Olivia Cheung

Principal Investigator

olivia.cheung@nyu.edu, NYU Abu Dhabi faculty page, NYUAD feature article, Google Scholar, ORCID, CV

Olivia is an assistant professor of psychology and a co-director of the Center for Brain and Health at NYU Abu Dhabi. Her research aims to understand how we perceive the visual world. Olivia holds a Ph.D. in Cognition and Cognitive Neuroscience from the Department of Psychology at Vanderbilt University. Before joining NYU Abu Dhabi, she did postdoctoral research at Harvard Medical School, at the Center of Mind/Brain Sciences (CIMeC) in Trento, Italy, and at Harvard University.

Antonio Zafarana

Postdoctoral Researcher

az3221@nyu.edu, Google Scholar, ResearchGate, LinkedIn

Antonio completed his PhD in Psychology at the University of Kent, UK. His previous research focused on visual perceptual learning in space and the effects of tactile training on the motor system. Currently, Antonio is interested in using various fMRI techniques (e.g., representational similarity analysis) to investigate how the tool-selective cortical network represents information and to compare the characteristics of selectivity for tools vs. other categories.

Treedom Zhang

Research Assistant

bz1166@nyu.edu

Treedom majored in Psychology and minored in Film and New Media at NYU Abu Dhabi. She is particularly interested in cognitive neuroscience research with potential clinical applications. She has led projects on the role of semantics on holistic word perception and on the importance of spatial features in visual working memory. Currently, she is working on projects related to scene perception using fMRI.

Ani Alaberkyan

Research Assistant

aa10799@nyu.edu

Ani received her BA/MA as a Departmental Scholar at UCLA. She was a Fullbright Scholar in Morocco and completed her MSc at the University of Oxford (Jesus College). She is interested in how perceptual processes influence complex decisions. She has recently completed research investigating parafoveal processing as a research assistant at NYUAD. Currently, she uses a combination of neuroimaging (e.g., EEG, fMRI), computational modeling, and behavioral techniques to study high-level vision.

Youjing Luo

PhD Student

yl12563@nyu.edu, Google Scholar

Youjing is a first-year PhD student in the NYUAD Global PhD program. She is co-mentored by Denis Pelli at NYU. She received her BS degree in Psychology from East China Normal University and her MA degree from the Chinese University of Hong Kong. Her research focuses on high-level vision and neuro-aesthetics. She is investigating the effect of crowding on holistic vs. part-based visual word perception, and the effect of attention on aesthetic judgment. 

Ayesha Ahmed

Capstone Student, class of 2025

aa8999@nyu.edu, LinkedIn

Ayesha is a senior at NYU Abu Dhabi double majoring in Psychology and Theater. Her research interests include relationship dynamics, sexuality, attraction, and how biases impact day-to-day behavior. Her capstone project investigates how facial attractiveness of individuals of different sexes or ethnic groups is affected by perceptual and social factors including symmetry and implicit bias.

Niels Verosky

Former Research Associate

niels.verosky@nyu.edu, web, Google Scholar, ORCID

Niels graduated from Swarthmore College with majors in computer science and music. He is interested in using computational, behavioral, and neuroimaging techniques to explore how people perceive and form learned representations of sensory information. Niels’s previous research has included computational modeling of how listeners extract tonal and rhythmic patterns from music. Niels is now pursuing his PhD at Yale University, USA.

Haiyang Jin

Former Postdoctoral Researcher

haiyang.jin@nyu.edu, web

Haiyang studied his PhD at the University of Auckland, New Zealand. He is mainly interested in face processing and vision science. His projects investigate the role of experience in holistic processing of faces and non-face objects, and the relationship between subjective perception and the neural signatures of face processing (e.g., the N170 component, and activations in the face-specific cortical areas such as the FFA). Haiyang is now an assistant professor at Zhejiang Sci-Tech University, China.

Mostafa Elsaid

Former Capstone Student, class of 2023

mae516@nyu.edu

Mostafa double majored in Psychology and Social Research and Public Policy at NYU Abu Dhabi. His research interests include visual processing of art, face perception and social neuroscience. His capstone project investigated the impact that emotion and visual processing styles in artworks may have on holistic face processing. Mostafa is now a full-time research assistant in the Sprouse lab at NYU Abu Dhabi.

