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Name: Shawn Achor
Email: shawn.achor@tufts.edu
Area: Social
Advisor: David
Harder, Ph.D.
Background: BA from Harvard in English and Religion, MA from
Harvard Divinity School in Ethics. Grew up in Waco, Texas.
Current Research: How social support and mental constructs
affect happiness and performance.
Future Plans:
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Name:
Omoniyi (Omni) Olukemi Adekanmbi
Email: adekanmo@lafayette.edu
Area:
Social
Advisor:
Keith Maddox, Ph.D.
Background: Graduated from Lafayette College in Easton,
PA with a B.S. in Psychology and a Minor in A.B. Africana Studies
Current Research:
Future Plans: I hope to work on the psychological factors
that affect the academic performance of minority students, especially
stereotyping and prejudice.
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Email: patricia.allen@tufts.edu
Area: Nutrition and Behavior
Advisor: Robin Kanarek, Ph.D.
Background: I graduated from Trinity College in 2005 with a B.S. in Psychology. I then worked for two years as a Research Assistant II in the psychiatry department (substance abuse division) of Yale University Medical School before coming to Tufts.
Current Research: Examining relationships between nutrition and
neural/physiological bases of mood and behavior
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Email: evan.apfelbaum@tufts.edu
Area: Social
Advisor: Sam Sommers, Ph.D.
Background: I graduated from Union College in 2002 with a B.S. in Psychology and Music (ID)
Current Research: Broadly speaking, I am interested in how race impacts and intersects with underlying social, cognitive, and developmental processes in interpersonal interaction. Through a focus on two programs of research, and using a variety of different methodologies, my collaborators and I have begun to explore how race-relevance (e.g., the presence of a member of another race or discourse regarding a race-related issue) influences performance, perception, and behavior.
In one program of study, I examine social-cognitive questions such as: What strategies do individuals employ to navigate race-relevant contexts? How do these efforts alter the fluid experience of social interaction? And what are the consequences of engaging in such behavior? Additionally, I am interested in how interaction experiences change when individuals gain or lose the cognitive capacity to control their responses.
In a second program of research, I focus on social-developmental issues such as: When do children begin to regulate their behavior in race-relevant contexts? And what developmental processes coincide with the emergence of this tendency? I have also begun to examine how children acquire their understanding of race and diversity and whether such developments are associated with their ability to detect discrimination in the real-world.
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Email: laura.babbitt@tufts.edu
Area:
Advisor: Sam Sommers, Ph.D.
Background:
Current Research:
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Email: kristin.bellanca@tufts.edu
Area: Social
Advisor: Nalini Ambady, Ph.D.
Background: I graduated with a B.A. in Psychology from Dartmouth
College in 2002. I spent the two years before coming to Tufts working in developmental labs and have been combining my background in developmental research and the use of eye-tracking in a young population with my passion for issues in Social Psychology.
Current Research: My central research interests are 1) racial categorization and identity including the environmental, motivational, and social factors that influence the extent of race encoding, 2) prejudice development in children including exploration of stereotype knowledge and when children start to regulate race related knowledge, and 3) exploration of biracial identity and social psychological processes beyond normal race boundaries.
Future Plans: To do lots of interesting research and find worthwhile applications of such research.
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Email: ayse.bilge@tufts.edu
Area: Cognitive
Advisor: Holly Taylor, Ph.D.
Background:
Current Research:
Future Plans:
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Email: kchauncey@neurocog.psy.tufts.edu
Area: Neurolinguistics
Advisor: Phil Holcomb, Ph.D.
Background: I graduated from Duke University in linguistics, neuroscience, and German in 2002, and have since been working on an ERP project on speech/gesture information integration with Peter Hagoort at the Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics and the F.C. Donders Centre for Cognitive Neuroimaging in Nijmegen, Holland.
Current Research: I will be working on the bilingualism project in Phil Holcomb's lab.
Future Plans: I hope to investigate the cognitive processes of language acquisition and code-switching, as well as their neural correlates.
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Email: neil.cohn@tufts.edu
Area: Cognition, Linguistics: syntax, semantics, event structure
Advisor: Ray Jackendoff, Ph.D. (primary); Phil Holcomb, Ph.D.; Gina Kuperberg, M.D., Ph.D.
Background: I graduated with honors from UC Berkeley in '02 with a BA in Asian Studies (concentrations: Japan, Buddhism) and an MA in Social Science (concentrations: Linguistics/Psychology) from the University of Chicago in '05.
