Predoctoral and Postdoctoral Trainees
Our overall goal is to produce developmental scientists who bring new insight into the understanding of developmental process from a multi-leveled approach. We seek to train ethical scientists who are also good mentors and to increase diversity in the scientific community.
This is our 18th year and we are proud to introduce our predoctoral and postdoctoral trainees for the 2012-2013 year.
Current Postdocs
Caitlin Fausey, CV, webpage, Postdoctoral Fellow
Faculty Supervisors: Linda Smith and Rob Goldstone, Psychological and Brain Sciences
Research Interests: When we see an event, what do we learn from it? What do we remember? Adults who speak different languages often talk about the same event in different ways. Sometimes, they also remember different things about the same event. How does the language we use influence what we pay attention to and remember? To fully answer this question, we must understand how children simultaneously learn about the language, actions and objects in their world. In my research, I examine the role of language in developing habits of attending and remembering.
Alexa Romberg, CV website, Postdoctoral Fellow
Faculty Supervisor: Chen Yu, and Linda Smith, Psychological and Brain Sciences
Research Interests: My research focuses on the basic learning mechanisms underlying first language acquisition. Humans are adept at tracking patterns and structure in their environment and this skill is fundamental to how we acquire our first language. I am interested in how infants and adults represent and update their knowledge of sequential structure, such as language syntax. I investigate both auditory learning and audiovisual learning in order to understand how both audio and visual cues contribute to language learning. My work addresses questions such as: How do infants and adults track multiple structures within the same input? How is learning influenced by the predictability of a sequence or structure? How do domain general skills, such as visual attention, contribute to language learning?
Sandra Street, CV Postdoctoral Fellow
Faculty Supervisors: Karin James, Linda Smith and Susan Jones, Psychological and Brain Sciences
Research Interests: In order to produce smooth goal-directed actions the properties of objects must be used in conjunction with motor control and spatiotemporal information. Infants and toddlers rapidly acquire improved motor control, make advances in object recognition, and perform increasingly sophisticated actions using objects. I am interested in the relationship between object recognition and action on objects and the possible interdependencies in development.
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Current Predocs
Alexis Barton, CV, Graduate Student
Faculty Supervisors: Bennett Bertenthal, Psychological and Brain Sciences
Research Interests: I am interested in Developmental social neuroscience; specifically, in the neural correlates of empathy. I would like to study empathy and other social development in the context of brain development and social input.
Greg Kohn, Graduate Student
Faculty Supervisors: Meredith West, Psychological and Brain Sciences
Research Interests: My main interest is in social behavior; specifically how reliable social experiences are constructed across generations, and how these social experiences shape the development of behavior. My first interest is to understand the ontogeny and functional consequences of individual variation in sociability, or patterns of social interaction. Some individual will be more gregarious and attractive then others and thus be involved in more interactions with more individuals. Variation in individual sociability will shape access to important sources of social information and stimulation. My current research investigates if patterns of sociability are repeatable over time and across contexts, and if early differences in sociability how the sequential patterning of proximal interactions will shape the development of behavior in both birds and infants.
Damian Fricker, CV, Graduate Student
Faculty Supervisors: Chen Yu, and Linda Smith, Psychological and Brain Sciences
Research Interests: My research area is in Embodied Cognition. However, I am primarily interested in how learning and language are grounded in real-time, micro-level sensorimotor experience. Towards that goal, I focus on Human-Human, Parent-Child, and Human-Robot social interactions using eye-tracking, motion-tracking, video, and audio techniques.
Lisa Cantrell, CV, Graduate Student
Faculty Supervisors: Linda Smith, and Bennett Bertenthal, Psychological and Brain Sciences
Research Interests: The adult human cognitive system is quite good at representing and comparing quantities: when presented with sets of items and asked to determine which is the largest or smallest amount, we do so fairly accurately using various dimensions including number, total surface area, density, weight, or some combination of these. My research is focused on three main questions. First, what aspects of quantity are readily perceivable by the human sensory system and thus represented in human cognition? That is, what dimensions do we use? Second, what does the early cognitive system perceive and represent? In other words, what do infants know about quantity? Third, how does the development of other systems/processes (e.g., language acquisition, sensory system refinement, working memory development) change or influence the representation of quantity and in what ways?
Branden Bryan, Graduate Student
Faculty Supervisors: John Kruschke, Psychological and Brain Sciences
Research Interests: My research interests are in the intersection of cognitive science and education. I'm particularly interested in student attention in classroom lecture environments, intelligent tutoring systems, development of statistical concepts in k-12 education, and best practices for multimedia and online learning.
