Graduate Alumni
Our department has a strong record of successful PhD graduates going on to positions in academia and industry.
Our department has a strong record of successful PhD graduates going on to positions in academia and industry.
Advisor: Doug Nitz
Dissertation Title: Navigation With a Purpose: Environment and Goal-Mediated Representations of Space in the Rat Brain During Complex Task Paradigms
Position after Graduation:
Advisors: Steven Dow & Kristen Vaccaro
Dissertation Title: From Guidelines to Interactive Guidance: AI Systems to Scaffold the Academic Peer Review Ecosystem
Position after Graduation: Research Scientist in the HCAI Division at Toyota Research Institute
Advisor: Brad Voytek
Dissertation Title: The Significance of Aperiodic Activity in Relation to Brain States and Working Memory
Position after Graduation:
Advisors: James Hollan & Lisa Eyler
Dissertation Title: Examining Applications of Brain Age Models
Position after Graduation: Director, Inside Global Life Sciences Initiative at Nucleate
Advisor: Ben Bergen
Dissertation Title: Reading Minds: Social Intelligence and Large Language Models
Position after Graduation: Postdoctoral Fellow in the Cognitive Science department of UC San Diego
Advisor: David Kirsh
Dissertation Title: Thinking Through Action: Prediction, Planning, and Metacognition in Problem-Solving
AI Safety Research Scientist at Meta
Advisor: Ben Bergen
Dissertation Title: Investigating the Role of Statistics in the Predictive Processing of Language
Postdoctoral Researcher at MIT
Advisor: Deanna Greene
Dissertation Title: Precision Functional Mapping in Child Development and Tourette Syndrome
Advisors: Seana Coulson & Timothy Mackey
Dissertation Title: Infectious Ideas: Investigating Information Contagion Effects Associated with Dispositional Traits of Social Media Users and Textual Features of Posts
President of Haupt Data Insights
Advisor: David Kirsh
Dissertation Title: Improving Human-Autonomous Vehicle Interaction in Complex Systems
Senior UX Researcher, Technology and Society for Google
Advisor: Steven Dow
Dissertation Title: Beyond the Search Bar: Augmenting Discovery, Synthesis, and Creativity with User-Generated Context
Senior Research Scientist for Salesforce
Advisors: David Kirsh & Judith Fan
Dissertation Title: Cognitive Consequences of Physical Assembly
Advisor: Steven Dow
Dissertation Title: Contextually Adapting Informational Resources Using AI to Support Creativity
Researcher for UC San Diego's Design Lab
Advisor: Anastasia Kiyonaga
Dissertation Title: Adaptive Control with Episodic Mechanisms
Applied Scientist at Amazon
Advisors: Benjamin Bergen & Zhuowen Tu
Dissertation Title: N-Gram Learning and Pretraining Dynamics in Transformer Language Models
Advisor: Andrea Chiba
Dissertation Title: Navigating the Translational Divide: A Cross-Species, Neurally-Inspired Approach to Spatial Memory
Working with Dr. Andrea Chiba at UC San Diego
Advisor: Federico Rossano
Dissertation Title: The Socioecology of Resource Conflict in Primates
Continuing in Dr. Federico Rossano's lab at UC San Diego
Advisor: Scott Klemmer
Dissertation Title: Interactive Strategies & Tools for Supporting Exploratory Thinking in Creative Work
Postdoctoral Researcher at Carnegie Mellon University
Advisor: Ginny de Sa
Dissertation Title: Linear Kernel Alignment for Domain Generalisation
Applied Scientist at Amazon Web Services LLC in NYC
Advisor: Brad Voytek
Dissertation Title: Bridging Cognition and Neurobiology with Large-Scale Cortical Dynamics and Multimodal Brain Data
Marie Curie Postdoctoral Fellowship at the University of Tübingen
Advisor: Brad Voytek
Dissertation Title: Measuring and Investigating Periodic and Aperiodic Neural Activity
Advisors: Ginny de Sa, Gary Cottrell
Dissertation Title: Social Impressions of Faces: Computational Modeling and Cultural Comparisons
Advisor: Marta Kutas
Dissertation Title: Effects of Endogenous and Exogenous Attention of Multisensory Integration
Lecturer at UCSD CogSci department
Advisor: Marta Kutas
Dissertation Title: Muggle or Magical?: Electrophysiological Investigations of Variation in Language-Knowledge Interface During Reading
BrainsCAN postdoctoral fellow at Western University
Advisor: Terry Jernigan
Dissertation Title: Relationships Between Domain-Specific Cognition and Regional Brain Structure in a Typically Developing Cohort
Principal Data Scientist in People Analytics at Northrop Grumman
Advisor: Ben Bergen
Dissertation Title: Mimicry in the Recognition of Emotional Facial Expressions
Lecturer at UCSD CogSci dept
Advisor: Marta Kutas
Dissertation Title: Location, Location, Fixation: Behavioral and Electrophysiological Explorations of Viewing Position Asymmetry in Visual Word Recognition
Staff Research Associate
Dept. of Cognitive Science
UC San Diego
Advisor: Jaime Pineda
Dissertation Title: Functional and structural connectivity, and the effects of neurofeedback training, in imitation-related brain networks in autism.
