Director
Julie Golomb, PhD
Julie is a Professor in the Department of Psychology, Center for Cognitive and Brain Sciences, and Neuroscience Graduate Program at OSU. She is also director of the Cognitive Neuroscience area and PhD Program. She received her B.S. in Neuroscience from Brandeis University working with Art Wingfield and Mike Kahana, her Ph.D. in Neuroscience from Yale University working with Marvin Chun and Jamie Mazer, and was a post-doctoral research fellow with Nancy Kanwisher at MIT before joining the faculty at Ohio State in 2012. She has won early career awards including Sloan Research Fellow in Neuroscience, APA Distinguished Scientific Award for Early Career Contribution to Psychology, APF Fantz Award, and Federation of Associations in Behavioral and Brain Sciences Early Career Impact Award. [CV] [email]
Postdoctoral Researchers
Vladislav Khvostov, PhD
Vladislav did his first postdoc (2022-2024) at Icelandic Vision Lab (University of Iceland), working with Árni Kristjánsson and Árni Gunnar Ásgeirsson. Before that, he received his PhD in Psychology as well as an M.S. in Cognitive Sciences, and a B.A. in Psychology under the supervision of Igor Utochkin at HSE University (Russia). Vladislav studies ensemble perception – the visual system’s ability to extract statistical information from groups of similar objects. His research interests also include visual working memory, selective attention, and rapid visual categorization. [email]
Stephanie Kristensen (starting Dec 2024)
Stephanie received her PhD in Cognitive Neuroscience from Coimbra University in 2024. Before that she received her B.S. and M.S in Psychology from Maastricht University. Her research interests include visual object recognition and neuroimaging. Specifically, she is using fMRI and population receptive field (pRF) modeling technique to understand the cognitive representation and functional organization of objects and 3D space in the healthy human brain.
PhD Students
Yong Min Choi
Yong Min is a fifth year graduate student in Cognitive Neuroscience. He received his B.A. in Psychology and M.A. in Cognitive Science from Yonsei University, studying visual cognition with Sang Chul Chong from 2016 to 2020. His research interests include visual attention and perception, specifically regarding how attention mechanisms determine what we see. [email]
Zitong Lu
Zitong is a fourth year graduate student in Cognitive Neuroscience. He received B.Eng. in software engineering from Northeastern University in China in 2018 and M.S. in cognitive neuroscience from East China Normal University in 2021. While at ECNU, he worked with Yixuan Ku and did some studies about visual working memory and face perception. He is interested in combining behavior, EEG, fMRI and computational approaches to explore the neural mechanism of visual perception and memory. He will be beginning a postdoc in Nancy Kanwisher’s lab at MIT in Summer 2024. [webpage] [email]
Jenny Lin
Jenny is a fourth year graduate student in Cognitive Psychology, working with Julie Golomb and Andy Leber. She received her B.A. in Psychology from New York University Abu Dhabi in 2019 and worked as a research assistant with Daryl Fougnie after graduating. Her research interests include visual attention and working memory, especially how the flexible control of working memory relates to attention. [email]
Tzu-Yao Chiu
Tzu-Yao is a third-year graduate student in Cognitive Psychology. He received his B.S. in Psychology from National Chengchi University in 2020 and M.S. in Psychology from University of Southampton in 2022. While at Southampton, he worked with Denis Drieghe on visual crowding in reading and with Erich Graf on ensemble coding. Tzu-Yao is interested in visual perception and attention, especially how visual information across eye movements is processed to achieve stable perception.
Derrek Montalvo
Derrek is a first-year graduate student in Cognitive Neuroscience. He received his B.A. in Psychology from Michigan State University in 2024. While at MSU, he worked with Mark Becker on methods to mitigate the low prevalence effect, improve quitting thresholds, and published a manuscript investigating the impact that a visual search template’s feature information has on search performance and strategy. His research interests include visual attention, perception, and working memory, specifically how visual and spatial information are encoded into working memory and interact to guide and control attention.
