Joo-Hyun Song is an Associate Professor in the Department of Cognitive and Psychological Sciences
and graduate student trainer in the Department of Neuroscience . She is interested in understanding the mechanisms involved
in integrating higher-order cognitive processes, such as attention and decision-making, and visually-guided actions. She has addressed these questions through a combination
of methodologies - including behavioral investigations, online action tracking, fMRI, EEG, and neurophysiological experiments.
Sean O'Bryan is a Postdoctoral Research Associate in the CoPsy department. His research investigates the dynamics of selective attention in learning
contexts using fMRI, eye-tracking, and modeling techniques. He is particularly interested in understanding how learning-dependent representational changes in the brain impact attention, perception, and goal-directed behavior across individuals.
Email: sean_obryan@brown.edu
Tri Nguyen is a Postdoctoral Research Associate in the CoPsy department. His research examines the coordination among
perceptual, motor, and cognitive processes from a dynamical systems perspective. He is currently investigating the contribution of motor activities and visuomotor training to perceptual discriminability and cognitive performance by combining behavioral data,
time- and frequency-domain analyses of time-series data, and modelling techniques.
Email: tri_d_nguyen@brown.edu
Lilas Haddad is a Postdoctoral Research Associate in the CoPsy department. Her previous research combined behavioral and
EEG techniques to explore the evocation of multiple affordances from different visual objects in scenes. She is currently investigating how action preparation can enhance perceptual judgments, using techniques such as continuous action tracking.
Email: lilas_haddad@brown.edu
Graduate Students
Jacob Lader is a cognitive science PhD student advised by Joo-Hyun Song. His research investigates the processing of visual and spatial information
and how this is integrated with motor learning. Prior to joining the PAC lab, Jacob researched individual differences in navigation with Nora Newcombe and reasoning about spatial concepts with Thomas Shipley at Temple University. He received his BS in Neuroscience and Studio Art
from Muhlenberg College in 2022.
Email: jacob_lader@brown.edu
Collaborating Graduate Students
Anthony Bruno is a PhD student in the CoPsy department who is advised by Leslie Welch. His research investigates timing performance across sensory systems,
with a focus on timing in vision. He uses psychophysical and motor methods to untangle the timing mechanisms used for perception and action. Prior to joining the CoPsy department, Anthony studied motion perception in musicians and nonmusicians with Nestor Matthews at Denison University.
Email: anthony_bruno@brown.edu
Giulia Scorza AzzarĂ is a PhD Student at the University of Genoa and Italian Institute of Technology, in the Robotics Brain and Cognitive Sciences research line.
Her principal research interest is Human-Robot Interaction, specifically focusing on cognitive robotics and humanoid robots. Her work mainly investigates how shared perceptions evolve in space and time during a physical human-robot interaction.
Email: giulia_scorza_azzar@brown.edu
Undergraduate Students
Anel Zhussubali is a junior from Astana, Kazakhstan concentrating in Cognitive Neuroscience. She is interested in learning more about the biological and neural bases of human behavior.
Email: anel_zhussubali@brown.edu
Daniela DeDona is a Junior from New York concentrating in Computer Science and Cognitive Science. She is interested in computational approaches to study cognition with a specific focus on the dynamic relationship between human interaction and computational systems.
Email: daniela_dedona@brown.edu
Dylan Parry is a Junior from Bethesda, Maryland concentrating in Cognitive Neuroscience and Economics. He is interested in exploring some of the many research studies exploring motor action and perception.
Email: dylan_parry@brown.edu
W. Ryan Waite is a senior from Cape Cod, Massachusetts concentrating in psychology and physics. He is interested in the factors affecting motor learning, whether they be differences between people or differences between task designs.
Email: william_waite@brown.edu
Isaiah Nawaz is a senior from New Jersey concentrating in Neuroscience and Business Economics. He is interested in studying the effects of motor training on perceptual sensitivity across different modalities.
Email: isaiah_nawaz@brown.edu
Amira Artykbayeva is a sophomore from Kazakhstan concentrating in Neuroscience/ Biomedical Engineering. She is interested in the neural basis of human behavior and particularly, eye-tracking and visual motor learning.