Postdoc
Neuroscience Program
UC San Diego
Advisor: Ben Bergen
Dissertation Title: Computational and Cognitive Semantics: The Statistics and Structure of Meaning
Postdoc
IBM Research
Advisor: Jeff Elman
Dissertation Title: Beyond the (Linguistically) Expected: Activating Event Knowledge During Real-Time Language Comprehension.
Learning & Development Facilitator
Academy for Teaching & Learning Excellence
Un. of So. Florida, Tampa
Advisor: Ayse Saygin
Dissertation Title: The Body in Flux: Tool Use Modulates Multisensory Body Representations.
Postdoc
INSERM
France
Advisor: Ben Bergen
Dissertation Title: Repeat After Us: Syntactic Alignment is Not Partner-Specific
Postdoc Fellow in Computational Linguistics
IBM Research
Advisor: Ayse Saygin
Dissertation Title: Spatio-temporal Neuroimaging of Visual Processing of Human and Robot Actions in Humans.
Postdoc
Dept. of Neuroscience
University of Parma
Italy
Advisor: Rafael Nunez
Dissertation Title: Place, Movement, Perspective: How space shapes and constrains our thoughts about time.
Advisor: Virginia de Sa
Dissertation Title: Operator Theory for Analysis of Convex Optimization Methods in Machine Learning.
Postdoc
Dept. of Cognitive Science
UC San Diego
Advisor: Doug Nitz
Dissertation Title: Decision-Making and Motor Control: Computational Models of Human Sensorimotor Processing.
Postdoc
Laureate Institute for Brain Research
Advisor: Rafael Nunez
Dissertation Title: Every Number In Its Place: The Spatial Foundations of Calculation and Conceptualization.
Postdoc
Indiana University
The Percepts and Concepts Laboratory
Advisor: Virginia de Sa
Dissertation Title: The Dynamic Brain: Modeling Neural Dynamics and Interactions from Human Electrophysiological Recordings.
CSO & CEO
Syntrogi
Advisor: Jaime Pineda
Dissertation Title: Cortical Motor Rhythms: Auditory Processing and Plasticity.
Postdoc
Northern California VA Health System
Advisor: Virginia de Sa
Dissertation Title: Learning to Perceive: A Developmental Robotics Approach to Vision and Object Interaction.
Research Engineer
Emotient
Advisor: Jeff Elman
Dissertation Title: Computer Assisted Learning in a (Dis-) Connected Age: Challenges and Approaches to Digital Education and Equal Access.
Software Architecture Lead
Foundation of Learning Equality, Inc.
Advisor: Gary Cottrell
Dissertation Title: A unified explanation of visual asymmetries, interhemispheric communication, and their typical development in humans.
Postdoc
UC San Diego
Dept. of Computer Science
Advisor: Seana Coulson
Dissertation Title: Causal Inference and Language Comprehension: Event-Related Potential Investigations.
