Nicole Amada

contact: namada@ramapo.edu

Doctoral Student | Brooklyn College and the CUNY Graduate Center

Robbie Ball

Lab Website | contact: rball@gradcenter.cuny.edu

Comparative Cognition, Social Cognition, Human-Elephant Conflict Mitigation, Auditory Communication, Information Theory

I study how Asian elephants behaviorally respond to auditory signals of varying source and threat. Understanding the cognitive mechanics involved with encoding and decoding meaning will help us understand how Asian Elephants communicate with each other and their environment. I am interested in determining which auditory signals are least susceptible to noise and stimulus desensitization. Incorporating auditory cognitive processing over time will give insight on potential acoustic techniques for Human-Elephant Conflict mitigation.

Chloe Brittenham

Website | Lab Website | contact: cbrittenha@gradcenter.cuny.edu

Doctoral Student | College of Staten Island and the CUNY Graduate Center

Autism Spectrum Disorder, Visual Evoked Potentials, Eye-tracking, Pupillometry, Vision, Visual Attention

Chloe Brittenham is a Ph.D. candidate in the Cognition, Language and Development program at the CUNY Graduate Center. She is interested in visual perception in both neurotypical and neurodivergent populations. She is interested in using objective measures of visual attention such as eye-tracking, including pupillometry, to examine global and local processing in autism spectrum disorder. She also uses visual evoked potentials to study excitation and inhibition in autistic children and children with Phelan-McDermid Syndrome.

Kelly Cotton

Website | contact: kcotton@gradcenter.cuny.edu

Doctoral Student | College of Staten Island and the CUNY Graduate Center

Memory, Neuroimaging, Eye-tracking

My interests include working memory, consolidation into long-term memory, and how these functions differ in various populations. I’m particularly interested in using neuroimaging and eye-tracking to inform our knowledge of human cognition.

Taylan Ergun

contact: taylansergun@gmail.com

Doctoral Student | Brooklyn College and the CUNY Graduate Center

Emilia Ezrina

contact: eezrina@gradcenter.cuny.edu

Doctoral Student | Hunter College and the CUNY Graduate Center

Donnan Gravelle

Doctoral Student | College of Staten Island and the CUNY Graduate Center

Language Development, Embodied Cognition

My research focuses on language development and acquisition from an embodied and usage-based perspective.

Sarah Jacobson

Sarah Jacobson - CCP student - headshot

Website | contact: sjacobson@gradcenter.cuny.edu

Doctoral Student | Hunter College and the CUNY Graduate Center

Comparative Cognition, Animal Behavior, Conservation, Asian Elephant, Human-elephant Conflict

My Ph.D. research is focused on Asian elephant crop-raiding behavior, and how individual variation in elephant behavior and cognition can help predict human-elephant conflict as well as develop solutions to this problem. I am specifically investigating the differences in social behavior between groups of elephants that remain in a protected area and those that take the risk to forage on human crops. Cognitively, I am investigating variation in flexible problem solving and innovation between individuals in these groups. I am interested in this intersection of behavioral and cognitive research with conservation and how this research can be applied to wildlife management from the species’ perspective.

Antonella Guadagnino

contact: aguadagnino@gradcenter.cuny.edu

Doctoral Student | College of Staten Island and the CUNY Graduate Center

Comparative Cognition, Animal Behavior, Dog, Anxiety, Dog-human Relationship, Evolutionary Biology, Biopsychology

I am interested in the relationship and behavioral coevolution of domestic dogs and humans. Specifically, I aim to focus on how and why artificial selection of the Canis familiaris genotype impacts the behavioral phenotypes within the human-dog dyad.

Julie Hecht

Julie Hecht student

Website | contact: dogspies@gmail.com

Doctoral Student | Hunter College and the CUNY Graduate Center

Animal Behavior, Animal Welfare, Cat, Dog, Pet, Play, Cat-human Relationship

I investigate companion animal behavior and welfare and human-animal interactions. My Ph.D. research explores the cat-human relationship.

