Alumni

E Ticha Muluh is a senior Mathematics lecturer at the Cape Peninsula University of Cape Town (CPUT) and a visiting Academic at the University of Cape Town (UCT), South Africa. He has a diverse academic background. He received a Ph.D. in Biomedical Engineering, a Master degree in Applied Sciences in Engineering, and an honors degree in Applied Mathematics from UCT. He also holds a first degree in Mathematics from the University of Buea – Cameroon.

His research interest is on how the brain process arithmetic mentally. He is particularly interested in finding out why it takes the brain a longer period of time and many errors made in processing problems such as 8 x 9 compared to problems such as 2 x 3 (problem-size effect); and why the brain processes for example addition differently from division (operation-effect). He uses the surface electroencephalography (EEG) method in this endeavor. EEG records tiny electrical voltages on the scalp and this offers a way of monitoring brain activity in real time and thereby tracking any transitions that parallel changes during mental arithmetic processing (MAP). He is also currently interested in the source re-construction (localization) of brain activity during MAP using the Finite Element Analysis (FEA) method.

He personally enjoys watching soccer and listening to gospel music.

I completed my PhD in the Centre for Neuroscience in Education at Cambridge University. I am now working as a postdoctoral research fellow at the Anna Freud Centre in London (UCL). am interested in the interactions between emotion and cognition – particularly during adolescence. I use
electroencephalography (EEG) in order to examine the neural activity that underlies these cognitive abilities. At present, I am working on a number of projects that assess the effectiveness of various therapeutic interventions in adolescent boys with conduct disorder. Previously, I have worked on studies focusing on attentional deficits and the underlying brain activity that predicts disturbances of attention. That research has the potential to be utilised in brain-based biofeedback interventions. I have also been involved in investigating the structure and function of numerical cognition, and the associated difficulties faced by children with developmental dyscalculia.

María Juliana Leone got a major in Biotechnology in 2004 and a PhD in Basic and Applied Sciences in 2010 at the Universidad Nacional de Quilmes (Buenos Aires). Her PhD was focused in the role of astroglial cells in the interaction between immune system and circadian system, under the supervision of Dr. Diego Golombek. Before starting her degree studies, she used to play chess actively and she obtained the Woman International Master title in 1999. Currently, she is working as a postdoctoral fellow at the Integrative Neuroscience Laboratory (Universidad de Buenos Aires –UBA-) under Dr. Mariano Sigman's supervision. Her research is focused on physiological correlates and circadian rhythms of decision making using chess as a model, binding her old love (chess) with her work.

I have an MA degree in Psychology and did my PhD studies in the field of Clinical and Experimental Neuroscience. Currently I'm working in the Memory and Language Research Lab in Budapest. My main interests are focused on cognitive neuroscience and the neuropsychology of several aspects of skill learning (e.g., sequence vs. statistical, perceptual vs. motor, implicit vs. explicit learnint). We explore this type of learning from memory formation to consolidation and how this process is affected by age, sleep, and disorders such as autism, dyslexia, and Spinocerebellar Ataxia. I believe that these studies could lead us not only to a deeper understanding of this learning mechanism but also to discover how we rewire skills and boost habit change.

Experts in a particular domain differ from novices in the ease and efficiency with which they pick up structured information. This natural ability to discover and encode abstract relations (as in perception of a melody, relations among chess pieces, or a tumor in an x-ray) is called perceptual learning. As a doctoral student in cognitive psychology at University of California Los Angeles, my research focuses on the application of perceptual learning to education and educational technology. In particular, I develop and test methods of training and accelerating expert information extraction skills in mathematics, music, and medical education. To this end, I am also a member of Insight Learning Technology, a start-up organization aims to make available research-based educational technology that advances perceptual learning in mathematics and science education. My doctoral training also involves the application of advanced quantitative methods such as structural equation modeling and multilevel modeling to study the learning principles driving student performance and to evaluate the effect of educational interventions on learning.

Frederico Horie Silva is a Master's student in Psychobiology at the Federal University of Rio Grande do Norte (UFRN), Brazil. His current studies are on educational games, learning and motivation. He is graduated in Biology at the São Paulo State University, Brazil, and he has worked as a science teacher in the Brazilian public school system (2009 - 2010). Since 2010 he has been involved in outreach projects in the field of science education at the Brain Institute, UFRN. His research interests are in science education and educational games.