Staff Research Associate
UC San Diego
Dept. of Linguistics
Advisor: Ed Hutchins/Jim Hollan
Dissertation Title: Free to Explore a Museum: Embodied Inquiry and Multimodal Expression of Meaning.
Director
San Diego Incubator for Innovation
Advisor: Sarah Creel
Dissertation Title: The Role of Pitch in the Recognition of Vocalizations in Songbirds and Humans.
Associate
McKinsey & Co.
Advisor: Shirley C. Strum
Dissertation Title: A State-Space Approach to Social Complexity and Distributed Cognition in Olive Baboons (Papio anubis): Re-Thinking the Role of Behavioral Analysis in Socio-Cognitive Research.
Assistant Project Scientist
California Inst. for Telecommunications and Information
UCSD
Advisor: Jim Hollan
Dissertation Title: Navigation of Time-Coded Data.
Research Scientist
Aptima
Advisor: Rafael Nunez
Dissertation Title: Reference in Action: Links Between Pointing and Language.
Postdoctoral Scholar
University of Chicago, IL
Dept. of Psychology
Advisor: Gedeon Deak
Dissertation Title: More Than Meets the Eye: From Stress to Scaffolding, A Microgenesis of Infant Attention.
Research Scientist
Georgia Inst. Tech.
Advisor: Gedeon Deak
Dissertation Title: A Comparison of Cue Processing and Executive Functioning in Child Task-Switching.
Director of Research and Evaluation
Tulsa Public Schools
Advisor: Marta Kutas
Dissertation Title: Scaling up Psycholinguistics.
Computational Fellow
Institute for Data Science
UC Berkeley
Advisor: Virginia de Sa
Dissertation Title: Active Perception.
Staff Software Engineer
Google
Advisor: Jim Hollan
Dissertation Title: Studying Episodic Access to Personal Digital Activity: Activity Trails Prototype.
Advisor: Seana Coulson
Dissertation Title: The Integration of Language with Perceptual Systems.
Researcher
Hypothesis Group
Advisor: Jeff Elman
Dissertation Title: Neural Stages of Word Encoding Across Languages, Proficiency Levels, and Modalities.
Postdoc
UC San Francisco School of Medicine
Neurological Surgery
Advisor: Virginia de Sa
Dissertation Title: Anthropocentric Data Analysis.
Vice President
Alpine Data Labs
Advisor: Jim Hollan
Dissertation Title: Augmenting Collocated Interaction: The Design of Assistive Technology to Support Face-to-Face Communication.
Asst. Professor
Northwestern University
Dept. of Communication
Advisor: Marta Kutas
Dissertation Title: Electrophysiological Explorations of Linguistic Pre-Activation and its Consequences During Online Sentence Processing
Assistant Project Scientist
UC San Diego
Cognitive Science
Advisor: Marta Kutas
Dissertation Title: Event-related brain potential investigations of left and right hemisphere contributions to syntactic processing.
Assistant Professor
Pacific Lutheran University
Psychology
Advisor: Jamie Pineda/Ursula Bellugi
Dissertation Title: Functional and Neural Organization Underlying Face and Facial Expression Perception.
Research Scientist
San Diego State University
Laboratory for Language & Cognitive Neuroscience
Advisor: Virginia de Sa
Dissertation Title: Mechanisms of Brightness Perception
Postdoc
UC San Diego
Psychology
Advisor: Sarah Creel
Dissertation Title: The Structure and Perception of Human Vocalizations
Lecturer
Psychological Sciences
Birkbeck, UK
Advisor: Marta Kutas
Dissertation Title: Quantitative Diffusion Magnetic Resonance Imaging of the Brain: Validation, Acquisition, and Analysis
Asst. Project Scientist
UC San Diego
Radiology
Advisor: Martin I. Sereno
Dissertation Title: Multisensory and sensorimotor representations for action in human posterior parietal cortex investigated with functional fMRI.
