Full-time research assistants
Patrick Kelly pgk713 @ berkeley.edu
Patrick is a Junior Specialist in the lab. He is in charge of setting up a functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) shared facility, and is helping to launch fNIRS projects across the labs of Profs. Bunge, Keanan Joyner, and Fei Xu (the Illuminating the Brain Consortium). Patrick graduated with Honors from UC Berkeley with B.A.s in Psychology and Anthropology, working in the lab of Prof. Whitney.
Allison Chen
Allison is an incoming Junior Specialist. She received her Bachelor’s of Science degrees in Cognitive & Behavioral Neuroscience and Human Developmental Sciences from UC San Diego in 2024. She is interested in understanding higher level cognitive function using tools like neuroimaging and eye tracking.
Graduate students
Maggie Vashel maggie_vashel @ berkeley.edu
Maggie is an incoming PhD student in Psychology, researching the function and whole-brain connectivity of the lateral aspect of the anterior prefrontal cortex (aLPFC). Maggie is interested in analogical reasoning, how the brain represents abstract concepts, learning, and computational modeling. She has a Master’s in psychology from San Francisco State University and a Bachelor’s in sociology from the University of Michigan. Maggie is coming to psychology as a career change after working as an analytics leader in healthcare.
Sahana Sridhar sahanasri @ berkeley.edu
Sahana is an incoming PhD student in Psychology at UC Berkeley. Her primary advisor is Prof. Mahesh Srinivasan, and her secondary advisor is Prof. Bunge. She received her B.S. in Psychology and a minor in Linguistics from the University of Washington, Seattle. Her research interests include spatial skill development and language acquisition in young children, and she is excited to explore methods in neuroscience with the Building Blocks of Cognition lab! In her free time, Sahana likes to climb, drink large amounts of caffeine (preferably in the form of espresso, but she is not picky), and read.
POSTBACCALAUREATE STUDENTS
Qi Guo qguo7749 @ berkeley.edu
Qi is a postbac student in Psychology at UC Berkeley, working with Professor Bill Thompson and more recently in this lab. She is interested in the development of high-level cognition in young children and the brain mechanism behind the process. Leveraging fNIRS and behavioral approaches, she studies how children develop high-level relational thinking.
Undergrad RAs
Nick Zhang zyunqi @ berkeley.edu
Nick is an undergraduate student majoring in Cognitive Science and Philosophy. He is interested in studying the development of core knowledge systems through neuroimaging. Using functional near-infrared spectroscopy, he is now working on the numerical cogniton project to understand how humans develop their number sense.
AFFILIATES
Anthony Dunn
Former full-time research assistant, now a graduate student at Dartmouth College with Prof. David Kraemer.
Suvi Haekkinen
Former postdoctoral fellow (co-mentored with Prof. Kevin Weiner), now a research scientist with Prof. David Feinberg at the Brain Imaging Center at UC Berkeley.
Jie (Jasper) Liu • jasperl @ berkeley.edu
Jasper is a former undergraduate and current Ph.D. student in Computer Science at UC Berkeley. He is interested in exploring machine learning techniques in imaging scanning technologies. In the lab, his main responsibilities have included processing stimuli, programming the PsychoPy scripts, and analyzing data.