I live in São Paulo, Brazil. Besides science, I have a deep passion for music, Brazilian barbecue and Carnaval. Nowadays, I am a postdoc at the Departamento de Farmacologia of USP. Since the beginning of my undergrad in Biomedicine at the Universidade Federal de São Paulo (UNIFESP), I have interest in working with psychopharmacology of drugs of abuse. To follow this goal, after my graduation (in 2005), I joint the Departamento de Psicobiologia at UNIFESP as a Master`s student (until 2008) and, later on as a PhD student (until 2012). During the PhD, I had the opportunity to move to Winston-Salem, NC in USA for a very important collaboration with Drs. Jeff Weiner and Brian McCool at Wake Forest University.
I have been working with alcohol addiction research since 2002. My main interest has been to understand the neuroadaptations underlie individual variability in the behavioral effects of alcohol (and other drugs). During the last years, I used behavioral, biochemical and electrophysiological techniques to study specific neuroadaptations that may explain the variability observed in the locomotor and drinking response to chronic alcohol exposure. During all this years, it was possible to observe adaptations in opioidergic, serotoninergic, dopaminergic and glutamatergic systems specific to the behavioral phenotype to the alcohol chronic exposure. Nowadays, I have specific interest in the memory component of alcohol addiction, considering that drug addiction involves memory deficits and impairment of neuronal plasticity. People addicted to drugs have difficulty in changing the focus associated to the drug, perseverate on their abused drugs and struggle to learn new associations. I believe that we can use pharmacological and cognitive tools to help addicts to recover the capacity to forget drug related memories and learn new associations.

Belén was born and raised in Quito, a city cradled in the Ecuadorian Andes Mountains. She completed her undergraduate degree in Psychology from Baruch College in NYC. There, with Dr. Jennifer Mangels, she studied how students’ motivations and beliefs influence their selective attention and subsequently their memory, either facilitating or hindering learning from errors. In her graduate studies with Dr. Silvia Bunge at UC Berkeley, she is now exploring the positive experiences that can promote plasticity of higher cognition. In her current work, she is examining the effect of playing games on general cognition and academic achievement. She seeks to learn how simple interventions can be scaled and adapted to supplement a traditional classroom experience, especially for underserved populations.

Marina Puglisi is a speech-language therapist with expertise in child language, currently working at the University of Oxford as a postdoctoral researcher. She holds a PhD in rehabilitation sciences and a postdoctoral degree, both at the School of Medicine of the University of São Paulo. She has recently worked in collaboration with an international multicenter research team aiming to explore the environmental effects on language and cognition. In her current research project, she will investigate the effects of two early intervention programmes on school readiness: one with focus on language and the other on executive functions training.
Her main research interests are to identify the linguistic and cognitive profile of children with language impairments; to explore the risk factors of this developmental disorder; to investigate the role of socioeconomic status in language and cognitive development; and to compare the effectiveness of early intervention programmes on school readiness, particularly in low socioeconomic environments.

I am investigating cognitive remediation in patients with psychosis using a novel computer based cognitive training task. I am also collaborating with the Anna Freud Centre in London examining the development of socio-affective control in young and older adolescents, with the Centre for Neuroscience in Education examining the link between cognitive and motor inhibitory control during reasoning, with the Department of Neurology, Cambridge examining reward learning and apathy in patients with normal pressure hydrocephalus and with the Department of Psychiatry Cambridge exploring changes in cognitive control during depression.

In 2012 I finished my PhD with Dr. Denes Szucs at the Centre for Neuroscience in Education. I used various psychophysiological methodologies including EEG, EMG and fNIRS to examine the neural timing underlying cognitive control; the ability to resist interference from distracting stimuli. My aim was to dissect the cognitive and motor abilities that develop to facilitate access to conceptual knowledge.
I examined adolescents, young adults and middle age adults to profile neural and physiological differences in cognition across the lifespan.

