External Affiliates

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Research Scientist

Sumbleen Ali

Research Interests:

I work on understanding psychological adjustment and personality as correlates of interpersonal acceptance-rejection. My prior graduate degree in psychology and my current studies in HDFS have given me an interdisciplinary cross-cultural perspective in research. Currently I am investigating the neurobiology of social rejection by investigating the way in which adults’ remembrances of parental acceptance-rejection in childhood influence neural responses to rejection.

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Visiting Associate Professor 

Lauren Bryant

Research Interests:

I am interested in higher-order processes (e.g., executive functions) that support emotional and cognitive self-regulation. Specifically, I am interested in environmental (e.g., providing rewards/incentives) and biological (e.g., sex, gender) factors that jointly influence children's self-regulatory abilities. My research incorporates biopsychological and socio-cognitive neuroscience approaches.

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PhD Student 

Dandan Chen

Research Interests:

Educational/psychological instrument design and evaluation (i.e., psychometrics), reliability and validity, standardized assessments, adaptive learning

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Associate Professor 

Matthew Costello

Research Interests:

My research explores age-related differences in cognition and perception from an embodied cognition perspective. Current research questions focus on how older adults perform in visual working memory, time perception, language processing and tool-use.

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Assistant Professor 

Nicole Cruse

Research Interests:

Executive dysfunction after brain injury, TBI, cognitive-communicative disorders, aphasia, and Virtual Gaming as a tool for cognitive rehabilitation

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Postdoc Associate 

Charles Davis

Research Interests:

How is meaning represented in the brain? I am interested in semantic representation in language, and the neural circuits that support these representations. My current work is investigating the representation of abstract concepts, looking at the interaction of semantic and episodic memory in the processing of abstract concepts, and the role of the hippocampus in this relation. I am also interested in the distributed representation of semantic memory across sensorimotor areas of the brain (the extent to which sensory, perceptual, and motor areas are involved in processing language), and how these ideas map onto language creation and, from an evolutionary perspective, non-human communication.

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Visiting Assistant Professor 

Benjamin De Bari

Research Interests:

I am interested in the physical principles supporting biological systems and their behavior. Biological systems’ presence in the world is importantly tied to their functional capacities. I want to investigate the physical principles which underwrite these behaviors, and the physical systems which instantiate these fundamental activities

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Employment Specialist
Attleboro Enterprises, Inc.

Lana Delasanta

Research Interests:

My current interests are collective consciousness and ecological psychology.

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Julia Drouin

Research Interests:

Speech perception, perceptual learning, cochlear implants

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Research Scientist

Matthew Eastman

Research Interests:

My current research projects include developing a spatial multiomics platform, assays, and bioinformatic analyses.

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Kyra Krass

Research Interests:

I am interested in using behavioral and neuroimaging techniques to study sentence processing and event representation. My research seeks to find which object states are active in the brain when individuals process change of state verbs. I am also interested in what role anticipation and affordances play in sentence processing.

IBACS Art in Grey

PhD candidate

Derek Lee

Research Interests:

Cancer metabolism

 

Tommy Lee

NIH-IRACDA FIRST Postdoctoral Fellow
Emory University

Tommy Lee

Research Interests:

Psychiatric disorders can impair social functioning in everyday life. In an effort to translate neural mechanisms into potential future treatments, my current research elucidates the neuroscience of social behavior and memory. To answer outstanding questions, I utilize behavioral paradigms, neuropharmacology, electrophysiology, and computational neuroscience.

 

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Postdoc

Lu Li

Research Interests:

3D bioprinting, additive manufacturing for metals, thermo-fluids, multiphase flow, crack of composite materials.

Jin Lu
Assistant Professor

Jin Lu

Research Interests:

Machine learning, AI, health informatics, and medical informatics

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Postdoc Researcher

Sahil Luthra

Research Interests:

I am particularly interested in the mental computations that underlie the process of spoken word recognition as well as how these computations are achieved in the brain, and I’m keen to draw connections between computational and neurobiological accounts. As a researcher, I’ve focused largely on how listeners leverage their knowledge of who is talking as well as their knowledge of what that person is likely to say in order to comprehend the speech signal.

Area of Advanced Expertise:

AFNI

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Natasza Marrouch

Research Interests:

My primary research focuses on the processing of unpredictability. Building on interdisciplinary postulates from information theory, probability theory, and neurological findings, I explore the role of unpredictability in the formation and persistence of belief systems. To this end I apply a combination of experimental methods, computational modeling, and multilevel analysis of open-source socioeconomic, Geo-spatial data, and individual level data.

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Timothy Mckay

Research Interests:

General research topics that I am interested include: Working memory as it relates to sexual minority stress; learning potential and academic achievement in underserved minority populations; as well as mental health behaviors and outcomes in stigmatized populations. Currently working on the UConn/HRC- LGBTQ Teen Youth Study as a Research Assistant with Dr. Ryan Watson.

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Postdoc Fellow

Timothy Michaels

Research Interests:

My research utilizes translational and interdisciplinary methods to examine the neural basis of perceptual and cognitive deficits that underlie serious mental illness. Specifically, I am interested in understanding how attention and working memory impairments relate to psychosis and contribute to the pathophysiology of schizophrenia. (Social Determinants of Psychosis/Psychosis Risk.)

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Postdoc Fellow 

Alexandra Palmisano

Research Interests:

My research employs human laboratory and clinical methods to investigate biological, psychological, and social factors contributing to the co-occurrence of posttraumatic stress disorder and substance use disorders, specifically alcohol and nicotine dependence.

 

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Postdoc Fellow 

Ashley Parker

Research Interests:

Biomarkers of hearing health, auditory processing, auditory electrophysiology, hearing loss

 

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Postdoc Fellow
University of Calgary

Meaghan Perdue

Research Interests:

I use advanced, multimodal neuroimaging techniques to study the development of brain anatomy and chemistry in children. I also apply these methods to investigate correlates of reading and language skills in an effort to identify the neurobiological mechanisms that support skilled reading and the brain differences associated with reading disabilities.

 

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Robert Pijewski

Research Interests:

My research interests lie in elucidating the fundamental processes underlying aspects of glial biology that lead to nervous system pathology. Accordingly, the focus of my research is to characterize the cellular differences contributing to central nervous system remyelination using human induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells from multiple sclerosis (MS) patients.

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Adjunct Faculty

Sarah Powell

Research Interests:

My research uses electrophysiologic methods alongside behavioral auditory tests to examine individual variability in auditory processing and perception. I am interested in how different experiences may push the limits of clinically "normal" hearing over a listener's lifetime and how research in this area can be translated to better inform both clinical practice and public health.

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Yanina Prystauka

Research Interests:

My research interests are (cognitive neuroscience of) sentence processing in monolingual and bilingual speakers.

IBACS Art in Grey

Amin Sherafat

Research Interests:

I am interested in to work on neuro-glia interactions, computational biology, learning and Memory, neurodegenerative diseases and bioinformatics.

 

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Assistant Professor

Elizabeth Simmons

Research Interests:

My research encompasses how toddlers with and without language delay learn and process spoken words. I use eye tracking and EEG to answer my research questions

 

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Preeti Srinivasan

Research Interests:

My research interests lie at the intersection of communication and Human-computer interaction (HCI). I study information acquisition and processing from social and mobile news media. More specifically, I’m interested in looking at how cognitive processes such as attention, elaboration, engagement, and design features of such platforms impact learning and processing, in a bid to provide design implications to such platforms, and to augment user-experience thereof.