 

Katherine Papazian

contact: katiepapazian@gmail.com

Doctoral Student | Brooklyn College and the CUNY Graduate Center

Dana Ravid

contact: dravid@gradcenter.cuny.edu

Doctoral Student | College of Staten Island and the CUNY Graduate Center

Animal Behavior, Comparative Cognition, Theory of Mind, Dog

My Ph.D. research focuses on Theory of Mind related behaviors in dogs - specifically, in knowledge attribution and perspective taking.

Moises Rivera

Moises Rivera profile photo

Website | contact: mrivera3@gradcenter.cuny.edu

Doctoral Student | Columbia University (and Hunter College and the CUNY Graduate Center)

Neuroethology, Animal Behavior, Embryonic Learning, Avian Cognition

My research interests focus on neuroethology and comparative psychology. I have previously reviewed (Rivera et al., 2018) and studied (Rivera et al., 2019) the effects of prenatal acoustic exposure on birds. My results are the first to provide neural evidence of embryonic learning in the zebra finch. At Columbia University, I am currently using multiple species of estrildid finches to explore acoustic preference across this avian family, and to understand the roles that phylogeny and acoustic features play in these cognitive phenomena. I am also exploring the effects of hybridization and cross- and multispecies-fostering on the social and mate preference of estrildid birds as well as their effects on behavioral and cognitive expression in these birds.

Karen Rodriguez

contact: krodriguez4@gradcenter.cuny.edu

Doctoral Student | Baruch College and the CUNY Graduate Center

Karen Rodriguez conducts her research at Baruch College under the advisement or Dr. Jennifer Mangels in the Dynamic Learning Lab. Her research interests are in collaborative memory, confidence, and group conformity. She is also interested in how racial and gender identity could affect group conformity in memory decision making/learning environments.

Matthew Rudolph

contact: mrudolph@gradcenter.cuny.edu

Doctoral Student | Hunter College and the CUNY Graduate Center

Elephant Olfaction, Sensory Perception, Social Learning

Matthew Rudolph is a Ph.D. student in the Cognitive and Comparative Psychology program at the CUNY Graduate Center. He is interested in sensory perception in elephants and how it can be used to further our understanding of their advanced cognitive capabilities, and protect them in the wild. He received his Master’s through Hunter College’s Animal Behavior and Conservation program and is working to better understand both wild and captive elephant populations.

Daniel Siegel

contact: daniel.siegel@brooklyn.cuny.edu

Doctoral Student | Brooklyn College and the CUNY Graduate Center

Associative Learning, Reward Processing, Prediction Error Mechanisms, Neuroanatomy of Learning

Dan conducts his research in the Delamater Lab at Brooklyn College, and is primarily studying the behavioral manifestations and neural underpinnings of Pavlovian associative reward learning processes. To this end, he has mainly been focused on learning that occurs due to violations in reward expectations, particularly with respect to independently manipulating specific features of reward.

Drew Shives

Website | contact: dshives@gradcenter.cuny.edu

Doctoral Student | Brooklyn College and the CUNY Graduate Center

Norman Tu

contact: ntu@gradcenter.cuny.edu

Doctoral Student | Brooklyn College and the CUNY Graduate Center

Raymond Van Steyn

contact: vansteynr@live.com

Doctoral Student | Hunter College and the CUNY Graduate Center

Melissa Voisinet

Website | contact: melissavoisinet@gmail.com

Doctoral Student | Hunter College and the CUNY Graduate Center

Bottlenose Dolphins, Cognition, Communication, Animal Welfare

Melissa is currently in the Cognitive and Comparative Psychology training area of the Psychology Ph.D. program at CUNY. Previously, she studied the physiological impacts of stress on northern elephant seal pups and worked in marine mammal rehabilitation. She is currently investigating the cognitive capacities of bottlenose dolphins under Dr. Diana Reiss, and is interested in applying her research to both captive animal welfare and the conservation of wild populations.

Dvora Zomberg

contact: dzomberg@gmail.com

Doctoral Student | Queens College and the CUNY Graduate Center