Research Scientist
Max Planck Institute
Human Development
Berlin
Germany
Advisor: Jeff Elman
Dissertation Title: Size Always Matters: An Investigation of the Influence of Connection Length on the Organization of White-Matter in Typical Development and in Autism .
Research Scientist
Montreal Neurological Institute
McGill University
Advisor: Emo Todorov
Dissertation Title: Computational and Psychophysical Studies of Goal-Directed Arm Movements.
Decision Support Engineering Analyst
Google
Advisor: Jeff Elman
Dissertation Title: A Biologically-Plausible Working memory Model for Serial Order.
Software Engineer
Samsung Telecommunications
Advisors: James D. Hollan/Edwin L. Hutchins
Dissertation Title: An Ethnographic Investigation of the Evolving Dynamics of a Learning Ecology.
UX Research Manager
Immersion Corporation
Advisors: Jeffrey L. Elman/Marta Kutas
Dissertation Title: Word learning in context: The role of lifetime language experience and sentential context.
Assistant Professor
Department of Psychology
Florida State University
Advisor: Marta Kutas
Dissertation Title: Common Independent Components of the P3b, N400, and P600 ERP Components to Deviant Linguistic Events.
Researcher
Health Systems
Advisor: Marta Kutas
Dissertation Title: Event-related Brain Potential Studies of Semantic Processing in Schizophrenia and Schizotypy Personality.
Associate Professor
Dept. of Psychiatry
University of Toronto
Advisor: Joan Stiles
Dissertation Title: The Many Faces of Neurocognitive Development: Behavior and Neurocorrelates of Holistic Face processing.
Project Manager
UC San Diego
Neuroscience
Advisor: Virginia De Sa/Martin I. Sereno
Dissertation Title: Integration of visual information and the organization of receptive fields in V1 of the California ground squirrel.
Research Fellow
Monash University
Dept. of Physiology
Advisor: Edwin L. Hutchins
Dissertation Title: How Brain Images Reveal Cognition: An Ethnographic Study of Meaning-Making in Brain Mapping Practice.
Associate Professor
UC San Diego
Dept. of Communication
Advisors: James D. Hollan/David J. Kirsh
Dissertation Title: The Cognitive Ecology of Dynapad, A Multiscale Workspace for Managing Personal Digital Collections.
Advisor: Martin I. Sereno
Dissertation Title: Multisensory Representations of Space: Multimodal Brain Imaging Aproaches.
Asst. Project Scientist
UC San Diego
Swartz Center for Computational Neuroscience
Advisor: Seana Coulson
Dissertation Title: Coordinated Minds: How Iconic Gestures Mediate Communication.
Asst. Project Scientist
UC San Diego
Swartz Center for Computational Neuroscience
Advisor: Joan Stiles
Dissertation Title: Comparing Mental Rotation and Feature Matching Strategies in Adults and Children with Behavioral and Neuroimaging Techniques.
Researcher
IBM Almaden Research Center
San Jose, CA
Advisor: Andrea A. Chiba
Dissertation Title: Attention, Prediction and Sequence Learning: Roles of the Cholinergic basal Forebrain and the Retrosplenial Cortex.
Postdoc Researcher
McGill University
Montreal Neurological Institute
Advisor: Jochen Triesch
Dissertation Title: Learning Real-Time Object Detectors: Probabilistic Generative Approaches.
Founder, Lead Developer
Emotient
Advisor: Martin I. Sereno
Dissertation Title: Perceptual Inference in Generative Models.
Researcher
IBM Watson Research
Advisor: Richard K. Belew
Dissertation Title: Temporal, Categorical, and Bibliographic Context of Scientific Tests: Interactions and Applications.
Senior. Business Intelligence Analyst
Adobe
Advisor: James D. Hollan
Dissertation Title: Facing Uncertainty: 3D Face Tracking and Learning with Generative Models.
Researcher
Mitsubishi Electric Research Laboratories
Advisor: Andrea A. Chiba
Dissertation Title: The Role of the Basolateral Amygdala in Affective Associative Learning, Arousal, and Adaptation.
