michael j tarr

Kavčić-Moura Professor of Cognitive and Brain Science

Head, Department of Psychology

Carnegie Mellon Neuroscience Institute

Center for the Neural Basis of Cognition

Courtesy Appointments in Machine Learning and in Robotics

Assistant: Kel-Lisa Sebwe
 ksebwe AT andrew.cmu.edu
 412.268.3151

office: 346c Baker Hall
phone: 412.268.4379
email: michaeltarr AT cmu.edu

will not be taking new students for 24-25 or 25-26

how one person ended up working with me...

When people ask how I got into human-computer interaction, I tell them, "Well, originally I wanted to be a graphic designer, but a few serendipitous events changed my course. The first is that on my first day at college, in line at the computer store, I got into a conversation with a young guy with blue hair. It turned out he was a professor! He offered me a work-study job in his lab, and that opened my eyes to cognitive science. From there, one thing led to another…" 

— Scott Klemmer, Professor of Computer Science, UCSD (the blue-haired professor being me)

stuff i like to do besides science

bike riding / bike repair / bike building[1]

wood working / furniture etc.

science fiction (iain m banks[2], terry pratchett[2], neal stephenson[3], ann leckie, william gibson, arkady martine, ted chiang[4])


[1] Q: what is the right number of bikes to own? A: n + 1[2] Who I greatly miss[3] Except for any of his books with the word "Fall" in the title, which I am convinced were not written by him[4] Read "Story of Your Life" - amazing short story (and there is linguistics!)

neon labs (rip)