People

Ruiyi (Iris) Chen received her B.S. in psychology from Beijing Normal University, China. She then graduated from Teachers College, Columbia University with a M.A. in Developmental Psychology. She has research interests in the role of emotion in perception and memory of human real-life experience. Her hobbies include calligraphy, painting, writing poetry, and cooking. She owns a cute cat, Kiwi.

Nick Paternoster is a Ph.D. student who received his bachelor's in Computer Science in 2023. His research interests are rooted in theories of information processing and the neural mechanisms that allow for efficient computation within the human brain. Researching arousal and attention during his time at Cornell, he hopes to investigate the locus coeruleus and how its activity impacts visual perception. His hobbies include Olympic weightlifting, distance running, and reading fantasy novels.

Stan Colcombe is a Research Scientist and Section Head of the Design Acquisition and Stimulation Laboratories at the Nathan Kline Institute.

Anna MacKay-Brandt is a Neuropsychologist and Research Scientist at the Nathan Kline Institute.

Elizabeth Riley spent part of her childhood in Ithaca, NY and has returned as a postdoctoral fellow in the AC Lab after getting her BS in Bioengineering from MIT and PhD in neuroscience from Boston University School of Medicine. She uses pupillometery, MRI (functional and structural) and neuropsychological tests to study the locus coeruleus, the norepinephrine system and their role in cognition and cognitive aging.

Karen Sasmita completed her Ph.D. in May 2024. Karen is interested in how attentional fluctuations over time influence and are influenced by memory. Specifically, could variations in attentional state over time reflect a strategic bias in allocating more attentional resources to moments with the highest probability of information occurrence? Could this variation then indicate an attempt to maximise encoding of behaviourally relevant information? And how is his fluctuation in attentional state represented in hippocampal neural representations? Personal Website

Adam Broitman uses a combination of EEG and machine learning methods to study how attention modulates our ability to encode, organize, and retrieve memories. He also has projects investigating the effects of cognitive aging and brain health on memory formation. Adam received his B.A. from the University of Rochester in 2014, and earned his Ph.D. in Psychology at Cornell in 2023. Since leaving the AMP lab, he has joined the Computational Memory Lab at the University of Pennsylvania as a postdoctoral fellow. In his free time he enjoys playing guitar and walking with his adorable golden retriever, Ringo.

Hamid Turker graduated from Leiden University with a M.Sc. in Cognitive Neuroscience and received his Ph.D. from Cornell University in 2022. Hamid is now a postdoctoral researcher working with David Smith. Hamid's research interests include: how attention, reinforcement, and memory interact to shape learning, as well as how resultant episodic memories are actively involved in other aspects of cognition. To do so, he makes use of behavioral data, neuroimaging, computational modeling, and eye-tracking. Since 2017, he is the assistant curator of the Wilder Brain Collection. In his spare time, he enjoys playing guitar.

Roy Moyal worked on fMRI projects on the attentional boost effect in the AMP Lab and studied the time course of visual object perception using a combination of EEG, machine learning, and computational modeling, under the supervision of Dr. Shimon Edelman. He received his B.Sc. in Computer Science and Psychology from Tel Aviv University, Israel and his Ph.D. in Psychology from Cornell in 2022. Roy is now a postdoctoral researcher working with Thom Cleland. He is interested in the neural correlates of sensory awareness and in the mechanisms whereby attentional and predictive processes influence visual thalamocortical dynamics. When in the lab, he plays guitar, bass, and drums (after hours, of course).

Stav Atir completed her Ph.D in psychology in Dr. Melissa Ferguson's Automaticity lab in 2018. Stav's research interests include: self-control, overconfidence, self and other. She likes good coffee and cryptic crosswords.