Assistant Professor of Psychology
Fundamentally, I am interested in the interaction between 'higher-level' cognition and 'lower-level' visual and motor processing. Cognitive Control is a term used to describe the ability to flexibly adapt information processing and behavior in the service of our goals by exerting cognitive effort to overcome our habits and automatic thoughts/actions. I am fundamentally interested in the neural mechanisms that support these top-down processes and how they interact with motivation, learning, and skilled action. How do processes like attention and working memory (and related activity in the prefrontal cortex) interface with sensory and motor brain regions to help (or hurt) successful behavior? To investigate these issues, I use a combination of computational modeling, functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), non-invasive brain stimulation via transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS), behavioral experiments, and studies with neurological patients.
