I am the Principal Investigator of the How We Learn Lab, cognitive scientist, and Assistant Professor of Psychological and Brain Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis. Before joining WashU, I trained as a postdoctoral fellow with John Gabrieli at MIT and completed my Ph.D. at the University of Toronto, working with Amy Finn and Katherine Duncan.

Our lab will pursue several interrelated research directions. One focuses on understanding the cognitive processes that support learning and memory. To approach this question, we track learning and memory processes across time and study how subtle shifts in other factors, like attention, decision-making, arousal or reward shape what we learn. A second line of work focuses on why learning often looks different in children compared to adults. We test how the slow development of cognitive processes like attention and decision-making drive developmental differences in learning. Finally, we are very interested in brain plasticity, especially during development. We ask questions about how the brain and cognition adapt to various factors like the early environment we grow up in.

To answer these questions, we use the most appropriate tools available. So far, that’s led us to learn how to analyze and think about neuroimaging (e.g., fMRI), behavioral, eye-tracking, and pupillometry data.

We are looking for motivated, visionary, and talented individuals to join our growing team! Check out a more detailed description of our research questions and our publications to see what we’ve been up to lately. I will be recruiting graduate students for Fall 2026!