I’m currently a PhD student in Cognitive Science at UCSD in the Comparative Cognition Lab. I study social interaction. I want to know: how do we humans organize ourselves? To feel connected? To understand each other? To act together? I focus on conversation, proxemics, and the norms that regulate/organize social interactions. My approach to science prioritizes naturalistic observational methods.
research projects
- how children learn social routine words surprisingly early and how conversational norms may explain this (in press).
- how children learn how to start and end play with others (paper)
- how pedestrians avoid breaching social norms when walking in navigate public spaces (in prep.).
- how macaques (Macaca fuscata) literally navigate social rank (in press)[video].
- what’s up with those button pressing dogs? [featured in The World]
Previously I studied Cognitive Science and Computer Science at Dartmouth College, built natural language understanding systems at Forge.AI, researched pedestrian-driver interactions at MIT to inform autonomous vehicle design, and an early employee at VideoAmp which replaces Nielsen by helping advertisers measure their video campaigns.