Current Research: I study the cognition behind the "comic book medium," specifically, looking at the question "how does the mind/brain create meaning out of sequences of images?" My answer so far: it uses a "grammar" in similar ways to how sequential words create meaning. (My website: www.emaki.net)
Future Plans: Can't I just live in the present for now?
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Email: Jennifer.DiCorcia@tufts.edu
Area: Developmental
Advisor: Donna Mumme, Ph.D.
Background: I graduated from Rutgers College (NJ) with a B.A. in Psychology and Cognitive Science.
Current Research: I am currently investigating the long-term implications of social referencing with young infants.
Future Plans: In the future, I hope to continue to explore emotional development in young children and also extending such research to atypical populations.
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Email: difiore@volpe.dot.gov
Area: Cognitive
Advisor: Richard Chechile, Ph.D.
Background: EEG measures of cognition/human factors
Current Research: EEG research on the AHA phenomenon
Future Plans: Human factors research on air traffic control and other modes of transportation.
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Name:
Kristin Dukes
Email:
Kristin.Dukes@tufts.edu
Area of Study: Social
Advisor: Keith Maddox, PhD
Background: B.A. in Psychology, Rice University 2005
Current Research: My current research deals with controllable
and uncontrollable features of stereotype activation.
Future Plans: Continuing research in this area, earning my
PhD, and entering academia.
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Email: Marianna.eddy@tufts.edu
Area: Cognitive Neuroscience
Advisor: Phil Holcomb, Ph.D.
Background:
Current Research:
Future Plans:
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Email: Jon.Freeman@tufts.edu
Area: Social
Advisor: Nalini Ambady, Ph.D.
Background: I graduated from New York University in 2007 with a B.A. in Psychology and Gender & Sexuality Studies (Social/Cultural Analysis).
Current Research: Social and cultural neuroscience, first impressions, social evaluation, spontaneous and unintended social cognition, prejudice, social judgments and decision-making, social subjective value representation, and the complex/intersecting ways that person categories like gender, sexuality, race, and class affect (and are affected by) processes of social perception.
Future Plans: Being a lifer in academia and research, and working with others to take on white heteronormative patriarchy and the recent globalized capitalist new world order towards a less oppressive world of truer and more distributed social justice and equality. Join in on the fun!
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Email: alexandra.geyer@tufts.edu
Area: Cognitive Neuroscience
Advisor: Phil Holcomb, Ph.D.
Background:
Current Research:
Future Plans:
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Email: Carl.Hagmann@tufts.edu
Area of Study: Animal Learning and Cognition
Advisor: Robert Cook, PhD
Background: I studied higher order reasoning processes in capuchin monkeys at my alma mater, Franklin & Marshall College, and decided to go straight into the world of avian cognition at Tufts.
Current Research: Auditory and Visual Discrimination in pigeons
Future Plans: I hope to study music, the mind, and its role in evolution - but I'm open to anything.
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Email: Kathryn.Handwerger@tufts.edu
Area: Experimental Psychopathology
Advisor: Lisa Shin, Ph.D.
Background: I graduated from Connecticut College in 2003 with a B.A. in Neuroscience/Psychobiology. I then worked for a year at Brown University Medical School. During that time I worked on two studies examining the effects of both maternal depression and prenatal smoking on child and and adolescent stress reactivity.
Current Research: I am currently interested in the neurobiology and etiology of psychopathology. I am especially interested in using fMRI to study brain functioning in posttraumatic stress disorder patients. I am also very interested in central regulation of the HPA response as it relates to psychopathology and mood.
Future Plans: Oh, it's far too soon to tell...
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Email: nicole.jurdak@tufts.edu
Area: Nutrition and Behavior
Advisor: Robin Kanarek, Ph.D.
Background: Graduated from University of Southern Maine with a B.A. in Psychology
Current Research: Obesity and pre-diabetes research.
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Email: akiere01@tufts.edu
Area: Biological
Advisor: Robert Cook, Ph.D.
Background: B.S. and M.A. in Psychology from The University at Buffalo, SUNY.
Current Research: Animal visual cognition.
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Email: angie.koban@tufts.edu
Area: Cognitive, Avian Cognition
Advisor: Robert Cook, Ph.D.
Background: I graduated with a B.S. in Animal Bioscience from The Pennsylvania State University in 2001 and then worked as a research intern at the Pittsburgh Zoo and Aquarium for a year before coming to Tufts.
Current Research: Currently working on many experiments examining both the visual and mental capabilities of avians. Specifically my research focuses on Avian Motor Perception and Categorization.
