In The News

Austin A. Baker, RuCCS Post Doctoral Associate, was interviewed on the Ipse Dixit podcast, a podcast on legal scholarship, alongside their collaborator J. Remy Green to discuss their article "There is No Such Thing as a Legal Name: A Strange, Shared Delusion." In the interview, Baker discusses how there is no universal definition of a "legal name" contrary what most people believe. Furthermore, Baker argues in the interview that the law can and does allow people to use the names they want...

Congratulations to graduate student Carolina Flores who won the Society for Women in Philosophy - New York City (SWIP-NYC) essay prize for her submission! The SWIP-NYC essay prize competition takes place annually and is open to graduate students in all areas of philosophy who are women or who have ever been identified as women. Winners of the competition are invited to present their papers in New York City in the second half of the spring semester. Flores is the 2021 competition's co-winner...

In the paper titled "Is This Going to Be on The Test? Test Expectancy Moderates the Disfluency Effect with Sans Forgetica," Dr. Jason Geller and colleague Dr. Daniel Peterson of Skidmore College examine whether the popular eccentric typeface called "Sans Forgetica" can truly enhance memory. In recent years Sans Forgetica was largely believed by the media to help you remember more information—with little to no scientific backing. As a scientist, Geller decided to conduct the studies needed to...

Rutgers' Associate Professor and RuCCS Executive Councilmember Dr. Julien Musolino is one of the invited speakers for the Fifth International Vatican Conference taking place from May 6  to May 8, 2021. The discussion of this year's conference is "Exploring the Mind, Body & Soul Unite to Prevent & Unite to Cure". Along with Dr. Musolino, Dr. Anthony Fauci, Deepak Chopra, Chelsea Clinton, Ray Dalio, and lots of other professionals are also invited speakers at the conference. For further...

The Sixth Julesz Lecture is taking place on Tuesday, April 13, 2021. It is being hosted by Dr. Brian Rogers and will be taking place via Zoom. In order to get access to the lecture, please pre-register with the link provided below. For previous years' Julesz Lectures on Brain Research, check here.      "Perception, Art, and Illusion" by Brian Rogers Tuesday, April 13, 2021 at 1:00 pm USA-ET / 10:00 am USA-PT / 6:00 pm GMT Zoom link:  Pre-Register                                                                                                                                                                          After registering, you will receive a confirmation...

Dr. Elizabeth Torres, RuCCS Affiliate and Associate Professor of Psychology, made the cover of the Journal of Personalized Medicine (shown right) for her paper "Digitized ADOS: Social Interactions beyond the Limits of the Naked Eye" owing to high public interest and spike in downloads. The paper discusses artificial intelligence and machine learning related work and wearables that when combined with clinical criteria offer much more to families than current and traditional autism diagnoses alone...

Dr. Jason Geller started as the new Research Programmer at RuCCS last July. Geller came to RuCCS with a lot of experience and skills including a Ph.D. in cognitive psychology from Iowa State University. He spent the last three years in two postdoc positions—one at the University of Alabama-Birmingham working with Dan Mirman and one at the University of Iowa working with Inyong Choi and Bob McMurray.  Geller's main research interests are in psycholinguistics (visual and spoken word recognition),...

RuCCS Affiliate and Distinguished Professor of Linguistics Dr. Mark Baker was inducted as a Fellow in the Linguistics Society of America (LSA). Baker is one of nine linguists selected for the 2021 Class of Fellows by the LSA. Members of the Society who have made distinguished contributions to the discipline may be recognized and inducted as Fellows, including scholarly excellence, service to speech communities, teaching and mentoring excellence, and more. See Baker alongside the eight other...

RuCCS Affiliate and Assistant Professor of Psychology Kasia Bieszczad was awarded a $1.7M grant through the National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders (NIDCD) for her project, "Molecular Epigenetic Mechanisms that Transform the Auditory System for Learning and Memory." The project aims to investigate epigenetic neural mechanisms that can ensure meaningful sounds are faithfully and adaptively represented in the adult auditory brain. The NIDCD scored Bieszczad's proposal in...

