people
members | alumni | collaborators
lab members
Abhilasha Kumar, Ph.D. (she/her)
Principal Investigator | website | CV
Abhilasha is a computational cognitive scientist who is fascinated by how humans learn the meaning of words and communicate with each other. She enjoys teaching statistics, coding, and interdisciplinary classes on AI & cognition. Outside of work, Abhilasha likes to play board games and tennis, and try new recipes and restaurants in Portland!
Channing Hambric, Ph.D. (she/her)
NSF Postdoctoral Research Fellow
Channing is a cognitive psychologist who studies the dynamic interface between semantic memory and language. She is broadly interested in exploring how densely connected and multifaceted semantic representations are selected and evoked through everyday language use. Her recent work has explored the adaptive learning mechanisms thought to shape access to memory and words in different production contexts. Outside of the lab, Channing enjoys baking, reading fantasy novels, and painting.
Kyra Brown (she/her)
NSF Research Fellow | Rising Sophomore
Kyra is interested in discovering how an individual’s semantic network impacts their perception of their environment. She is currently working on the NSF project “Modeling Search within the Mental Lexicon,” which examines how mental search is influenced by idiosyncrasies in the lexicon through the development of individual level semantic representations. Outside of the lab she enjoys crafting, writing, and learning languages.
student alumni
- Ethan Lam – ’26 psychology and mathematics major (Lifson Family Summer Research Fellow)
- Anushka Elavia – ’27 biochemistry and sociology major (Summer Research Fellow)
- Amanda Cooney – ’26 psychology major and computer science minor (NSF Research Fellow)
- Richard Lim – ’27 computer science and mathematics major (Gibbons Summer Research Fellow)
- William Warlick – ’24 computer science and philosophy major (Research Assistant)
- Mingi Kang – ’26 computer science and mathematics major (NSF Research Fellow)
- Stephanie Chun – ’24 neuroscience major and asian studies minor (Independent Study)
- Ulemj Munkhtur – ’26 computer science and economics major (Independent Study)
- Carrie Zou – ’24 psychology and economics major (Independent Study)
- Simon Thomas – ’25 physics and hispanic studies major (Research Assistant)
- Thomas Mazzuchi – ’23 psychology and mathematics major (Honors)
- Kavya Doraswamy – ’24 psychology and computer science major (Independent Study)
- Jon Sides – ’25 psychology and mathematics major (Independent Study)
- Nancy Xing – ’24 computer science major and psychology minor (Research Assistant)
- Reed Warburton – ’23 psychology and biology major (Independent Study)
collaborators and mentors(*)
- *David Balota, Washington University in St. Louis
- Simon De Deyne, University of Melbourne
- Ketika Garg, California Institute of Technology (CalTech)
- *Sudheendra Hangal, Stanford & Ashoka University
- Robert Hawkins, Stanford University
- Kevin Holmes, Reed College
- *Michael Jones, Indiana University
- Geoff Maddox, Rhodes College
- Erica Middleton, Thomas Jefferson University
- Peter Millar, WashU
- Nancy B Lundin, The Ohio State University
- David Pisoni, Indiana University
- Michele Scaltritti, University of Padova
- *Mark Steyvers, UC Irvine
- *Allyson Rosen, Stanford University