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Still in training
Current Position: Postdoctoral Fellow, Stanford University (M. Frank, Department of Psychology)
Research Topic: Communication and socially-situated language learning
Isaac Petersen, CV
Current Position: Graduate Student, Indiana University, Bloomington (J. Bates, Psychology)
Research Topic: Examining the neural and developmental mechanisms of self-regulation and externalizing behavior problems
Julia Li, CV
Current Position: Graduate Student, Indiana University, Bloomington (K. James, Psychology)
Research Topic: Investigating how young children (2-3 year olds) learn about objects and their properties, specifically focusing on how object recognition is maintained across viewpoints and transformations
Current Position: Postdoctoral Fellow, Indiana University, Bloomington (L. B. Smith, Psychology)
Research Topic: Numerical cognition and development
Elizabeth Wakefield, CV
Current Position: Graduate Student, Indiana University, Bloomington (K. James, Psychology)
Research Topic: Identifying the neural correlates of gesture perception and production across development and determining the neural basis for the facilitative effect of gesture on learning
Current Position: Graduate Student, Indiana University, Bloomington (B. D'Onofrio, Psychology)
Research Topic: Causes and consequences of teenage childbearing
Current Position: Graduate Student, Indiana University, Bloomington (K. James, Psychology)
Research Topic: Multisensory convergence of vision and haptics across development
Current Position: Graduate Student, Indiana University, Bloomington (B. D'Onofrio, Psychology)
Research Topic: Predictors and consequences of sexual risk behavior in adolescence
Viridiana Benitez, CV
Current Position: Graduate Student, Indiana University, Bloomington (L. B. Smith, Psychology)
Research Topic: The role of attention in monolingual and bilingual language acquisition
Current Position: Graduate Student, Indiana University, Bloomington (B D'Onofrio, Psychology)
Research Topic: Investigating the role of timing of severe maternal stress during pregnancy in predicting poor birth outcomes, infant death, and mental and physical health and development
Current Position: Postdoctoral Fellow, University of Wisconsin, Madison (G. Tononi, Cognitive Science Program)
Research Topic: Cognitive behavior in evolved dynamical agents
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Past Trainees
Meagan Yee
Current Position: Research Lab Assistant, Business Simulation Lab, Cornell University
Current Position: Research Assistant Professor, University of Virginia
Current Position: Assistant Professor, University of Vermont
Current Position: Assistant Professor, College of Psychology, Illinois Institute of Technology
Current Position: Vision Scientist, TASC in San Antonio
Current Position: Assistant Professor, Department of Psychology, Drew University
Current Position: Assistant Professor, Department of Psychology, University of South Florida
Current Position: Assistant Professor, Department of Psychology, University of Hawaii
Current Position: Associate Professor, Psychology, University of Warwick, United Kingdom
Current Position: Assistant Professor, Department of Psychology, California State, LA
Current Position: Assistant Professor, Department of Psychology, University of Michigan
Current Position: Research Scientist/Lecturer, Department of Psychology, University of Michigan
Current Position: Assistant Professor, Department of Psychology, Bridgewater College, Virginia
Current Position: Assistant Professor, Department of Psychology, University of Wisconsin, Green Bay
Current Position: Analyst/Developer, Slaughter Development, LLC
Current Position: Assistant Professor, Department of Psychology, San Francisco State University
Current Position: Animal Behavior Scientist, Research and Development, Nestle Purina
Adam SheyaCurrent Position: Research Associate, The Equity Project, Indiana University
Current Position: Associate Professor, Department of Psychology, UCLA
Current Position: Assistant Professor, Department of Psychology, University of Iowa
Current Position: Associate Professor, Department of Psychology, University of Vermont
Current Position: Associate Professor, Physical Therapy Program, Des Moines University
Current Position: Assistant Professor, Developmental Psychology, Queens College
Current Position: Research Associate, Department of Psychology, Cornell University
Current Position: Associate Professor, Department of Psychology, Whitman College
Current Position: Associate Professor, Department of Psychology, University of Pittsburgh
Current Position: Associate Professor, Department of Psychology, University of Iowa
Current Position: Associate Professor, Department of Rehabilitation Sciences & Division of Communication Sciences & Disorders, University of Kentucky
Current Position: Professor of Audiology and Speech-Language Sciences, University of Northern Colorado
Current Position: Associate Professor, Department of Psychology, Florida Atlantic University
Current Position: Assistant Professor, Department of Psychology, Sacramento State
Current Position: Associate Professor, Kinesiology, University of Michigan
Current Position: Associate Professor, Department of Psychology, Winthrop University
Current Position: Assistant Professor, Eunice Kennedy Shriver Center, University of Massachusetts Medical School
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