RuCCS Affiliate and Associate Professor of Linguistics Kristen Syrett was awarded a $267K grant through the National Science Foundation (NSF) Linguistics Program in the Division of Behavioral and Cognitive Sciences. The grant goes towards funding Syrett's project entitled "Cross-categorical context dependence: Bridging developmental, experimental, and theoretical perspectives" starting January 2021 for three years.

Within the span of one week, RuCCS Director John McGann was mentioned and cited in two New York Times and New Yorker articles on the topic of sense of smell! One feature article in the NYT, "What Can Covid-19 Teach Us About the Mysteries of Smell?" quotes McGann's research on the myth of poor sense of smell in humans via his 2017 paper, "Poor human olfaction is a 19th-century myth." The other New Yorker article, "How to Make Sense of Scents," refers to this same paper and even dubs it a...

Congratulations to RuCCS alumna Malihe Alikhani on receiving a Google exploreCSR Grant! The grant will be used to encourage computing research among underrepresented groups. Alikhani is is now an Assistant Professor at the School of Computing and Information at the University of Pittsburgh. She states, "We will hold workshops and mentoring sessions to empower students to create technologies that best serve their communities and help them succeed in research and graduate studies by fostering an...

Graduate Certificate Student Carolina Flores' paper "Delusional Evidence-Responsiveness" is forthcoming in an edition of the scholarly paper Synthese. In the paper, Flores argues that delusions are evidence-responsive and looks at consequences for long-standing debates on the nature of delusions and at ethical and treatment implications. Flores notes, "Though delusions may seem like a niche topic, I hope that some of what I say here is helpful for thinking about conspiracy theories,...

Cognitive Science graduate student Keith Perkins was selected for the prestigious Neuroscience Scholars Program (NSP) ran by the Society for Neuroscience. Perkins was selected as one of 18 total Fellows nationwide. The NSP is a fellowship for underrepresented and diverse graduate students and postdoctoral fellows in neuroscience which provides resources focused on "career advancement issues, the research process, and cutting-edge scientific content." For more on the program visit the site here.

Dr. Elizabeth Torres, Professor in the Psychology Department and RuCCS, has been personally honored by a Joint Resolution of the New Jersey Senate and General Assembly saluting the excellence of her "groundbreaking research" at Rutgers that has been "essential in shaping initiatives that transform autism medical research and treatments throughout our State." The language of the resolution is remarkable, not only praising Torres' scientific contributions and service as the Director of the New...

Dr. Jerome Williams was a RuCCS Affiliate and Distinguished Professor at Rutgers University. He will be remembered by colleagues for his combination of intelligence, leadership and kindness. You can read more about his impact as a scholar and a champion for inclusion here. Faculty, staff, students, and alumni may post condolences here.

Meredith Whittaker, is the Co-founder and co-director of the AI Now Institute, Minderoo Research Professor at NYU, and Founder of Google's Open Research Group. The talk is taking place via Zoom on February 12 at 12:00 PM.

Kasia Bieszczad, Rutgers Center of Cognitive Science - New Brunswick, (RuCCS) EC member and Assistant Professor of Psychology awarded a $1.7M grant by the NIDCD for her project "Molecular Epigenetic Mechanisms that Transform the Auditory System for Learning and Memory." The aim of this project is to investigate epigenetic neural mechanisms which can ensure meaningful sounds are faithfully and adaptively represented in the adult auditory brain. Bieszczad's proposal was scored in the 4th...

Kristin Dana (RuCCS EC member, ECE Professor) is the PI for the proposal awarded the grant Socially Cognizant Robotics for a Technology Enhanced Society (SOCRATES). The SOCRATES grant proposal was completed by Dana alongside her team of co-PIs, senior personnel, and an external evaluator: Kostas Bekris (Computer Science/RuCCS EC, co-PI) Clinton Andrews (Planning and Public Policy, co-PI) Jacob Feldman (Psychology/RuCCS EC, Cognitive Science, co-PI) Jingang Yi (Mechanical and Aerospace...

Professor John McGann has been announced as the new Director of the Center for Cognitive Science at Rutgers University-New Brunswick (RuCCS). Professor McGann earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees in Psychology, followed by a doctorate in neuroscience, all from Yale University. He came to Rutgers in 2009 as an Assistant Professor in the Behavioral & Systems Neuroscience section of the Psychology Department, where he established the McGann Laboratory on the Neurobiology of Sensory Cognition. He was...