Research Analyst
Stanford University
School of Medicine
Advisor: Martin I. Sereno
Dissertation Title: Optimal Experimental Design as a Theory of Perceptual and Cognitive Information Acquisition.
Research Scientist
Max Planck Institute
Human Development
Berlin
Advisor: Marty I. Sereno
Dissertation Title: Embodied Perception: Neuropsychological and Neuroimaging Studies of Language, Vision, and Attention.
Associate Professor
UC San Diego
Dept. of Cognitive Science
Advisor: Gilles R. Fauconnier/Edwin L. Hutchins
Dissertation Title: Making Meaning from a Clock: Material Artifacts and Conceptual Blending in Time-Telling Instruction.
Associate Professor of Education
Lawrence University
Appleton, WI
Advisor: Edwin L. Hutchins
Dissertation Title: Reverse-Engineering Emergent Collective Behaviors in an Evolved Swarm System.
Advisor: Jaime A. Pineda
Dissertation Title: Effects of Motivationally Salient Stimuli on Visual Spatial Attention: Behavior and Electrophysiology.
Assistant Professor
Univ. Wisconsin - Eau Claire
Dept. of Psychology
Advisor: Jaime A. Pineda
Dissertation Title: P3 or not P3: Toward a Better P300BCI.
Advisor: Elizabeth Bates
Dissertation Title: Language in a Sensorimotor Brain.
Associate Professor (equivalent)
University College London
Birbeck College
Advisor: Jeffrey Elman
Dissertation Title: The Behaviors of Theories of Mind, and A Case Study of Dogs at Play.
Associate Professor, Adjunct
Barnard College
Dept. of Psychology
Advisor: David Zipser
Dissertation Title: Unity of Action: Coordination of Movement Plans Between Oculomotor Areas.
Asst. Professor
University of Rochester
Brain and Cognitive Sciences
Advisor: David Zipser
Dissertation Title: Theoretical Framework for the Study of Sensory-Motor Integration.
Postdoctoral Scholar
Rutgers
Dept. of Psychology
Advisor: Elizabeth Bates
Dissertation Title: Grammatical Gender on Real-Time Language Comprehension in Spanish: Behavioral and Electrophysiological Investigations.
Assistant Professor
University of Texas, San Antonio
Dept. of Biology
Advisor: Marta Kutas
Dissertation Title: Saving Faces: using Eye Movement, ERP, and SCR Measures of Face Processing and Recognition to Investigate Eyewitness Identification.
Advisor: Marta Kutas
Dissertation Title: Electrophysiological Investigations of Semantic Memory Organization and Use.
Professor
University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign
Psychology
Advisor: Edwin L. Hutchins
Dissertation Title: Cognition in Flight: Understanding Cockpits as Cognitive Systems.
Lead Scientist
The Boeing Company
Commercial Airlines Group
Flight Deck Concept Center
Advisor: Martin I. Sereno
Dissertation Title: Lamination and Within-Area Integration in the Neocortex.
Software Developer
Natural Designs Software
Finland
Advisor: Jaime A Pineda
Dissertation Title: The Role of the Cerebellum in Visual Spatial Attention: An Event-Related Potential Study
Assistant Project Scientist
UC San Diego
Inst. for Neural Computation
Advisor: David Zipser
Dissertation Title: Neural Network Models of the Brain Mechanisms of Bilateral Coordination.
Advisor: John Batali
Dissertation Title: A Source-Filter Model of Birdsong Production
Senior VP
Engineering
Twitter
Advisor: Jeffrey Elman
Dissertation Title: Visualizing Speech with a Recurrent Neural Network Trained on Human Acoustic-Articulatory Data.
Independent Innovator & Entrepreneur
Design Thinking
Boston
Advisor: David Kirsh
Dissertation Title: Vision and Imagery: The Role of Cortical Attractor Dynamics.
Consultant
Advisor: Jeffrey Elman
Dissertation Title: Mathematical Foundations of Recurrent Neural Networks in Language Processing.