Key words: cognitive control, inhibitory control, cognitive training, socio-affective development, executive functions, schizophrenia, autism, childhood disorders, ERP, EMG

Killikelly C, Szucs D (in press), “Delayed development of proactive response preparation in adolescents: ERP and EMG evidence” Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience

Killikelly C, Szucs D (in submission), “Asymmetry in stimulus and response conflict processing across the adult lifespan: ERP and EMG evidence” Cortex

Pincham H, Killikelly C, Vuillier L, and Power A (2012), “Examining the expectation deficit in normal aging ” Journal of Neuroscience

Szucs D, Killikelly C, Cutini S (2012), “Event-related near-infrared spectroscopy detects conflict in the motor cortex during a Stroop task” Brain Research

I currently live in argentinian Patagonia, where I teach Psychology to future high school teachers of Science. My PhD. research was aimed at dissolving the Analogical Paradox: an empirical inconsistency by which the retrieval of cross-domain analogical situations from LTM seemed easy in natural settings, yet difficult in the psychological laboratory. More broadly, my current research interests focus on the cognitive processes involved in analogical thinking, as applied to activities like problem-solving, argumentation, comparison, and comprehension of metaphorical concepts. Our research tackles questions such as: Which are the difficulties we encounter when retrieving cross-domain situations from LTM? What can be done to overcome them? What mechanisms do we employ to determine whether two situations are analogous? How can we aid transfer of declarative/procedural knowledge across situations? What kinds of representations (e.g., sensory-motor vs. amodal) underlie our understanding of metaphorical concepts and expressions? Even though we have been testing our intuitions by means of controlled behavioral experiments, we are interested in devising ways of testing (and hopefully applying!!) them in real educational settings.

Tyler Marghetis studies mathematical practice and cognition, from low-level number processing to how experts generate advanced proofs. After getting a B.Sc. in mathematics and philosophy, he completed a masters degree in mathematics education, and is now a doctoral candidate in cognitive science at the University of California, San Diego.

While his research cuts across methodological boundaries—from historical case studies and ethnographic observation, to behavioral experiments and neuroscience (ERP)—it is unified by a focus on the body and space in abstract mathematical thought. In one line of research, he studies the role of gesture in mathematical reasoning. For instance, he looks at how undergraduate students produce gestures that use space metaphorically to structure their conceptualization of abstract mathematical concepts (e.g. negative numbers). In parallel, he uses behavioral experiments to study interactions between number and space during rapid numerical judgments. More generally, he’s interested in the implications for education of embodied and situated cognition. Before becoming a cognitive scientist, he was a professional magician, a competitive gymnast, and an alternate for the Beijing Olympics in wrestling.

Alejandra Carboni graduated in Psychology from the University of the Republic in Uruguay (Udelar), after that, she moved to Spain to pursue postgraduate studies funded by a grant from the Spanish Agency for International Cooperation.
Upon finishing her doctoral thesis “The neurophysiology of attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder “ in the Magnetoencephalography Center of the Complutense University of Madrid, she completed postdoctoral work at the Autonomous University of Madrid.
Most recently, she returned to Uruguay in 2011 to work as a lecturer in the Center for Basic Research in Psychology at the UdelaR and she is also a researcher of the National System of Researchers in Uruguay (ANII).
Her main work focuses on visual attention, particularly in the interactions between attention and emotion. She uses electroencephalography (EEG) in order to explore the neural mechanisms underlying endogenous and exogenous attention.

I am a PhD student in the Numerical Cognition Lab at the University of Western Ontario, Canada. I am currently working under the supervision of Dr. Daniel Ansari.

My research focuses on how individual differences in mathematical skills are related to white matter integrity, measured by Diffusion Tensor Imaging (DTI). Specifically, I am interested in how white matter tracts support the acquisition of mathematical skills and how high- and low-achieving children differ in their white matter microstructures.

I am also conducting research on the acquisition of basic numeracy skills in preschool and kindergarten. While many programs have been developed to train early numeracy skills, few have been validated by empirical research. We are exploring whether there are measurable increases in mathematical knowledge following iPad training programs that are designed to improve basic number skills.

When I am not doing research I play cello in the London Community Orchestra, cook, and enjoy being active by playing tennis and running.

Lia R. M. Bevilaqua is an Associate Professor of Psychopharmacology at the Brain Institute (ICe) of the Federal University of Rio Grande do Norte (UFRN). She investigates the biochemical properties of memory processing, including its consolidation, reconsolidation and extinction. Lia graduated in Pharmacy and Biochemistry, has a Master Degree in Genetics and Molecular Biology, a PhD in Biochemistry and post-doctoral studies in Neurochemistry. So far, she has published 70 articles in peer-reviewed international journals, which have been cited more than 2400 times. Her h index is 26.