Qingqing Yang
Qingqing is a first-year graduate student in Cognitive Neuroscience, working with Julie Golomb and Hsin-Hung Li. They received a B.S. in Cognitive Psychology from Zhejiang University in 2017, and M.A. in Psychology from New York University in 2023. Qingqing worked as an Assistant Research Scientist with Dr. Clayton Curtis on working memory, and Dr. Cate Hartley on decision making before coming to OSU. Qingqing is generally interested in understanding the computations and neural basis of visual perception, memory, learning and decision making. [website]
Post-baccalaureate Researchers
Caitlin Cunningham – Lab Manager
Caitlin graduated from the University of Notre Dame in 2024 with a B.S. in Neuroscience and Behavior and minors in Data Science and Health, Humanities, and Society. At Notre Dame, she was a research assistant in Dr. Jim Brockmole’s Visual Cognition Lab, where she completed a thesis using eye tracking to study how individual biases impact the perception of AI-generated religious art. Her research interests include neuroimaging methodologies, visual perception, and attention. [email]
Undergraduate Researchers
Mengxin (Ava) Ran (OSU ’24: Psychology major, Thesis student, ADNiR scholar)
Lyric Ransom (OSU ’24: Psychology major, Thesis student, Buckeye First Scholar)
Jazmine Burkes (OSU ’24: Biology major, Morrill Scholar)
Isabel Jaen (OSU ’24: Neuroscience major, Thesis student, Morrill Scholar)
Jake Ferreira (OSU ’24: Neuroscience major, Thesis student)
Sanjana Reddy-Ramalla (OSU ’27: Psychology & Biochemistry major)
Kassandra Alba (OSU ’25: Psychology major, Morrill scholar)
Natalie Mitchell (OSU ’26: Psychology major)
Lab Mascot
Mochi
Lab Alumni
Seah Chang, PhD (postdoc 2020-2024)
Currently: Assistant Professor of Psychology at Ajou University (South Korea)
Seah was a postdoctoral researcher working jointly in our lab and Andy Leber’s lab. She received her PhD in Psychological and Brain Sciences from Johns Hopkins University in 2021, working with Howard Egeth. Before that, she received her B.A. in Psychology and M.S. in Cognitive Psychology from Korea University. Her research interests include visual attention and suppression, especially how facilitatory and inhibitory processes are coordinated to guide attention. She now runs her own lab at Ajou University! [webpage]
Eva Lout (lab manager 2022-2024)
Currently: PhD student in Psychology at UT Austin
Eva graduated with a major in Psychology and a minor in Neuroscience from Texas A&M University in 2022. She was an undergraduate research assistant in the Existential Psychology Collaboratory Lab under Dr. Matthew Vess at Texas A&M University, and she studied how delusional beliefs are endorsed based on one’s perception of meaning in life. In our lab she studied interactions between visual working memory, attention, and perception. Her research interests include neuroimaging methodologies, visual attention, working memory, and learning. She is currently a PhD student in Psychology at UT Austin with Jarrod Lewis-Peacock.
Ehi Okojie (Discovery PREP postbaccalaureate fellow 2023-2024)
Currently: PhD student in Neuroscience at UNC Chapel Hill
Ehi graduated from The Ohio State University with a BS in psychology in 2023. He started as an undergraduate research assistant in the lab, and then continued full-time in the lab as a postbacc researcher through the OSU Discovery Postbaccalaureate Research Education Program. His research interests include neuroimaging methodologies, judgement/decision making, working memory, and attention. He is currently a PhD student at UNC Chapel Hill with Charlotte Boettiger.
William Narhi-Martinez (PhD student 2018-2023, postdoc 2024)
Currently: Postdoc at Yale University
William received his PhD in Cognitive Psychology at OSU in 2023. He received his B.S. in Psychology from The University of Iowa in 2018. As an undergraduate, he worked with Andrew Hollingworth and completed a thesis on contextually cued visual sequences. William’s research interests include attention, visual perception, and feature binding. He was also an officer in the Center for Cognitive and Behavioral Brain Imaging (CCBBI) Student Group. He is currently a postdoc in Kia Nobre’s lab at Yale.
