Two videos:   I do it because it is hard     I just want to do good science 

I am an assistant professor of psychology and neuroscience at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock (UALR).  I run an emotion-cognition neuroscience lab at UALR and collaborate with the Brain Imaging Research Center at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences (UAMS).  I completed my postdoctoral training at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, with Drs. Adam Anderson and Eve DeRosa, and at the University of Maryland, College Park, with Dr. Luiz Pessoa. I received my Ph.D. in Hong Kong, where I collaborated on my dissertation with Dr. Arthur Samuel of Stony Brook University. Prior to that, I earned my B.A. in education and psychology from Beijing Normal University and my M.S. in cognitive psychology from Peking University.

As a cognitive and affective neuroscientist, my research is grounded in theories and methods established in the fields of cognitive psychology, emotion/motivation, neuroscience, and computational modeling. I use behavioral and neuroimaging (e.g., fMRI and EEG) approaches to study the integration and interaction of emotion (induced, for example, by cash reward or mild electric shock) and cognition (perception, attention, executive function). I focus on the role of emotions in all human faculties, from the very first stage of perception to higher-order decision making and thought. Some of my research questions include: 1) How do people do visual search? Are perception and attention trainable? 2) Are emotions basic? 3) How do acquired emotions influence people's decision-making? 4) How do the positive and negative processes interact? I also conduct relevant psychiatry and clinical neuroscience research. My long-term goal is to develop a connection between basic science and clinical intervention and training.

For academic service, I am an associate editor for the journals Scientific Reports, BMC Psychology, and Advances in Cognitive Psychology. I also review manuscripts for  quite a few other journals. I have taught courses in cognitive psychology/neuroscience, statistics, introductory psychology, and research methods.

Elsewhere,  Google scholar