Cognition & Action Neuroimaging Laboratory
People:

Lab Director:

                                                                               

Joanne Jao is a third year graduate student in cognitive science and psychology who uses fMRI and behavioral methods in her investigations. She is interested in many things including the development of multisensory integration, crossmodal processing, and sensorimotor experience, as well as the roles they play in perception and cognition. Recent awards include an NSF IGERT Training Grant for Fall 2011 through Summer 2013 and a Women in Science Award (2010).

Contact: rjjao@indiana.edu Personal Webpage: http://mypage.iu.edu/~rjjao


Julia Li is a third year graduate student in developmental psychology.  She is interested in looking at how perceptual information influences children’s behaviors and motor development.

Contact: jxli@indiana.edu


Elizabeth Wakefield is a fifth year graduate student concentrating in developmental cognitive neuroscience. She is studying how the neural mechanisms underlying gesture perception and production change across development and determining the neural basis for the facilitative effect of gesture use on learning, using fMRI. Elizabeth had also conducted studies investigating how the brain processes music, depending on how the music has been learned by experts and novices.

Click here for CV

Contact: emwakefi@umail.iu.edu


Felipe Munoz Rubke comes from Chile and is a first year graduate student in Cognitive Science. He is interested in the embodied cognition approach to the mind/body/environment phenomenon and has been highly influenced by the work of Francisco Varela, Gregory Bateson and Jean Piaget. He is starting to study the link between action and language systems in children in order to evaluate the role of premotor and motor cortices in concrete and abstract word-sentence comprehension.

Contact: lfmunoz@indiana.edu

The Cognition and Action Neuroimaging Laboratory

Dept. Psychological and Brain Sciences

Indiana University

1101 E. 10th St., Bloomington, IN, 47405

Ph: (812) 856-7237

Email: canlab1@indiana.edu

The Developmental Neuroimaging Project

Contact Info:

Office: (812) 856-0659; Psychology Bldg Rm 154

Lab: (812) 856-7237; Psychology Bldg Rm A104

Fax: (812) 855-4691

Email: khjames@indiana.edu

Assistant Professor of Psychology

Indiana University


Areas of specialization:

Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience

Developmental Psychology


CLICK HERE FOR FULL CV

Dr. Karin Harman James, Ph.D.

Research Assistants:

A note from the lab director:

    As a native of Canada, I completed my undergraduate degrees at the University of Toronto and acquired my Masters and PhD at the University of Western Ontario.  During these degrees I had the good fortune to have worked under some truly great minds in science, including: Morris Moscovitch, Melvyn Goodale and Keith Humphrey.  During my undergraduate work, I studied human neuropsychology in addition to designing and administering neuropsychological tests for the now-famous patient CK.  During my graduate years, I started to study perception-action interactions under the 'masters' of the dorsal visual  processing stream (MA Goodale) and the ventral stream (GK Humphrey).  I moved to the United States in 2001 to pursue Post Doctoral work at Vanderbilt University under the supervision of Isabel Gauthier.  It was at this point that I began my studies of perceptual expertise, learning a great deal as a member of the "Perceptual Expertise Network".

    I was hired by Indiana University in 2004 as a research scientist, where I developed the Cognition and Action Neuroimaging Lab.  I also started to establish the 'Developmental Neuroimaging Project' and was instrumental in the creation of the IU Imaging Research Facility.  I was promoted  to a tenure-track assistant professor position in 2007. 

     My main passion in research is in discovering how the brain changes as we learn, and the behavioral affects of these changes.  This has led me to study plasticity as a result of experience in both young children and adults using methods such as psychophysics and neuroimaging. 

    I am a member of the department of psychological and brain sciences, where my areas of speciality are developmental cognitive neuroscience and developmental psychology. I am also a member of the program in neuroscience and of the cognitive science program.

Courses Regularly Taught Include:
Cognitive Neuroscience (P349)
Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience (P410)
Developmental Psychology (P315)

Human Neuropsychology

Post-Doctoral Research Fellows:
Undergraduate Students:
Previous Graduates:

Meagan Yee (Ph.D., 2012)

Andrew Butler (Ph.D., 2011)

Angie Huh (Master’s degree, 2010)

Laura Engelhardt (Undergraduate thesis, 2011)

Bennis Pavisian (Undergraduate thesis, 2011)

Paroma Bose (Undergraduate/Lab Manager, 2011)

Lisa Huang (Undergraduate thesis, 2010)

Christin Neary (Undergraduate thesis, 2010)

Isak Allen (Undergraduate thesis, 2009)

Collaborators:

Eric L Altschuler - University of Medicine & Dentistry of New Jersey

Isabel Gauthier - Vanderbilt University

Melvyn Goodale - University of Western Ontario

Thomas James - Indiana University

Susan Jones - Indiana University

Linda Smith - Indiana University

Alan C-N Wong - Vanderbilt University

Lab Photos:
Graduate Students:

Dr. Sandra Street obtained her Ph.D. in developmental psychology from Indiana University in 2012. She is interested in perception/action interactions. Properties of objects must be used in conjunction with motor control and spatiotemporal information in order to produce smooth, object-centered actions. Her interest is in how underlying cognitive and neural mechanisms develop and become integrated in infancy and early childhood.

