Manages departmental machine shop. Fabricates and repairs equipment. Oversees shipping and receiving and departmental key assignments. Manages departmental equipment inventory. |
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Emily JacobsAssociate Professor |
Dr. Jacobs' research pairs endocrinology and brain imaging techniques to determine the impact of sex steroid hormones on brain morphology and function. | Neuroscience Research Institute, Feminist Futures Initiative |
Jerry JacobsResearch Professor, Distinguished Professor Emeritus |
The biological basis of mammalian (especially, primate) color vision and its evolution. | |
Skirmantas JanusonisProfessor |
Dr. Janusonis studies serotonergic and other stochastic axon systems, with a focus on comparative neurobiology and computational neuroscience. | |
Byron JohnsonGraduate Student |
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Kaya JordanJunior Specialist |
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Srijita KarmakarGraduate 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. | |
Madhuri KashyapGraduate Student |
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Ron KeiflinAssistant Professor |
Our lab studies the neurobehavioral basis of associative learning and decision-making (adaptive and maladaptive). We use sophisticated behavioral tasks in rodents, in combination with modern tools to monitor and manipulate neural activity. | |
Heejung KimProfessor |
Heejung Kim investigates cultural influences on psychological processes, and their implications for important real life outcomes, such as health, education, immigration, and policy support. | |
Tod KippinProfessor |
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Stan KleinProfessor |
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Kylie WoodmanBrain Imaging Center Administrative Assistant |
Manages scheduling, billing, and safety training. |
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Anushka LahaJunior Specialist |
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Regina LapateAssistant Professor |
Dr. Lapate investigates the mechanisms and neural circuitry underlying emotional processing, awareness, and emotion regulation. Her multi-modal approach includes recordings of peripheral physiology, brain imaging, and non-invasive brain stimulation. | |
Evan LayherPostdoctoral Researcher |
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Margo LeGraduate Student |
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Gillian LeibeltSenior Undergraduate Advisor |
Manages Undergraduate Advising. Provides administrative assistance for pre-major and full major courses. Edits and reviews student schedules. Presents at informational workshops and participates in campus tabling events. |
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Sara LeslieGraduate 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. | |
Dharma LewisGraduate Student |
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Laura Simone LewisAssistant Professor |
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Yanming (Alison) LiGraduate 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. | |
Mengsi LiGraduate 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. | |
Luna LiGraduate Student |
Luna is interested in reasoning and decision-making under uncertainty. | |
Zoe LibermanAssociate Professor |
Zoe Liberman studies infants and children to learn about the origins and developmental trajectory of humans' understanding of the social world. Her research is at the intersection of developmental and social psychology. | |
Danny LimGraduate Student |
Danny is interested in understanding how visual information is processed in the brain using computational models. | |
Jungbin LimGraduate Student |
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Jack LoomisProfessor Emeritus |
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Shannon M. LopezGraduate Student |
Shannon is primarily interested in how the effects of alcohol use disorders (AUDs) influence changes in behavior and neurocircuitry. | |
Katherine LoweGraduate Advisor |
Coordinates recruitment, admissions and orientation for incoming graduate students. Responsible for all aspects of employment of graduate students. Provides advising to graduate students. Maintains graduate databases. |
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Loy LytleProfessor Emeritus |
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Ava (Qingting) Ma de SousaGraduate Student |
Broadly, Ava's work examines social identity, intergroup relations, and emotion using social psychological, neuroscientific and computational methods. | |
Diane MackieDistinguished Professor Emeritus |
Research in the Social Evaluations and Emotions lab focuses on the evaluations, emotions, attitudes, and norms that arise from social group membership and underpin a wide range of phenomena in intergroup relations and social influence. | |
Parsa MadineiGraduate Student |
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Brenda MajorDistinguished Professor Emeritus |
Impact of perceived ethnic, gender, and weight-based stigma and discrimination on psychological stress, health behaviors, and interpersonal relationships. Resilience. Impact of diversity, diversity policies, and anti-bias norms on intergroup relations. | |
Amedee MartellaPostdoctoral Researcher |
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Richard MayerDistinguished Professor |
educational psychology, cognitive psychology, multimedia learning, online learning, computer-based instruction, learning with games and virtual reality, learning strategies and study skills, science and mathematics education, animated pedagogical agents | |
Christopher McFerronStudent Affairs Manager |
Manages Undergraduate and Graduate Affairs Offices. Provides advising to students, prepares schedule of courses for academic year including summer session. Prepares TA assignments. |
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Hossein MehrzadfarGraduate Student |
Hossein’s research focuses on understanding the similarities and differences between humans and Deep Learning models in scene understanding and visual attention. | |
Mario MendozaMRI Research Technologist |
Manages the operation and maintenance of the ultra high-field MRI scanner at the UCSB Brain Imaging Center. Coordinates research procedures for investigators, oversees all imaging protocols including troubleshooting and planning and initiates new techniques as prescribed by the Director. Provides scanner operator and safety training for graduate students, post-docs, faculty and staff. |
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Michael MillerProfessor |
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Esmeralda MoralesUndergraduate Advisor |
Manages Undergraduate Advising. Provides administrative assistance for pre-major and full major courses. Edits and reviews student schedules. Presents at informational workshops and participates in campus tabling events. |
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Michael MrazekResearch Associate |
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Mitch MunnsGraduate Student |
Mitch's research involves the connection between spatial thinking and learning abstract information, such as representing a complex lecture with a diagram. | |
Elle MurataGraduate Student |
Elle’s research probes the neuromodulatory impact of sex steroid hormones on brain morphology, connectivity, and cognition. | |
Shravan MurlidaranGraduate Student |
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Devlin O'KeefeGraduate 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. | |
Mesude OkhanJunior Specialist |
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Josh OrtegaGraduate Student |