I am a third-year doctoral student concentrating in Human Development and Education at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. I work in the Labs of Cognitive Neuroscience at Boston Children's Hospital, where I investigate the neural underpinnings of learning mechanisms in typically and atypically developing children. At HGSE, I serve on the Editorial Board of the Harvard Educational Review. Prior to matriculating at HGSE, I conducted clinical autism research as a Donald J. Cohen Fellow in Developmental Social Neuroscience and a Zigler Fellow in Child Development and Social Policy at the Yale University Child Study Center. I hold a BS in Molecular, Cellular, and Developmental Biology from Yale, where I also participated in the Teacher's Preparation program, and a mentorship in early childhood education at the Calvin Hill Day Care Center.

In my current research projects, I am using Near InfraRed Spectroscopy (fNIRS) imaging to (a) investigate the neural correlates of imitation in children with autism and their siblings, and (b) study early numerical cognition capacities (such as ratio based quantity discrimination) in typical children. My main aim with this research is to inform the construction of more developmentally appropriate curricula and educational interventions in early childhood classrooms (though this is much easier said than done). As such, I am looking forward to working out new directions through which the worlds of educational practice and neuroscience research can reciprocally influence each other, with the members of the LA School of 2013.

Ignacio Rebollo is a Psychology student at Universidad de la República. He has an undergraduate research scholarship at the Center of Basic Research in Psychology and is teacher assistant of the Psychology, Education and Development Institute of the School of Psychology.

His research interest are the cognitive causes of reading difficulties that occur in developmental dyslexia. In particular how lexical and visuoattentional deficits interact to give rise to the different subtypes of dyslexia, evidenced through behavioral, ERP and eye-tracker data.

I was born in Buenos Aires in 1983. I received my BA in Psychology from the University of Buenos Aires and I have a PhD in Psychology from the University of Córdoba. My PhD thesis was focused in comparative psychology, studying the mechanisms underlying interspecific communication between dogs and humans, based on associative learning theories.
My actual postdoc research topic is in the field of developmental psychology. I'm working on communicative competences in early stages of development, and how this is modulated by temperament, parenting and socioeconomic factors.
Also I work as a professor of Behavioral Research Methods at the University of Buenos Aires. I'm a member of the Argentine Association of Behavioral Sciences.
You can download some of my publications from here: http://gepama.academia.edu/AngelElgier

Dr. Waismeyer is a Postdoctoral researcher at the Institute for Learning & Brain Sciences at the University of Washington, working with Dr. Andrew Meltzoff. She received her B.A. from Cornell University and her Ph.D. in comparative and developmental psychology at the University of California, Berkeley with Dr. Lucia Jacobs and Dr. Alison Gopnik. Her current research focuses on examining the developmental roots of scientific reasoning through her studies on probabilistic spatial and causal inference in young children. Her research explores the development of children's inferential learning strategies both in spatial and causal tasks and how children's developing social understanding may play a role as an aid to learning within non-pedagogical situations prior to their experiences with formal schooling. Dr. Waismeyer has a deep interest and passion in using the study of cognition to improve education policies. Understanding the developmental roots of inferential reasoning across multiple domains will help educators and cognitive researchers alike in developing novel teaching techniques and establishing new methodologies for the study of scientific reasoning in early childhood.

Gary Scott has dedicated his professional life to urban education in South Central Los Angeles. He started his career at Crenshaw High School in the Los Angeles Unified School District and within a couple of years helped to establish and teach mathematics and science in the school-within-a-school (SWAS) at Crenshaw. This experience not only shaped his pedagogy but equally important, developed his understanding of and commitment to social justice.

His dissertation focused on developing an understanding of middle school students’ problem solving processes in a computer-based environment. Sharing his dissertation work with other teachers brought him to the realm of teacher professional development, not as a ‘more knowledgeable expert’ but rather as being a co-inquirer into student learning, to improve instructional practices.

His research interests are centered on applying cultural-historical theory and Reuven Feuerstein’s theory of Structural Cognitive Modifiability to the teaching and learning of mathematics and science. Based on these theoretical foundations he most recently developed and implemented the Inventatorium, based on his experiences at the Exploratorium in San Francisco California. The program has been piloted since September 2010 as an afterschool program for approximately student at 93rd Street Elementary School in South Los Angeles where 95% of students are economically disadvantaged and 61% are or recently have been English learners. In the fall of 2012, the program expanded to integrate the Inventatorium with the mathematics and science curriculum during the school day. The Inventatorium is different from traditional methods of teaching STEM subjects. What we have done [traditionally] in K-12 STEM education is to summarily ignore the role that imagery and emotion play in scientific, technology, engineering, and mathematics problem solving. We have incorrectly assumed that we think only in numbers and words and that emotion, creativity, and imagery play little, if any, role in the teaching and learning of STEM concepts Dr. Scott has discerned that instead, “emotion, creativity, and imagery are necessary to STEM learning and these elements play an important role when students have to make decisions about taking STEM courses in high school and beyond.”

