Our Alumni

Back then, my favorite task was to craft biology questions for our science competitions. We had a close-knit group of SMC organizers in my year--I'm still in touch with some of them to this day--and the event planning skills I learned back in the day continue to be crucial now as I co-organize community-building events and summits with people inside and outside of higher education.

As of right now (May 2020), I am pursuing a PhD degree in Psychology at Carnegie Mellon University and I study causal cognition. My research program lies at the intersection between psychology, cognitive science, and philosophy. How does an infant come to realize that hitting a ball would make it move? How did we figure out that our words can cause others' thoughts and behaviors to change? That's causal cognition at work, and that's what piques my curiosity! Causal cognition supports many other facets of our daily life, from attribution of blame and praise, to decision-making, to simple things such as how to operate a microwave--to my mind, it is one of the most fundamental abilities of the human mind that we have yet to examine in full. In my research, I investigate when and how humans learn about and represent causation in their minds, what might lead them astray in their learning process, and how causal cognition changes over the developmental timeline from infancy to adulthood.

To answer my research questions, I conduct behavioral research with adults through the online data collection platform Mechanical Turk, as well as with infants using looking time paradigms such as habituation. I am working on a procedure to test infants' learning behavior online, given that it requires less time and resources on the caregivers' part and, hopefully, lowers the logistical barrier so that more families can partake in research. Computational modeling (yet another technical but fun tool of scientific research) is something I would like to learn in the near future.

Apart from psychological research, I am also passionate about educational outreach to high schools in Pittsburgh (especially schools with limited access to resources), organizing efforts for a more inclusive and equitable education system, and high-quality undergraduate mentorship. In my down time, I enjoy reading, listening to music, singing to myself, and trying out new desserts.