Lab Members
| Ayse P. SAYGIN, PhD Principal Investigator Associate Professor Professor Saygin received her PhD in Cognitive Science from UCSD, and has an MSc in computer science and BSc in mathematics. After a Marie Curie postdoctoral fellowship at the Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience, University College London, she returned to UCSD as faculty in the fall of 2009. Website |
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 | Burcu A. URGEN, MS Graduate Student Burcu studied computer science and cognitive science before coming to UCSD. She's a cognitive science graduate student supported by a fellowship from Calit2. Burcu is using EEG and fMRI to study body movement perception. She has been supported by a Calit2 graduate fellowship and Kavli Institute of Brain and Mind. UCSD E-mail: burgen |
 | Luke MILLER, MS Graduate Student Luke is a cognitive science graduate student and is interested in perception of body movements, individual differences, the representation of the body in the brain, tool use and neural plasticity. Luke is supported by the Kavli Institute of Brain and Mind (KIBM) and a NIH training fellowship from the Institute for Neural Computation (INC). UCSD E-mail: lumiller |
 | Alvin X. LI Graduate Student Alvin is a cognitive science graduate student and is interested in using machine learning and Brain-Computer Interfaces (BCI) in social domains. UCSD E-mail: axl002 |
 | Eric LEONARDIS Graduate Student Eric has recently moved from New York to San Diego to start graduate school in cognitive science. He is interested in social robotics, cognitive neuroscience and brain computer interfaces. |
 | Huseyin BOYACI Visiting Researcher Prof. Boyaci is affiliated with Bilkent University Department of Psychology in Ankara, as well as National Magnetic Resonance Research Center in Ankara, Turkey. He is visiting UCSD on sabbatical and as a Fulbright fellow during the 2014-15 academic year. Website |
 | Katja DOERSCHNER Visiting Researcher Prof. Doerchner is visiting UCSD from Bilkent University and National Magnetic Resonance Research Center in Ankara, Turkey. She was awarded a prestigious Sofia Kovalevskaya prize from the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation, with which she is establishing a research group at the Justus-Liebig-University in Germany. Website |
 | Angela PHAM Undergraduate Student/Research Assistant Angela joined our lab as a first year at UCSD via the Research Initiative Program. She is interested in studying Cognitive Science and Human Biology, and is involved in several projects on biological motion perception. She was awarded a Qualcomm Institute (Calit2) Summer Research Fellowship in 2014 for a project exploring multisensory biological motion and visual awareness. |
 | Akila KADAMBI Undergraduate Student/Research Assistant Akila has been working on unconscious perception of body motion. She was awarded a Calit2 Undergraduate Research Fellowship in 2013. |
| | Wednesday BUSHONG Undergraduate Student/Research Assistant |
| | Taarini ARIKKATH Undergraduate Student/Research Assistant |
| | Andrew CAWLEY Undergraduate Student/Research Assistant |
| | Virginia FEDRIGO Undergraduate Student/Research Assistant |
| | Steven PILLEN Volunteer/Research Assistant |
Past Lab Members
 | Angela CHAN Undergraduate (Honors) Student/Research Assistant Angela graduated with a degree in cognitive science with a specialization in neuroscience. She did her undergraduate honors project in our lab exploring how biological motion cues direct attention. She was also awarded a Calit2 Undergraduate Research Fellowship to working in our lab on an fMRI study. |
 | Arthur VIGIL Undergraduate Student/Research Assistant Arthur finished his degree in cognitive science and worked on behavioral and EEG experiments on body movement perception. He was awarded a Chancellor's Undergraduate Research Fellowship. He is now going to graduate school in computer science. |
| Brent MURPHY Undergraduate Student/Research Assistant |
| Lauren CURLEY Graduate Student Lauren is a cognitive science graduate student who did a lab rotation in our lab. She is now advised by Terry Jernigan. |
| Paola ROSSI Undergraduate Exchange Student Paola was an exchange student from Italy at UCSD for two quarters and worked on two projects: changes in body model following tool use and individual differences in biological motion perception. |
| Maya SAPIURSKA Graduate Student Maya is a PhD student in Neurosciences who completed a rotation in our lab, working on an EEG study. |