Maria Eugenia Lopez was born in Buenos Aires, Argentina in 1986 and grew up in Montevideo, Uruguay. She got a biology degree at the University of Buenos Aires and since her first steps at her program she got involved in projects related with neuroscience. Her undergraduate research focused on synaptic vesicle recycling at the neuromuscular junction under the supervision of Osvaldo Uchitel. At present, she is working at the Molecular Devices Lab at the Institute of Materials Chemistry, Environment and Energy under the supervision of Roberto Etchenique. On the other hand, to share her enthusiasm in doing science she had collaborated in a project called “Science on the go” where a group of scientists went to high schools to conduct experiments with students in order to give them a taste of science. She also worked as an educational guide at the Max Planck “Science Tunnel”, an exhibition about trends and boundaries in cutting-edge scientific research talking about state-of-the-art knowledge of the brain. This experience made her become aware that schools teach natural sciences in quite non scientific ways. To address this issue, she participated in the development of a workshop on how to teach science by doing science that was awarded a grant by the Program “Science with Society” of the University of Buenos Aires. During 2012 she became part of a TV show about science and cooking which led her perform a show at Tecnopolis, a science and technology park for the general public. In the near future, if she is lucky, she will pursue master studies related to Neuroscience and Education.

Katarzyna Jednoróg received her master’s degree in Psychology at the Jagiellonian University and a PhD in Psychophysiology at the Nencki Institute of Experimental Biology, Poland. She completed her postdoctoral work at Ecole Normale Superieure, Paris.

Her primary research interest is the neurocognitive basis of developmental dyslexia. She’s particularly interested whether distinct subtypes of dyslexic children can be found both on the cognitive and neural level. She’s also interested in the influence of socioeconomic status on literacy and the brain. She uses recordings of event-related potentials, structural and functional magnetic resonance imaging. Her second line of investigation is focusing on the influence of emotions on attention and memory. Together with collaborators she created the Nencki Affective Picture System, a database of high resolution emotionally charged stimuli.

In free time she practices asthanga yoga.

Academic Training:

2006-2009: Double Major BA in Psychology and Film Studies. Tel Aviv University, Israel.

2010-2012: MA in Clinical and Educational Child Psychology. Bar-Ilan University, Israel.

2012-Present (2013): PhD student in Clinical Psychology and Brain Science, Bar-Ilan University, Israel. Subject of my dissertation: An fMRi Neurobehavioral Investigation of Free Associations: The Relation between Psychodynamic Therapy and Verbal Creativity.

Research Interests:

Neuro-cognitive aspects of creativity, enhancing creativity, developmental neuropsychology, the social brain and empathy: mirror neurons, TOM and their connection to learning and teaching. I am interested in bridging between different fields such as cinema with education and psychology. In my dissertation I attempt to provide a novel approach to free associations, a common tool in psychoanalytical psychotherapy, through artistic, creative and neuroscience stances.

Other Occupations: I am an active member in the Israeli forum of Neuropsychoanalysis. I participate in different groups of interest that each meet once a month: the child-developmental group of neuropsychoanalysis, EMDR and neuroscience group, Exploring Autism group and The Social Brain group.

Leyla Mariane Joaquim is a third year PhD student in the Graduate Studies Programme in History, Philosophy, and Science Teaching at the Federal University of Bahia (UFBa). After obtaining her Bachelor's and Licentiate degree in Biology at Federal University of Paraná, she moved to northeast Brazil to acquire her Master degree in the field of Genetics Teaching at UFBa. She joined projects investigating how ideas about genes and gene function are treated in school knowledge, as represented in textbooks and students' views. Currently, she is devoted to her PhD dissertation in History of Science, which is a study about the role of physicists in the field of Biology. Using oral history as one of the methodological tools, she is interviewing leading physicists that turned their attention to the phenomena of life (particularly in Brazil, Israel, Germany and US). She had research stays at Max Planck Institute for the History of Science (MPIWG – Berlin, Germany) at Department I (Structural Changes in Systems of Knowledge) and II (Ideals and Practices of Rationality) in 2010 and 2012, respectively. Accordingly, her research interests focus on Science Education Research, History of Biology and History of Physics.