Rawan Abdelaal

Former Capstone Student, class of 2023

rma476@nyu.edu

Rawan double majored in Psychology and Social Research and Public Policy. She is mainly interested in clinical and health psychology as well as behavioral and cognitive therapy such as Dialectical Behavioral Therapy and Acceptance and Commitment Therapy. She is also interested in social and behavioral neuroscience. Her capstone project investigated the interactions between the processing of changeable and invariant aspects of faces.

Davit Jintcharadze

Former Capstone Student, class of 2022

dj1267@nyu.edu

Davit majored in Psychology with a minor in Italian. He is interested in social psychology, affective neuroscience, and psychotherapy. His capstone project investigated the role of perceived competence in human faces on the prediction of election success of politicians, and how various manipulations on the faces may influence the prediction outcome. Davit presented his findings at the V-VSS 2022 conference and at the 2023 International Convention of Psychological Science. His work entitled "Effects of masculinity vs. femininity on competence judgment of politician faces and election outcome prediction" is published in Scientific Reports.

Jakub Podmokly

Former Capstone Student, class of 2022

jakub.podmokly@nyu.edu

Jakub double majored in Computer Science and Psychology. He is mainly interested in the fields of cognitive neuroscience and brain-computer interfaces. His capstone research explored the role of context within visual perception. Specifically, his project examined the neural mechanisms of contextual processing, for which he used machine learning classification algorithms to analyze fMRI data. Jakub presented his findings "Roles of animacy, object size, and context on object representation in the occipitotemporal cortex" at the V-VSS 2022 conference.

Nawal Aljaeedi

Former Capstone Student/Post-graduate Practical Trainee/Postgraduate Research Fellow, class of 2021

nha241@nyu.edu

Nawal double majored in Psychology and Music Studies. Her main interests include topics within the fields of forensic science and cognitive neuroscience, such as learning about how we perceive the world and our environment through different lenses of experience. Her capstone and post-graduate projects investigated behavioral and neural differences between musical experts and novices in musical notation perception.

Tobiasz Trawinski

Former Postdoctoral Researcher

trawint@hope.ac.uk, web

Tobiasz studied his PhD at the University of Southampton, UK, and also worked at Liverpool Hope University, UK. His current research projects explore the mechanisms underlying face perception and category learning processes, in relation to visual expertise. Tobiasz also studies the impact of cognitive and aesthetic processes on spectatorship of art. Tobiasz is now a lecturer at Liverpool Hope University, UK.

Natasha Treunen

Former Capstone Student, class of 2020

nmt303@nyu.edu

Natasha majored in Psychology with minors in Social Research and Public Policy, Film and New Media, and Child Development and Social Interventions. She is interested in how culture, life experiences and social interactions impact our development and shape our behavior. Her capstone research investigated the relationship between face and word processing, specifically how reading experience may influence face perception. Natasha holds a MSc in Refugee and Forced Migration Studies from University of Oxford, UK.

Anna Erdi

Former Capstone Student and Post-graduate Practical Trainee, class of 2020

ae1463@nyu.edu

As a Psychology major, Anna's main interests include finding out how different types of physical exercise can change the brain, and the possibilities of involving sports and exercise in the treatment of mental disorders and neurodegenerative diseases. Her capstone project examined how emotional state and language expertise can influence holistic processing of words. Anna holds a master's degree in Sports Psychology from Loughborough University, UK.

Chenxi He

Former Postdoctoral Researcher

hechenxi0727@gmail.com

Chenxi received her Ph.D. from Beijing Normal University. Chenxi is interested in the neural basis of visual object recognition and concept learning. Her projects investigated the nature of representation of different concepts. Specifically, she studied how category-selective effects for animals and man-made objects observed in behavior and in the brain are explained by visual or conceptual differences among the categories. Chenxi then worked with Stanislas Dehaene at INSERM, France. She then completed a BrainsCAN postdoc fellowship working with Daniel Ansari at University of Western Ontario, Canada.

Emma Wei Chen

Former Postdoctoral Researcher

emma.chen.w@gmail.com, ORCID

Emma received her Ph.D. from Chinese Academy of Sciences, and did postdoctoral research at Center for Cognition and Brain Disorders, Hangzhou Normal University. Emma is interested in quantitative characterizations of expert object recognition. Her main projects investigated the nature of face perception, specifically how holistic processing of faces is dynamic and may be influenced by socio-cognitive factors. Emma is now a lecturer at Khalifa University, Abu Dhabi, UAE.

