I’m a third-year PhD student in Cognition & Perception at New York University. I study aesthetics and emotion using behavioral, psychophysical, and computational methods. My current project, advised by Dr. Denis Pelli and Dr. Pablo Ripollés, investigates the role emotion plays in our beauty judgments of visual art and music. I have a BA in Applied Math and a Spanish minor from UC Berkeley and an MA in Experimental Humanities & Social Engagement from NYU. 

The scope of my studies and industry work has been wide. As an undergrad, I took courses across art history, philosophy, neuroscience, physics, and computer science. I spent a year as a research assistant in Dr. Tania Lombrozo’s Concepts and Cognition Lab and in Dr. Alison Gopnik's Cognitive Development and Learning Lab, and I spent another year as research assistant to art historian Dr. Sugata Ray. I stumbled upon the field of empirical aesthetics in my final months at UC Berkeley, and in 2018-21 I explored literature in the field and developed a non-traditional art history essay that can be found under Projects. At NYU my coursework and projects span psychology, data science, and philosophy.

In 2022-24 I worked for Tonic, a gallery for curated fine art on the blockchain. I managed the company's physical derivatives and supported its UX, product, and analytics initiatives. Before starting grad school, I was a merchant for Minted, an art and design e-commerce company that crowdsources artwork from a global community of independent artists through challenges. I curated winning collections using consumer voting data, which let me track trends in customer art preferences and engage directly with artists. In my time at Minted I helped run 10 art challenges that received over 36,000 submissions, and in carefully reviewing all of these submissions I learned artists’ names and work, watched them try new things, and often watched their revenue grow.

In my spare time I enjoy visiting and volunteering in art museums, tutoring students of all ages, training in classical ballet, and reading Pitchfork music reviews.