Director
Assistant Professor
Department of Psychology [profile]
Department of Neuroscience [profile]
Kavli Institute for Neuroscience [link]
Interdepartmental Neuroscience Program [link]
Cognitive Science [link]
Child Study Center
Vernon B. Mountcastle Distinguished Fellow & Curator-in-Chief of the John F. Fulton Collection at the Olschefskie Institute for the Neurobiology of Knowledge
Ph.D. (Washington Univ. in St. Louis)
Postdoctoral Associates
Amrita Nair, PhD 
Postdoctoral associate
Ph.D. (Duke University)
Amrita received her PhD from Duke University working with Michael Platt. For her PhD work, she examined how social status is represented in the posterior cingulate cortex. She helps to oversee and manage the lab.
Chengchi Chu, PhD
Postdoctoral associate
Ph.D. (Institute of Neuroscience, National Yang-Ming University)
Chengchi received his PhD in Neuroscience working with Chou Hung, where he studied visual receptive field tuning properties of macaque V1 neurons. Chengchi is interested in computational approaches to understanding the neural mechanisms of social behavior.
Philip Putnam, PhD [google scholar]
Postdoctoral associate (Starting in Dec, 2019)
Ph.D. (University of Arizona)
Philip received his PhD in Neuroscience working with Kati Gothard, where he studied neurophysiological and oxytonergic mechanisms underlying social cognition in the amygdala. Philip is interested in how neuromodulators influence neural activity in shaping social behaviors.
Graduate Students
Hannah Weinberg-Wolf
Graduate student
Hannah received her BA degree in Biological Basis of Behavior from Johns Hopkins University and her MA degree in Museum Studies from Johns Hopkins University. She then worked at Princeton University before joining the lab. She is interested in how serotonin regulates socio-emotional processing and effortful control in the brain.
Siqi Fan
Graduate student
Siqi received her BS degree in Neuroscience and Mathematics from Vassar College. She has research experience in a variety of organisms, from flies to humans. She is interested in causal mechanisms underlying social cognition and social decision-making.
Graduate student
Megha received her BA degree in Psychology from University of Southern California, followed by receiving her Masters level degree in Neuroscience from University College London. Afterwards, she conducted several fMRI studies in humans, including working with Ifat Levy at Yale University School of Medicine. Megha is interested in neural mechanisms underlying social decision-making in humans.
Graduate student
Prabaha received his integrated BS and MS degrees in Biology from the Indian Institute of Science. For his research prior to joining the lab, Prabaha worked on understanding neural mechanisms of high-level vision in the inferior temporal cortex. Prabaha is interested in neural mechanisms underlying social behavior.
Olivia Meisner
Graduate student (rotating INP student)
Olivia received her BS degree in Neuroscience and Behavioral Biology from Emory University. For her research prior to coming to Yale, Olivia studied the development of social attention at Emory and worked on animal models of ASD at MIT. Olivia is interested in neural mechanisms underlying complex social interactions.
Software Engineer
Nicholas Fagan
Software Engineer / Programmer
Yale Class of 2015
Nick received his BS in Psychology (with Distinction, Neuroscience Track) from Yale University. He is interested in computational neuroscience and anything that is computer science related.
Undergraduate Students
Cameron Martel
Undergraduate researcher
Cameron is a Cognitive Science major in the lab interested in the serotonergic regulation of social and cognitive processing.
Emma Blue Kirby
Undergraduate researcher
Emma is a Cognitive Science and Applied Mathematics major in the lab interested in neuropharmacological modulations of social cognition.
Alex Jaco
Undergraduate researcher
Alex is an Eli Whitney scholar interested in group decision-making in the lab. Alex is planning to major in Cognitive Science.
Michael Zhou
Undergraduate researcher
Michael is a Neuroscience and Statistics major in the lab interested in modeling behavioral and neural aspects of social gaze dynamics.
Visiting Fellow
Visiting fellow
Assistant Professor
Department of Psychology
University of Turin, Italy
Olga is a lab alumnus and interested in neurophysiological and neuropharmacological mechanisms underlying social gaze interaction and social decision-making.
Collaborating Lab Members
Graduate student
Anton is a graduate student in John Bargh’s lab who is collaborating with us in studying pattern deviancy aversion and social preference.
Alyssa Arre [website]
[website]Graduate student
Alyssa is a graduate student in Laurie Santos’ lab who is collaborating with us in studying social cognition.
Graduate student
Erica is a graduate student in Avram Holmes’ lab who is collaborating with us in studying pattern deviancy aversion and social preference.
Research Support Staff
Marianne Horn
Research associate neuroscience
Marianne is a Research Associate in the Department of Neuroscience. For our lab, she helps with surgery preparation and MRI scanning.
Other Members
Coco Chang
Official lab mascot
Coco is a friendly, loving, and sometimes goofy old english sheep dog. She loves hiking and hanging out with people =)
Lab Alumni (selected list)
Jason Morris (undergrad thesis, to WashU MD program, full scholarship)
Marios Tringides (undergrad thesis, to Duke Univ. Neurobiology PhD program)
Weston Pack, PhD (postdoc, to Second Sight)
Angelica Fuentes (undergrad thesis, to U Illinois Chicago MD program)
Doug Streat (undergrad thesis, to Yale Sch of Public Health program)
Courtney Turrin (grad student, to Digital marketing industry)
Kayla Velnoskey (grad student, to Data science industry)
Spencer Birney (undergrad research, to Data science industry)
Shamma Ahmed (visiting student from Cornell, to back to Cornell)
Olga Dal Monte, Ph.D (postdoc, to Assistant Professor of Psychology at University of Turin)
Kacey Fang (undergrad thesis, to postbac position)
Matthew Piva, Ph.D (grad student, to Mckinsey and Company)
Shay Ben-Heim, Ph.D (collaborating postdoc)
Jessica Joiner, Ph.D (grad student, to science coordinator)