Blaire Dube, PhD (postdoc 2019-2023)
Currently: Assistant Professor of Psychology, Memorial University of Newfoundland (Canada)
Blaire was a postdoctoral researcher in the lab from 2019-2023. She received her B.A. in Psychology from Brock University (St. Catharines, Canada) in 2012, working primarily with Karen Arnell. She then went on to the University of Guelph (Guelph, Canada) to complete an MSc and PhD (2019) in Cognitive Psychology with a Neuroscience specialization, working with Naseem Al-Aidroos, and collaborating with Mark Fenske and Steve Emrich. Her research interests include visual attention and visual working memory, and understanding how their reciprocal interactions support effective goal-driven behaviour. Blaire was awarded a postdoctoral NSERC fellowship in 2021, and was also an OPAM conference organizer. She now runs her own lab at Memorial University! [webpage]
Lasyapriya Pidaparthi (lab manager 2020-2022)
Currently: PhD student in Psychological Science at Vanderbilt University
Lasya was lab manager from 2020-2022. She graduated from the University of Virginia in 2020, with a major in Neuroscience and a minor in History. At the University of Virginia, she worked under the guidance of Dr. Wendy Lynch and did her senior thesis on the efficacy of exercise in reducing relapse vulnerability using a rat model of cocaine addiction. Her research interests include neuroimaging methodologies and visual cognition. She is currently a PhD student at Vanderbilt with Frank Tong.
Paul Scotti, PhD (PhD student 2017-2022)
Currently: Research Scientist at Princeton University, Head of Neuroimaging at Stability AI
Paul received his PhD in Cognitive Psychology at OSU in 2022, working jointly in our lab and Andrew Leber’s lab. He received his B.A. in Psychology from The George Washington University in 2017. While at GWU, he worked with Sarah Shomstein and Stephen Mitroff. Paul is interested in visual memory, attention, and perception, and developing new computational cognitive neuroscience analysis techniques. He received an NSF Graduate Research Fellowship in 2019. He is currently a postdoc in Ken Norman’s lab at Princeton. [webpage]
Jiageng Chen, PhD (PhD student 2015-21, postdoc 2021-22)
Currently: Data Scientist at Early Warning/Zelle
Jiageng received his PhD in Cognitive Psychology from The Ohio State University in 2021, and stayed for a short a postdoc in the lab before accepting a data scientist position. His research interests include visual attention and perception, especially the neural mechanisms of attentional updating. He also helped run the department EEG Center. He received his B.S. in Psychology from Beijing Normal University in 2013 and then worked with Amit Yashar and Marisa Carrasco at New York University before joining OSU.
Maurryce Starks (post-bac research assistant 2018-2021)
Currently: PhD student in Psychology at University of North Carolina – Chapel Hill
Maurryce graduated from the College of Wooster in 2018 with a B.A. in Cognitive-Behavioral Neuroscience and completed his senior thesis on neurolinguistics and social psychology under the advisement of Dr. Grit Herzmann. While in our lab, some of his many research interests included EEG methodology, face perception, and the influence of spatial location on object-feature perception. Maurryce is currently pursuing his PhD in Social Psychology at UNC Chapel Hill with Dr. Keely Muscatell, studying the neural and cognitive effects of experiencing racism. He is an NSF Graduate Research Fellow.
Xiaoli Zhang, PhD (PhD student 2014-2020)
Currently: Postdoc at George Washington University
Xiaoli earned her PhD in Cognitive Psychology in 2020, focused on the integration and updating of visuospatial information across saccades. Before that she graduated from Tsinghua University in China in 2013, with a B.S. in Psychology, and continued working in the lab of Meihong Zheng from 2013-2014 on the adaptation of working memory capacity under feedback stress. Her research interests include visual perception, attention, and advanced neuroimaging techniques. She is currently a postdoc in Sarah Shomstein’s lab at GWU and an OPAM conference organizer.