| Sophie BUON Undergraduate Student/Research Assistant |
| Chris GAUTHIER Undergraduate Student/Research Assistant |
| Jack ENNEKING Undergraduate Student/Research Assistant |
| | Ethan FUKUTO Undergraduate Student/Research Assistant |
| | Melissa WONG Undergraduate Student/Research Assistant |
| | Charles SAAVEDRA Undergraduate Student/Research Assistant Charles is visiting our lab and UCSD for the summer of 2013 as part of the STARS Program. He is interested in learning about EEG and how it can be used to study action processing. |
| | Matt LIAO Undergraduate Student/Research Assistant |
| | Cody WALTERS Undergraduate Student/Research Assistant |
 | Cindy HA Undergraduate Student/Research Assistant Cindy has worked in the lab in her junior and senior years on experimental approaches to the study of the uncanny valley hypothesis. She has also blogged about undergraduate research in our lab. |
 | Edward NGUYEN Undergraduate Student and Lab Manager Edward graduated in 2014 with honors, after working on biological motion perception, emotion, and consciousness in our lab with behavioral and neuroimaging techniques. Edward participated in the Cognitive Science honors program, Faculty mentor program (FMP) and was awarded an AMGEN fellowship in 2012 and an Calit2 Undergraduate Research Fellowship in 2013. Edward also served as our EEG lab manager. |
 | Geoff BIRD, PhD Visiting Researcher Dr. Bird is a lecturer in the Psychology Department at Bikbeck College, University of London. His research area is social cognition and social neuroscience. |
 | Hiroshi ITO, PhD Visiting Researcher Dr. Ito visited our lab from Aichi University in Japan for one year. His research interests are perception of human and robot actions, the mirror neuron system, and mind reading. |
 | Jennifer COOK, PhD Visiting Researcher Jennifer visited our lab from London supported by a Bogue fellowship. She received her PhD working in Blakemore Lab at UCL. Jennifer's projects in our lab included biological motion perception and motion processing in autism spectrum disorders. |
 | Jingwei LI Undergraduate Student/Research Assistant Jingwei worked on online experiments with Mechanical Turk as well as in-lab behavioral experiments. He is now going to graduate school in computer science. |
 | Maria FLORENDO Undergraduate Student/Research Assistant Maria graduated with honors in 2014, after working on biological motion perception and spatial attention. She participated in the Faculty Mentor Program (FMP) the Cognitive Science Honors program. |
 | Nicola GEISS Undergraduate Exchange Student Nicola spent a quarter in our lab as an exchange student from University of Osnabrück in Germany. |
| Burcu A. URGEN, PhD Graduate Student Burcu completed her PhD in Cognitive Science our lab, followed by postdoctoral research with Prof. Guy Orban. She is currently faculty at Bilkent University. |
Our Local Affilliations
Kavli Institute for Brain and Mind (KIBM)
California Institute for Telecommunications and Information Technology (Calit2)
Center for Research in Language (CRL)
Institute for Neural Computation (INC)
Center for Research in Entertainment and Learning (CREL)
Center for Academic Research in Anthropogeny (CARTA)
Arthur C. Clarke Center for Human Imagination
Local Labs
UCSD Center for fMRI
Kutas Cognitive Electrophysiology Lab
Poizner Lab, INC
Winkielman Lab, UCSD
Multimodal Imaging Lab, UCSD
Swartz Center for Computational Neuroscience
Center for Human Development, UCSD
Neural Interaction Lab
Other Collaborators and Friends
Wellcome Trust Centre for Neuroimaging, London, UK
Birkbeck-UCL Centre for Neuroimaging, London, UK
Attention Group, UCL Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience, London, UK
Rees Lab, Awareness Group, UCL Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience, London, UK
Ishiguro Lab, Osaka University and ATR, Japan
Body Representation Lab, Birkbeck University of London, UK
Blakemore Lab, Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience Group, UCL, London, UK
Kilner Lab, Sobell Department of Movement Neuroscience and Motor Disorders, Institute of Neurology, London, UK
Center for Aphasia and Related Disorders, VA Northern California Healthcare System, Martinez, CA, USA
Laboratory for Language and Cognitive Neuroscience, SDSU
Department of Psychology, Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences, Leipzig, Germany
Optometry and Visual Science, City University, London, UK
Computational and Biological Vision Group, Bilkent University, Ankara, Turkey
Lab Photos
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