LAB MANAGER
Jade Harrell jadelharrell @ berkeley.edu
Jade is a Junior Specialist in the lab. She graduated with honors from UC Berkeley, where she double-majored in molecular and cellular biology, and psychology. Jade is interested in how we can understand higher order cognitive functioning using neuroimaging. In the future, she hopes to identify neural targets that are responsible for cognitive impairment in those with mental health disorders. Currently, she is assisting with a project that’s investigating functional landmarking during relational reasoning.
Graduate students
Maggie Vashel maggie_vashel @ berkeley.edu
Maggie is a PhD student in Psychology whose research explores how the brain learns, represents, and uses abstract knowledge. She is particularly interested in relational reasoning, concept learning, cognitive control, and the neural representations that support flexible thought. Her research combines behavioral experiments, computational modeling, and functional neuroimaging. She has a master’s in psychology from San Francisco State University and a bachelor’s in sociology from the University of Michigan. Before pursuing her PhD, Maggie worked as an analytics leader in healthcare.
Sahana Sridhar sahanasri @ berkeley.edu
Sahana is a 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.
Undergrad RAs
Angela Ling
Angela is an undergraduate studying neuroscience and cognitive science. She is interested in childhood neurodevelopment and is currently working on the fNIRS projects. Outside the Bunge lab, she is also a member of the Ronda Lab at IGI and enjoys art, music, and cooking!
Julia Dil
Julia is an undergraduate cognitive science student working on relational reasoning projects with fNIRS neuroimaging. She is interested in all things psychology and cognition related including child development and neuroplasticity. Outside the lab Julia enjoys reading, playing with her nephew, trying new recipes, and staying active.
Ellie Kim ellie_kim @ berkeley.edu
Hi! I’m Ellie, a 4th year undergrad majoring in psychology and neuroscience. I’m particularly interested in using neuroimaging techniques to better understand how the brain presents emotional and abstract thinking across different neurotypes and psychiatric disorders. My lab work mainly involves assisting 7T-MRI sessions in the Brain Imaging Center (BIC) to better understand the functions of the anterior prefrontal cortex (aPFC) during relational thinking tasks. In my free time, I love to read, take walks, and visit coffee shops!
Jeddy Xu jeddyxu @ berkeley.edu
Jeddy is an undergraduate majoring in Cognitive Science and minoring in Data Science. He is interested in the intersection of underlying mechanisms of cognition, such as speech/language processing and neurotechnologies, such as brain-to-text brain-computer interfaces. Outside the lab, he enjoys traveling, music, hanging out with friends, and binge-watching.
Khushi Kolte khushi_kolte @ berkeley.edu
Khushi is an undergraduate Cognitive Science and Data Science student working on computational neuroimaging research, developing fMRI analysis pipelines using multivariate methods such as representational similarity analysis (RSA) and cross-condition classification to investigate how the brain represents relational reasoning across visual and auditory modalities. She is interested in the intersection of healthcare, neuroscience, and machine learning. Outside the lab, she enjoys dancing, painting, trying new food and drink spots around campus, and hanging out with friends.
Anvitha Yalamanchili 
Anvitha is an undergraduate student studying neuroscience and is currently working on the fNIRS projects. She is interested in neuroplasticity, childhood neurodevelopment, and the role of education in shaping the brain. Outside the lab, she enjoys sketching fashion designs, reading psychological thrillers, and playing volleyball. You can reach her at ani_yalamanchili @ berkeley.edu.
POSTGRADUATE RESEARCHERS
Nick Zhang
Nick Zhang is broadly interested in how people process numerical and probabilistic information and represent it to support higher-level cognition. His current work examines the perception of number and ratio through a combination of behavioral and neural techniques, including functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS). He received a B.A. in Cognitive Science and Philosophy from Berkeley.
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.
Qi Guo
Qi is a former postbac student in Psychology at UC Berkeley, working with Professor Bill Thompson and our lab. Leveraging fNIRS and behavioral approaches, she studies how children develop high-level relational thinking.