Christopher Jones (lab manager 2018-2020)
Currently: PhD student in Psychology at Emory University
Chris was lab manager from 2018-2020. He graduated from the University of Utah in 2018 with a B.S. in Psychology and a minor in Chemistry. While at the University of Utah, Chris worked in Trafton Drew’s applied visual attention lab studying attention and memory during visual search. His research interests include the neural mechanisms of attention, visual working memory, and real-world object perception. He is currently pursuing his PhD in Psychology at Emory University with Danny Dilks.
Emma Wu Dowd, PhD (postdoc 2016-2018)
Currently: Director, Enrollment Analytics, UT Austin
Emma was a postdoc in our lab from 2016-2018. She received a B.A. in Linguistics from Harvard University, working with Alfonso Caramazza. As a British Marshall Scholar, she earned an M.Sc. in Psychology from University College London, working with Masud Husain and Paul Bays, and an M.Sc. in Neuroscience from King’s College London. She received her Ph.D. in Cognitive Neuroscience from Duke University in 2016, working with Tobias Egner and Steve Mitroff. Her research interests include visual attention and working memory. She was awarded an NIH NRSA Postdoctoral Research Fellowship in 2017. Emma is currently at UT Austin leading a research team that makes data-driven decisions about how best to promote student success. [website]
Daniel Berman, PhD (PhD student 2014-2018)
Currently: Postdoc at Ohio State University
Dan earned his PhD in Cognitive Psychology in 2018, focused on the representations of spatial frequency, depth, and higher-level image content in human visual cortex. He did his undergraduate at the University of Maryland, graduating in 2010 with an honors degree in Psychology, working in David Yager’s lab investigating the underlying neurotransmitter systems in various invertebrate sensory systems. At OSU he worked with Dirk Bernhardt-Walther from 2012-2014 before joining our lab. His research interests include retinotopic mapping, how we process complex imagery such as scenes, and the neural mechanisms underlying the human visual system. He is currently a postdoc in Baldwin Way’s Social Neurochemistry Lab at OSU.
Samoni Nag (lab manager 2016-2018)
Currently: PhD student in Psychology at George Washington Univ
Samoni was lab manager from 2016-2018. She graduated from Emory University in 2016 with a degree in psychology and public health. While at Emory, she worked in Stella Lourenco’s spatial cognition lab studying cue combination in early childhood and visual object recognition. Broadly speaking, she is interested in spatial perception, visual attention, and visual search. Samoni is currently pursuing her Ph.D. in cognitive psychology at George Washington University with Steve Mitroff.
Nonie Finlayson, Ph.D. (postdoc 2014-2016)
Currently: Research Manager at IPSOS Marketing (Brisbane, Australia)
Nonie was a postdoc in our lab from 2014-2016. She hails from the University of Queensland in Australia, where she completed a B.Psy.Sc. in Psychology in 2008 working with Jason Mattingley and a Ph.D. in Cognitive & Behavioural Psychology in 2014 with Philip Grove and Roger Remington. Her research interests include attention, spatial representations, and perception in 3D. After OSU she was a postdoctoral associate with Sam Schwarzkopf at UCL and with Stefanie Becker at University of Queensland. [website]
Anna Shafer-Skelton, PhD (lab manager 2014-2016)
Currently: Postdoc at UPenn
Anna was lab manager from 2014-2016. She graduated from Washington University in St. Louis in 2011 with a B.A. in Philosophy-Neuroscience-Psychology. She worked with Richard Abrams on her undergraduate thesis, and then with Tim Brady and George Alvarez at the Harvard Vision Lab before starting her position at OSU. Her research interests include visual attention, depth perception, natural scene perception, and spatial representations. After OSU, she went on to obtain a Ph.D. in Psychology at UCSD with Tim Brady and John Serences, where she was an NSF Graduate Research Fellow. She is now a postdoc with Russell Epstein at UPenn.