Future Plans: Attain my Ph.D. and continue to do research that makes me happy. (o:
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Email: lisa.lucia@tufts.edu
Area of Study: Cognitive Neuroscience
Advisor: Haline E. Schendan, Ph.D.
Background: I'm OFD (originally from Dorchester, for those who don't know what that means). I went to Bates College in Vacationland and majored in Psychology, minored in Spanish. After graduating I happily came back to Boston to work at Harvard Medical School's Brain Imaging Lab at the Brockton VA Hospital for 3 years before applying to graduate programs.
Current Research: Visual object identification and memory.
Future Plans: I plan to survive graduate school without losing too much sleep and hopefully have a long vita full of exciting research!
Name: Steve Maher
Email:
Stephen.Maher@tufts.edu
Area: Cognitive Neuroscience
Advisor: Haline E. Schendan, Ph.D.
Background:
Current Research:
Future Plans:
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Email: sara.mckenzie @tufts.edu
Area: Biological
Advisor: Klaus Miczek, Ph.D.
Background: B.A. from Colorado College, major in Anthropology, 1995. M.A. from University of Texas Austin, Curriculum and Instruction, 1998. Summer Research Assistant, Yerkes Regional Primate Research Center, 1994. Primate Behaviorist, LABS of Virginia, 1999.
Current Research: 5-HT1A agonists and self-administration of ethanol by rats and squirrel monkeys; self-administration of ethanol in socially housed squirrel monkeys, effects of isolation; and effects of ethanol and social rank on aggression in squirrel monkeys.
Future Plans:
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Name: Matthew Murphy
Email:
Matthew_S.Murphy@tufts.edu
Area: Cognitive Animal Behavior
Advisor: Robert Cook, Ph.D.
Background: I graduated Southampton College of Long Island University in 2005 with dual
B.S. degrees in Marine Vertebrate Zoology and Interdisciplinary Psychology/Biology. I
focused my studies in marine mammal behavior, particularly cetaceans. I interned at the
Carnegie Museum of Natural History in the malacology department, the Pittsburgh Zoo & PPG
Aquarium with the science research department, and at Brookhaven National Labs working on
a NASA-funded project on the long-term effects of low-dose radiation on auditory
cognition in rats.
Current Research: Utilization of spatial frequencies in processing natural pictures in
pigeons, investigation of an attention-based hypothesis in rule-based discrimination in
pigeons, utilization of absolute and relational information in audtitory sequences in
pigeons, and processing of same/different auditory sequences in pigeons.
Future Plans: Investigation of higher-order cognitive capabilities in animals
(particularly cetaceans), focused on an experimental and in-depth approach to
self-recognition. Other possible cognitive capabilities include tool-use, higher-order
communicative abilities including syntax-use in dolphins, and imitation. I plan to
eventually teach as a professor and continue my research in a dolphin cognition lab,
which I very well may have to establish myself if they keep closing down on me.
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Name: Reid Offringa
Email: reid.offringa@tufts.edu
Area of Study: Experimental Psychopathology
Advisor: Lisa Shin
Background: I graduated with a B.S. in Neuroscience from Trinity College in 2006, and even though my senior thesis was cellular, my anthropocentrism made it feel like research in humans. I then spent less than a year working in the Brigham and Women's sleep lab where I helped people not sleep, before jumping over to Tufts.
Current Research: I am currently working with Lisa Shin on PTSD related experiments.
Future Plans: To teach, and find practical applications for my research. I also hope to work some philosophy of mind into my research - so, the opposite of practical.
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Email: philipp.opitz@tufts.edu
Area of Study: Affective Neuroscience
Advisor: Heather Urry, PhD.
Background: graduated from Boston University with a BA in psychology, where I conducted research in the Vision Sciences Lab
Current Research: TBA
Future Plans: Nobel Prize, what else.
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Email: nicholas.rule@tufts.edu
Area: Social
Advisor: Nalini Ambady, Ph.D.
Background: B.A. Dartmouth College, 2004
Current Research: Nonverbal Behavior
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Email: lara.sloboda@tufts.edu
Area of Study: Cognition
Advisor: Richard Chechile, Ph.D.
Background: Scripps College, class of 2001. I then worked for the University of California, Irvine as a neuropsychological tester. I did cognitive assesments of people over the age of 90 for a study run through UCI's Institute of Brain Aging and Dementia.
Current Research: Mathematical models of memory retention.
Future Plans: To work in an academic environment as a professor and researcher.