Josh’s research explores the psychology of art and dreams, and how these domains can contribute to a richer understanding of creativity. | |
Michael OsfeldGraduate Student |
Michael's research interests encompass the fields of learning science and evolutionary psychology. | |
Diego Padilla GarciaGraduate Student |
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Viki PapadakisGraduate Student |
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Sophie PetersonGraduate Student |
Sophie's research investigates the neural mechanisms involved in context-dependent reward prediction and decision making. | |
David PietraszewskiAssistant Professor |
David uses evolutionary, developmental, and social perspectives to study the nature of human social group representations and explores how evolutionary psychology may aid the meta-science and reform movements in psychology. | |
Sarah PurnellGraduate Student |
Sarah is interested in how stimuli and context affect attention and how these are processed and represented in the brain. | |
Liz Quinn-JensenGraduate Student |
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Kyle RatnerAssociate Professor |
Kyle Ratner investigates face processing in an intergroup context and the consequences of social perception for mental and physical health. His research uses theories and methods from social psychology and cognitive neuroscience (e.g., fMRI, EEG). | |
Ben ReeseResearch Professor, Professor Emeritus |
Neuroscience Research Institute | |
Nils Karl ReimerAssistant Professor |
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Russ RevlinResearch Professor, Associate Professor Emeritus |
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Shannon RivardBusiness Officer |
Oversees and manages all departmental functions. Provides direction and support to faculty and staff regarding space, budget, equipment, lab renovation student affairs, curriculum plans, facilities management, and special projects. |
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James RoneyProfessor and Vice Chair |
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John M. RuizVisitor |
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Rammy SalemGraduate Student |
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Tyler SantanderAssistant Project Scientist |
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Jonathan SchoolerDistinguished Professor |
The Center for Mindfulness and Human Potential | |
Samantha ScudderAssistant Teaching Professor |
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Oya SerbestGraduate 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. | |
Shivang ShelatGraduate 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. | |
David ShermanProfessor |
Social Climate Science Lab | |
Henri Etel SkinnerGraduate Student |
Henri researches the attentional and decision making processes involved in our ability to sustain attention. | |
Ikuko SmithAssistant Professor |
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Shreya SodhiGraduate Student |
Shreya's research examines how children reason about and use various social categories. Currently, her work focuses on how children conceptualize national identity and immigration. | |
Danielle SogbesanGraduate 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. | |
Carlos Sosa ColindresGraduate Student |
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Thomas SpragueAssistant Professor |
My work uses computational methods applied to noninvasive human neuroimaging (fMRI; EEG) to understand how neural processing of visual information changes across manipulations of attention, working memory, and eye movements. | |
Joanne StasiakGraduate 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. | |
Hannah StoneGraduate Student |
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Karen SzumlinskiProfessor |
Dr. Szumlinski’s major research interest concerns the biochemical mechanisms underlying the changes in brain and behavior produced by chronic exposure to drugs of abuse. | |
Caitlin TaylorAcademic Coordinator |
As a postdoctoral fellow in the Jacobs Lab, Caitlin uses MRI to investigate the effects of oral contraceptive use on the brain, as well to study the effects of sex hormones on the hippocampus. | |
Daniel ThayerGraduate Student |
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Lexie TopeteGraduate 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). | |
Celine TsoiGraduate Student |
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Giavanna TudishContracts and Grants Manager |
Manages departmental financial affairs including departmental budget and extra mural funds. Processes payroll for departmental personnel. Administers Contracts and Grants including proposal preparation. |
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Lily TurkstraGraduate Student |
Lily’s research interests include the neuropsychological components of vision loss, prosthetic vision rehabilitation strategies, and accessibility design. | |
Miriam UrieGraduate Student |
Miriam is interested in optimal ways to build and maintain transferable, long-term knowledge in the minds of learners. | |
Christina VillanuevaJunior Specialist |
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Jingyi WangPostdoctoral Researcher |
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Kayla WangGraduate 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. | |
Rene WeberProfessor |
Rene Weber is a media psychologist and investigates complex cognitive responses to media communication with an emphasis on the neural mechanisms of moral judgment, persuasion, media violence, cognitive control, and flow experiences. | |
Annie E. WertzAssistant Professor |
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Pamela WilksAcademic Personnel Manager |
Oversees faculty personnel cases including merits and promotions and appointments. Manages faculty recruitment, Kronos Timecards and Payroll. Hires new visiting researchers and other visitors. |
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Julia WolfJunior Specialist |
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Brandon WooAssistant Professor |
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Vanessa WoodsAssociate Teaching Professor |
Vanessa Woods looks at factors that affect traditionally underrepresented groups success in educational settings, which includes studying pedagogical practices that create equity in large college classes. | |
Chuyi YangGraduate 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. | |
Asa YoungGraduate 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. | |
Hongbo YuAssistant Professor |
Dr. Yu combines behavioral experiments, neuroscience and computational modeling to understand the relationship between emotion (e.g., guilt, gratitude) and morality and their neural representations. | |
Lu ZangGraduate 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. | |
Shangcheng ZhaoGraduate Student |
Shangcheng's primary interest lies in understanding the mechanisms and consequences of social learning, particularly how social impressions evolve dynamically during social interactions and how individuals learn to adapt their behavior in new environments. | |
Fangzheng ZhaoGraduate Student |
Fangzheng's research is dedicated to integrating cognitive psychology theories into multimedia learning platforms, such as video lessons and instructional games. | |
Shane ZhengDesktop Support |
Provides desktop and user support for the Department of Psychological & Brain Sciences. |
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Mable ZhouGraduate Student |
Mable is interested in using virtual reaility technologies (head mounted display, omnidirectional treadmill) to study individual differences in navigation abilities. |