Colin Kupitz, PhD (lab manager 2012-2014)
Currently: Cognitive Data Scientist at Kairos Research
Colin was lab manager from 2012-2014. He received his B.S. in Neuroscience & Chemistry in 2012 from the University of Nevada, Reno, where he did his undergraduate thesis on visual size illusions with Gideon Caplovitz. After OSU he then completed his Ph.D. in Cognitive Science at University of California: Irvine with Joachim Vandekerckhove, followed by a postdoc at Air Force Research Labs, and is now a Data Scientist.
Makaela Nartker (post-bac research assistant 2017)
Currently: PhD student in Psychological and Brain Sciences at Johns Hopkins Univ
As an undergraduate at OSU, Makaela worked with Jim Todd investigating the perception of 3D shape from shading. She earned her B.A. in Psychology and Neuroscience in 2016, and was a research assistant in our lab in 2017 before taking a lab manager position in the Visual Attention Lab at Harvard Med School with Jeremy Wolfe. She is now a PhD student at Johns Hopkins with Chaz Firestone and Howard Egeth.
Anisha Babu (OSU ’20 Neuroscience Major; Honors Thesis student)
Currently: PhD student in Psychology at University of Oregon
Anisha was an undergraduate researcher in our lab from 2016-2020, completing her honors thesis on the influence of statistical regularities on the Spatial Congruency Bias. Her interests are in the neural mechanisms of human memory. She is now a PhD student at University of Oregon with Brice Kuhl.
Emma Megla (OSU ’19 Neuroscience Major)
Currently: PhD student in Psychology at University of Chicago
Emma was an undergraduate researcher in our lab from 2018-2019, and was also a primary member of Ashleigh Maxcey’s lab, where she completed her Honors Thesis. After OSU she was a full-time lab manager at Vanderbilt University in Geoffrey Woodman’s lab, is now a PhD student at University of Chicago with Wilma Bainbridge.
Matt Heard (OSU ’17: Neuroscience major)
Currently: PhD student in Cognition & Neuroscience UT Dallas
Matt was an undergraduate researcher in our lab from 2016-2017, assisting with various fMRI studies. After graduating he took a research assistant position at Ohio State in the Speech, Language, & Music Lab with Yune Lee, and then began his PhD in Neuroscience at Ohio State. He moved with Yune Lee’s lab to UT Dallas in 2020.
Jackie Bao (OSU ’21: Neuroscience major)
Currently: PhD student in Psychology at Duke University
Jackie was an undergraduate researcher in our lab from 2019-2021, working on a project involving attentional control across saccades. After graduating from OSU, she was a full-time research assistant / lab manager at MSU with Katy Thakkar. She is now a PhD student in Psychology at Duke University.
Zihan Bai (OSU ’22: Psychology major, Thesis student)
Currently: Full-time research assistant / lab manager at Yale with Elizabeth Goldfarb
Zihan was an undergraduate researcher in our lab from 2020-2022, and completed a thesis project on the influence of background scenes on same-different judgments of object identity. After graduating from OSU, he completed a Masters in Psychology at University of Chicago with Yuan Chang Leong. He is now a full-time research assistant / lab manager at Yale with Elizabeth Goldfarb.
Chenwei (Sigrid) Zhu (OSU ’20: Psychology major)
Currently: Masters student in Psychology at University of Illinois
Janie Beaufore (OSU ’17: Neuroscience major; Honors Thesis student)
Currently: Science writer, New York Stem Cell Foundation
Michela Paradiso (OSU ’16 Neuroscience major; Independent research student)
Currently: MD student at Ohio State University Medical School
Avni Bapat (OSU ’16 Neuroscience & Psychology major; Honors Thesis student)
Currently: Data Analyst, Cardinal Health
Carina Thiemann Venegas (OSU ’15 Neuroscience major; Independent research student)
Currently: Technical Program Manager for eye-tracking research; Oculus (Facebook Reality Labs)