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Email: Emily.Slocombe@tufts.edu
Area of Study: Cognitive Neuroscience
Advisor: Haline Schendan, Ph.D.
Background: I spent many non-academic years working in Internet Security, Systems Architecture, and Database Design. I even did some work in Bayesian analysis of language. I got sick of working in the underbelly of the Internet and decided to pursue a rewarding career in academia. After much time off, I finally got my BS in Cognitive Science from Umass - Amherst (2005).
Current Research: Mapping and correlating events in visual perception, cognition, learning, and memory.
Future Plans: To learn as much as I can, enjoy Boston, and do lots of research!
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Email: negin.toosi@tufts.edu
Website: www.tufts.edu/~ntoosi01
Area of Study: Social
Advisor: Nalini Ambady, Ph.D.
Background: I attended Stanford University as an undergraduate, majoring in international relations and psychology. After graduation in 2003, I moved to Chicago to work at the Baha'i National Center for the next two years, before coming to Boston to attend Tufts.
Current Research: I'm interested in examining, crossing, and blurring the lines that are typically drawn between different social groups. An obvious example of this is my interest in multi-racial identity development. Other interests include the intersections of gender and racial groups and the nature of privilege, guilt, and responsibility.
Future Plans: Racial prejudice is the most vital and challenging issue facing America. While it may not be completely eradicated in my lifetime, I plan to contribute my brains, beauty, and incredible super-human brawn* to the process of creating a just society.
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Email: agatha.trindade@tufts.edu
Area of Study:
Advisor: Klaus Miczek, Ph.D.
Background:
Current Research:
Future Plans:
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Email:
elsie.wang@tufts.edu
Area of Study: Social
Advisor: Nalini Ambady, Ph.D.
Background: B.A. from the University of
Michigan, 2003
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Email: dahe.yang@tufts.edu
Area: Developmental/Infancy
Advisor: Emily Bushnell, Ph.D.
Background: I graduated in 2002 with a BS in Psychology from Peking University, China. I began my graduate study at Tufts in Fall, 2002.
Current Research: I am currently investigating infants’ transferring imitated actions to novel toys as my first year project. Update in next fall, haha.
Future Plans: Continue to do research or play with babies. Maybe I will be a professor or researcher in child development in the future. Maybe I will run a kindergarten as an early educational expert. Who knows……@_@
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Email: jasmine.yap@tufts.edu
Area: Behavioral Pharmacology
Advisor: Klaus A. Miczek, Ph.D.
Background: I graduated from Loyola College with a B.A. in psychology in 1999, and was a research fellow at the National Institute on Drug Abuse, NIH, from 1999-2001. At NIH I studied the neurobiology of relapse, particularly the effects of stress on reinstatement of heroin and cocaine seeking in rats.
Current Research: I study the cellular and behavioral consequences of social defeat stress in rats and mice by looking at immediate early gene expression in select brain regions, changes in intracellular signaling, altered cell proliferation and neurogenesis, locomotor behavior following acute administration of a psychostimulant (i.e., cross-sensitization), and intravenous self-administration of cocaine.
Future Plans: To finish the program and graduate.
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Email: dawnya.zitzman@tufts.edu
Area: Biological
Advisor: Joe DeBold, Ph.D.
Background:
Current Research:
Future Plans:
Recent Graduates
Tad Brunye, Ph.D., 2007Sue Butler, Ph.D., 2003
Gemma Casadesus, Ph.D., 2003
Sarah Rose Cavanagh, Ph.D., 2007
Jessica Chamberland, Ph.D., 2007
Amy Brugger Clement, Ph.D., 2003
Herbert Evans Covington, III, Ph.D., 2006
R. Todd Coy, Ph.D., 2004
Tali Ditman, Ph.D., 2007
Heidi Dobish, Ph.D., 2004
Sara Park Faccidomo, Ph.D., 2006
Eric Fish, Ph.D., 2003
Stephanie Gray, Ph.D., 2003
Marcy Goldsmith, Ph.D., 2004
Terri S. Krangel, Ph.D., 2004
Leslie Adams Lariviere, Ph.D., 2005
Gina Melnik, Ph.D., 2007
Jason Sidman, Ph.D., 2006
Tatiana Sitnikova, Ph.D., 2003
Yvonne Wakeford, Ph.D., 2006
Rinah Yamamoto, Ph.D., 2005
Page maintained by
Emily Slocombe
Last Updated:
May 02, 2008
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extensions and office numbers, view the
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