Contact: systreet@indiana.edu



Melissa Beringer is pursuing a B.S. in Psychology, a certificate in neuroscience, and a minor in music. Upon graduation, she plans to pursue her PhD in Psychology. She is a member of the Phi Beta Kappa Society, as well as the business manager and member of the all-female a cappella group at IU, "Ladies First". For her thesis she is studying the roles of object color and function in the development of infants' object representations.

Contact: mberinge@indiana.edu 

Portia Goodin is from Carbondale, IL and is pursuing an interdepartmental degree in Speech and Hearing Sciences and Psychology with a Spanish minor. She assists Elizabeth in her study of how gestures influence learning in children.

Contact: pogoodin@indiana.edu

Shelley Swain has been working in the CAN lab since 2008 and currently works part-time on the website.

Contact: swains@indiana.edu

Personal Webpage: http://mypage.iu.edu/~swains/

Arianna Gutierrez is pursuing a B.S. in Psychology and a B.S. in Human Development & Family Studies with a minor in English. She assists Elizabeth in her study of how gestures influence learning in children and is doing an honor’s thesis project.

Contact: arigutie@indiana.edu

Alyssa Kersey is a senior majoring in psychology with a neuroscience certificate and minors in Spanish and music. She is a member of the STARS research program and is currently working on an honors thesis examining the role of motor experience in the development of distinct visual networks for cursive letters in 6-7 year olds. After graduating in May 2013, Alyssa plans to attend graduate school to study the neural basis of learning disabilities such as dyslexia and dyscalculia. Throughout her years in the CANLab, Alyssa has worked on both behavioral and fMRI projects.

Click here for CV

Contact: ajkersey@indiana.edu

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Emily Dubnicka is a senior from Arlington Heights, IL, majoring in Neuroscience and Spanish and minoring in Psychology and Western European Studies. Upon graduation she hopes to work in the healthcare field. She assists with several child research studies in the lab.

Contact: edubnick@indiana.edu

Undergraduate Honor’s Thesis Students:

Lisa Byrge is a third year graduate student concentrating in developmental psychology and developmental cognitive neuroscience. She is studying the cognitive and neural mechanisms underlying the development of fluency in symbol systems (particularly Arabic numerals) and gender differences therein. Lisa is a student of Dr. Linda Smith and is collaborating with the CAN lab on a project that is examining the neural correlates of number writing in children.

Awards: NSF Graduate Research Fellowship; NSF IGERT Trainee (NSF IGERT

Training Program in the Dynamics of Brain-Body-Environment Systems in

Behavior and Cognition)

Contact: lbyrge@indiana.edu

Jeanne Heeb started working in the CAN lab in Aug 2012 and is the lab manager.  She is also the lab manager for Dr. Susan Jones‘ lab. She graduated from Indiana University in 1988 with a Master of Science in Education. She trains new incoming students and is responsible for all aspects of running child research studies in the lab.

Contact: jheeb@indiana.edu


Natalie Gutkin is from McLean, VA, and is pursuing a B.S. in Psychology with a minor in Informatics. She is the VP Panhellenic for Delta Gamma, Theta Chapter and upon graduation she hopes to go to graduate school and pursue a career in clinical psychology. She assists with various child research studies in the lab.

Contact: ngutkin@indiana.edu

Jessica MacLean is from Zionsville, IN, and is pursuing a B.S. in Music with an outside field in Neuroscience. She is president of the IU chapter of the American String Teachers Association and plans to focus on the development and cognitive bases of musical experience in graduate school. She assists Julia with her studies of action and perception in toddlers.

Contact: jemaclea@umail.iu.edu


Naomi Gemmell is an undergraduate research assistant in the lab. She assists with several research studies in the lab.

Contact: naomigemmell@gmail.com

Loretta Cambron is from Louisville, KY and is pursuing a B.S. in Psychology with a certificate in Neuroscience, as well as a minor in Spanish. She assists with child development studies about object recognition and handwriting development. 

Contact: lcambron@indiana.edu


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