Research Programmer/Analyst
UC San Diego
San Diego Super Computer
Advisor: Martin I. Sereno/Marta kutas
Dissertation Title: An Electrophysiological Analysis of Semantic Context Effects on Object Identification.
Assistant Professor
Plymouth University
Harvard Medical School
MA General Hospital
Advisor: Martin I. Sereno
Dissertation Title: The Role of the Neostriatum in the Execution of Action Sequences.
Project Scientist, Department of Cognitive Science, UC Merced
Advisor: Javier Movellan & Terrence Sejnowski
Dissertation Title: Unsupervised Statistical Methods for Processing of Image Sequences.
Advisor: John Batali
Dissertation Title: How to Tell your Mother from a Bush: A Model of Predispositions and Filial Imprinting in Domestic Chicks.
Advisor: Elizabeth Bates
Dissertation Title: Context, Word-class, and Prosody in the Recognition of Open and Closed-class words.
Principle Lead Software Engineer
Operating Systems Group
Microsoft
Advisor: Gilles Fauconnier
Dissertation Title: Grammatical Blending: Creative and Schematic Aspects in Sentence Processing and Translation.
Programs Director
Israel Europe R&D Directorate
Advisor: Jeffrey Elman
Dissertation Title: Formal Approaches to Innate and Learned Communication: Laying the Foundation for Language.
Chief Technology Officer
DefenseWeb Technologies
4150 Mission Blvd., Suite 220
San Diego, CA 92109
Advisor: Gilles Fauconnier
Dissertation Title: Semantic Leaps: The Role of Conceptual Blending in Meaning Construction.
Professor
UC San Diego
Dept. of Cognitive Science
Advisor: David Zipser
Dissertation Title: A Model of Motion Detection in Primate Primary Visual Cortex.
Senior Information Security Engineer
Premera Blue Cross
Advisor: David Zipser
Dissertation Title: The Representation, Storage and Retrieval of Reaching Movement Information in Motor Cortex.
Senior Instructor
Wellesley College
Computer Science
Advisor: Elizabeth Bates
Dissertation Title: Lexical Access and Differential Processing in Nouns and Verbs in a second language.
Advisor: Martin I. Sereno
Dissertation Title: Motion Processing in the California Ground Squirrel Extrastriate Cortex . A Temporal and Spatial Analysis Using Reverse Correlation Methods.
President
Senza Fili Consultants
Seattle, WA
Advisor: Donald A. Norman & Aaron Cicourel
Dissertation Title: The Role of External Resources in the Management of Multiple Activities.
Research Scientist
IBM Watson Research Center
Advisor: Edwin L. Hutchins
Dissertation Title: Inside the Cognitive Workplace; New Technology and Air Traffic Control.
Research Staff
IBM Watson Research Center
Advisor: David Kirsh
Dissertation Title: The Computational Basis of Interactive Skill.
Professor
UC Merced
School of Engineering
Advisor: Martin I. Sereno
Dissertation Title: Neural Dynamics of World - Centered Spatial Representations.
Assistant Professor
Johns Hopkins University
Biomedical Engineering & Neuroscience
Advisor: Edwin L. Hutchins
Dissertation Title: Dynamic Organization in Multi-Agent Distributed Cognitive Systems.
Faculty Chair
University of New Mexico
Anderson School of Management
Advisor: Marta Kutas
Dissertation Title: An Event-Related Brain Potential Analysis of Implicit, Structured Sequence Learning.
Senior Scientist
Center Space Software/Music Strands
Advisor: Martin I. Sereno
Dissertation Title: Source Localization and Spatial Discriminant Analysis of Event-Related Potentials; Linear Approaches.
Professor
UC San Diego
Dept. of Neuroscience
Advisor: Jeffrey Elman
Dissertation Title: Information Integration: An Ecological and Connectionist Approach.
Professor
Syracuse University
Department of Psychology
Advisor: Donald A. Norman
Dissertation Title: Distributed Representation: The Interaction Between Internal and External Information.
Dr. Doris L. Ross Professor & Dean
University of Texas, Houston
School of Biomedical Informatics