Advisor: Patricia J. Bauer Co-advisor: Dietrich Stout

Contact: lcroni3@emory.edu

I am curious about semantic memory development, specifically in relation to how children and adults self-direct their learning outside the classroom.

Advisor: Rob Hampton Co-advisor: Mar Sanchez

Contact: rael.sammerhoff@emory.edu

I am interested in understanding how non-human primates build mental representations of lists through either transitive inference or more abstract rule learning.

Advisor: Ben Wilson Co-advisor: Jared Taglialatela Contact: angelle.antoun@emory.edu

My work takes a comparative approach to study the evolution of language. I work with multiple primate species, including Rhesus macaques, bonobos, and humans. By designing tasks that test different language-related abilities (such as sequence learning and communication), I can compare the limits of these abilities across primate species to better map the evolutionary trajectory of language. 

Advisor: Dieter Jaeger Co-advisor: Shella Keilholz Contact: lmeyerb@emory.edu

My work aims to understand the how the brain is wired on a macroscopic scale, to do this I combine functional MRI and optical imaging. I image mice as they learn to perform a left/right decision making task. With this I’m interested to see how learning shapes cortex dependent plasticity in mice on a network level and what effect learning has not only on the task dependent activity but also on the resting brain.

Advisor: Lynne Nygaard Co-advisor: Phil Wolff

Contact: leonardo.michelini.santos@emory.edu

I am broadly interested in how language interfaces with other cognitive domains. More specifically, my current research addresses the phenomenon of sound symbolism: speech sounds that relate non-arbitrarily to meanings (e.g., "woof woof" is similar to the sound it describes). I want to understand why sound symbolic associations appear in the lexicon of languages and whether they accomplish putative functions such as aiding in first language learning.

Advisor: Ben Wilson Contact: rohini.murugan@emory.edu

I am a second year PhD student in Wilson Lab at Emory University. My research interests include investigating the evolution of cognitive mechanisms underlying language through comparative cognitive studies. My current work focuses on implicit and explicit mechanisms of learning and if similar (or different) mechanisms are recruited under similar task conditions in humans and nonhuman primates.

Advisor: Daniel D. Dilks Contact: rebecca.rennert@emory.edu

My research investigates the origins of the functional organization of the visual cortex. My current work focuses on the development of two critical abilities - how we recognize our environment (i.e., "place recognition") and how we move around our environment. I use behavioral methods and functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to investigate when children develop place recognition and navigational abilities. I hope this research not only informs how these abilities develop, but also how these systems are organized in both the developing and adult brain.

Contact: megan.lambert@vetmeduni.ac.at

I am an Elise Richter fellow at the Messerli Research Institute (University of Veterinary Medicine, Vienna), and am particularly interested in how kea (a notoriously curious and innovative parrot species) learn about, understand, and solve problems in their physical environment. My current research focuses on the limits of their innovative abilities with tools, the causes and functions of their curiosity, and how they think about unobservable physical properties like weight.

Advisors: Rachel Kendal (Durham University, UK), Robert Barton (Durham University, UK), Amanda Seed (University of St. Andrews, UK) Contact: eva.reindl@durham.ac.uk

Eva is a postdoctoral research associate working with Prof Rachel Kendal, Prof Robert Barton (Durham University) and Dr Amanda Seed (University of St Andrews) investigating Sequence cognition in primates. She is broadly interested in learning which cognitive and social factors differentiate humans from other great apes. Her research topics include sequence cognition, executive functions (working memory), social and individual learning, cumulative culture, and tool use, among others.

Eva completed her PhD in Psychology at the University of Birmingham in 2017, working with Dr Claudio Tennie, Prof Sarah Beck, and Prof Ian Apperly on a project investigating the developmental origins of cumulative culture. After that, she held a teaching position at the School of Anthropology at the University of Oxford. In 2018, Eva moved to St Andrews to work as a postdoctoral researcher with Dr Amanda Seed on a project investigating the structure of executive functions in chimpanzees and human children. In 2021, Eva was a lecturer at Birmingham City University, before starting her current postdoctoral position at Durham University in 2022.

Advisors: Megan Lambert & Amanda Seed Contact: gabriella.smith@vetmeduni.ac.at

Gabriella is a first-year PhD student at the Messerli Research Institute, University of Veterinary Medicine Vienna. She received her Master's at Hunter College (CUNY) studying Grey parrots in the Pepperberg lab, and is now excited to join Dr. Megan Lambert’s FWF funded project studying the contexts, causes, and consequences of curiosity in kea parrots.  She is interested in all kinds of animal cognition, but her main focus generally resides in expressions of physical cognition and motivation.

I am an Associate Lecturer (Education Focused) at the University of St Andrews. My research interests lie in problem-solving and conceptual development, especially the relationship between implicit and explicit cognition, how mistakes and self-correction fit in the learning process, and how generating explanations can support learning. I work primarily with young children but am interested in how these questions apply to undergraduate teaching as well.