Seoyoung Lee

Former Capstone Student and Post-graduate Practical Trainee, class of 2019

syl511@nyu.edu

Seoyoung majored in Psychology with minors in Social Research and Public Policy and Urbanization. She is interested in the neural mechanisms underlying decision-making, attention, and scene perception. Her capstone research used fMRI to investigate the roles of the parahippocampal place area and the retrosplenial cortex in scene perception, specifically how these brain regions spatially and temporally integrate panoramic scenes. Seoyoung presented her findings at the 2019 Asian-Pacific Conference on Vision (APCV) in Osaka, Japan. She studied her master's degree in cognitive science at the Center for Mind/Brain Sciences (CIMeC), University of Trento, Italy. She is a PhD student in the computational cognitive neuroscience program at University of Chicago.

Araz Aslanian

Former Capstone Student and Post-graduate Practical Trainee, class of 2019

araz.aslanian@nyu.edu

Araz majored in Psychology with a minor in Interactive Media. She is passionate about how social attitudes influence the way we perceive the world. Using eye tracking, her capstone research investigated the effect of implicit racial biases, whether positive or negative, on face memory and perception. Araz presented her findings at the 2019 Asian-Pacific Conference on Vision (APCV) in Osaka, Japan. Her work is published in Cognitive Research: Principles and Implications entitled "The effect of implicit racial bias on recognition of other-race faces".

Shao-Chin Hung

Former Postdoctoral Researcher

shaochin.hung@nyu.edu, CV

Shao-Chin received her Ph.D. from University of California, Riverside, where she used psychophysics and eye-tracking to study mechanisms of human perceptual learning. As a postdoctoral fellow in Biomedical Engineering at Purdue University, she conducted fMRI and EEG research on human visual perception. Shao-Chin is interested in applying psychophysics and neuroimaging methods to study human attention, learning, object recognition, and conceptual knowledge. Shao-Chin then completed postdoctoral training with Marisa Carrasco at NYU.

James Smoley

Former Capstone Student, class of 2017

james.smoley@nyu.edu

James majored in Psychology with a minor in Social Research and Public Policy. He is interested in how our culture and life experiences can affect our ways of thinking. His capstone research investigated whether our initial judgments of a stranger's face are affected by our implicit racial biases and our experience with individuals of different races. The follow-up work on James's capstone project is published in Scientific Reports entitled "Implicit bias and experience influence overall but not relative trustworthiness judgment of other-race faces".

Oliver Heyn

Former Capstone Student, class of 2017

oliver.heyn@nyu.edu

Oliver majored in Psychology with minors in Business Studies and Economics. He is primarily interested in studying how marketing and branding strategies intersect with psychological phenomena. The topic of his capstone research was the study of company logos, specifically in understanding what kinds of visual properties attract attention and make certain logos more preferable than others. Oliver holds a Master of Science degree in Innovation Management and Entrepreneurship from Manchester University, UK. His capstone work is published in the journal Vision entitled "Preference at first sight: Effects of shape and font qualities on evaluation of object-word pairs".

Mahlet Kassa

Former Capstone Student and Post-graduate Practical Trainee, class of 2016

mtk297@nyu.edu

Mahlet majored in Psychology with a concentration in Film and New Media. Her research interests include affective science, cognitive and social psychology. The topic of her capstone research was on the relative effects of experience and social bias on cross-age face recognition. Mahlet received the UNITN-SISSA scholarship and completed the master's program in cognitive science in Center for Mind/Brain Sciences (CIMeC), University of Trento, Italy. She is pursuing her PhD at Berlin School of Mind and Brain, Germany. The follow-up work on Mahlet's capstone project is published in Cognitive Research: Principles and Implications entitled "The role of implicit social bias on holistic processing of other-group faces".

Sachith Joseph Cheruvatur

Former Post-graduate Practical Trainee, class of 2015

sachith.cheruvatur@nyu.edu

Sachith majored in Philosophy, specializing in a philosophy of mind, with a strong concentration in psychology. His research interests lie primarily in the area of empirical philosophy of mind. At the moment he is interested in object concept representation in the brain from both a philosophy of science/mind and cognitive neuroscience point of view. Sachith pursued his PhD in Neurophilosophy at Ludwig Maximilian University in Munich, Germany.