Current Students
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
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
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
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
