Lab Team
Megan Peters
Associate Professor & PI
I am an Associate Professor in the UCI Department of Cognitive Sciences with an affiliate appointment in the Department of Logic and Philosophy of Science. I’m also a Fellow in the UCI Center for Theoretical Behavioral Sciences, Fellow in the UCI Center for the Neurobiology of Learning and Memory, and Fellow in the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research Brain Mind & Consciousness program. I am also founding President and Chairperson of the Board of Directors at Neuromatch. Prior to joining UCI I was on the faculty at UC Riverside in the Department of Bioengineering. I received my Ph.D. in computational cognitive neuroscience (psychology) from UCLA, having worked with Ladan Shams, and then was a postdoc there working with Hakwan Lau.
My research aims to reveal how the brain represents and uses uncertainty, and performs adaptive computations based on noisy, incomplete information. I specifically focus on how these abilities support metacognitive evaluations of the quality of (mostly perceptual) decisions, and how these processes might relate to phenomenology and conscious awareness.
I use neuroimaging, computational modeling, machine learning and neural stimulation techniques to study these topics. I also enjoy reading scifi, travel, and karaoke and have a ridiculous cat named Momo.
Emil Olsson
Lab Manager
I am a lab manager in the Cognitive & Neural Computation Lab. Prior to joining the lab, I worked on developing, executing, and analyzing cognitive neuroimaging experiments to study meditation, spatial memory, and reinforcement learning. I received my B.S. in Psychology and M.S. in Cognitive Science from Lund University, Sweden. My research focuses on understanding more about human consciousness through neuroimaging and computational methods, particularly the neurocomputational mechanisms that evoke changes in states of awareness. While supporting a diverse range of lab research activities, my predominant focus is on utilizing decoded neurofeedback with fMRI to study metacognition.
Hojjat Azimi
PhD Student
I received my Master’s in Artificial Intelligence from the University of Tehran, and joined the UCI Department of Cognitive Sciences as a PhD student in December 2021. I am interested in decoded neurofeedback using EEG and fMRI, and machine learning approaches to improving brain-computer interfaces.
Nora Bradford
PhD Student
I am a PhD student in Cognitive Sciences. In 2019 I graduated from UChicago with majors in Neuroscience, Psychology, and Philosophy. I’m interested in conscious perception, visual illusions, and metacognition both in the lab and in the classroom. When I’m not doing research, I love kayaking, painting, and doing advocacy work with the Sunrise movement. This is Sandy!
Vanessa Ceja
PhD Student
I am a doctoral student in Cognitive Sciences at UCI, although I started my graduate training in the Neuroscience program at UCR. I graduated from UCR June of 2018 with a B.A. in Psychology and a B.S. in Anthropology. I have always been interested in the areas of philosophy, psychology, cognition, perception, and artificial intelligence. My current research is in its initial stages but we expect the results of this project will offer an innovative and more precise way to diagnose and quantify physical and behavioral deficits brought on by psychiatric disorders.
Ari Khoudary
PhD Student
I’m a PhD student in Cognitive Sciences. I received a B.S. in Psychology with a second major in Philosophy from Boston College in 2019, and then worked as a lab manager and research assistant at Duke University. I’m interested in using computational cognitive neuroscience to study metacognition, mental imagery, episodic memory, and consciousness. I also have long-standing interests in philosophy of cognitive (neuro)science and philosophy of science more broadly. Outside of the lab, I enjoy making food for friends, experiencing art, and hanging out with my cat, Bella.
Angela Shen
PhD Student
I am a doctoral student in the Department of Cognitive Sciences at UCI. I’m broadly interested in the behavioral and neural relationships between visual perception, metacognition, and spatial and temporal attention. Prior to joining CNC Lab, I attained an MA in Psychology from NYU and a BA in Psychology and in International Development Studies from McGill University. I also like to teach and practice yoga, visit art museums, and see live music.
Rochelle Kaper
PhD Student
I am a PhD Student in Cognitive Sciences. I received my B.S. in Psychological Science in 2023 and my M.S in Cognitive Science in 2024 from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute where I worked at the Adaptive Computational Cognition Lab. I am broadly interested in applying computational cognitive neuroscience to study the relationship between perceptual decision-making, memory, consciousness, and statistical learning. In my free time, I enjoy running, hiking, and karaoke.
Andrew Hansen
PhD Student
I am a PhD student in Cognitive Neuroscience at UCI. Previously, I worked in the Neuromorphic Machine Intelligence Laboratory (NMI Lab) developing neuromorphic hardware and designing spiking neural networks and processors. I received my MS in Computational Neuroscience from Brandeis University in 2016 and a BS in Physics/Biophysics/Chemistry from St. Mary’s University in Texas. My core interests are in reconciling the epistemological conundrum of consciousness with empirically-derived functional models, autonoesis/introspection/metacognition/meta-learning approaches in neural networks, and theoretical neuroscience. I can also generally be found hiking, climbing, or making music or “art”.
Tracy Chen
Research Assistant
I am a second-year student at UCI, majoring in Cognitive Science. My research interests focus on decision-making, perception, metacognition, machine learning, and neuroscience. Currently, I am working under the guidance of Angela Shen on a project on perceptual confidence in the visual field. In the future, I aspire to pursue doctoral studies in a related field.
Tulika Basu
Research Assistant
I am an undergraduate student at UCI studying Cognitive Sciences. My interests lie in understanding consciousness through computational and theoretical methods, as well as neuroscience and neuroimaging. In my free time, I enjoy working out, making collages, and reading. Here are my dogs – Kobe, Candy, and Tux!
Kiarra Garcia
Research Assistant
I’m a fourth-year Cognitive Science student at UCI and transferred from CSULB. My research interests focus on metacognition, perception, and neuroscience. Currently, I am working under the guidance of Angela Shen on the ETHOS project exploring how we process and understand visual information, confidence, and performance. Outside of school, I love to bake, go on hikes, and read. Here is my dog, Coco!
Nurazmera Mossa
Research Assistant
I am a third-year undergraduate student studying Psychology and Human-Computer Interaction (HCI). Currently, I am working with Ari Khoudary on data collection for a project focused on Dynamic Priors in Decision Making. Outside of academics, I enjoy art, music, and cartoons, and I have a cat named Sini, which means “little tea cup” in Amharic!
Hongbin Miao
Research Assistant
I’m a masters student at UCI Data Science. I received my B.S. in Mathematics and Computer Science with a minor in Data Science at UC San Diego. I am interested in using machine learning methods to learn more about brain encoding and decoding. In my free time, I enjoy photography and dancing (primarily hip-hop).
Alumni
Brian Maniscalco
Associate Project Scientist
I trained in experimental psychology at Columbia University with Hakwan Lau and received my Ph.D. in 2013. Subsequently I did a cognitive neuroscience postdoc with Biyu He at the NIH and NYU Langone Medical Center. I joined the Cognitive & Neural Computation Lab in 2018. My work focuses on understanding conscious awareness and metacognition using psychophysics, computational modeling, and cognitive neuroscience modalities.
Dr. Shaida Abachi
PhD
I received my PhD in Cognitive Neuroscience from UCI in 2024. I previously received my B.S. in Neuroscience from the University of California, Riverside. My motivation to understand the brain stems from my interests in disorders of cognition, specifically ones that affect perception and metacognition. My current research uses a combination of fMRI and psychophysics to understand the neural computations underlying metacognition. Also, meet Pluto!
Dr. Mehdi Orouji
PhD
(full name: Seyedmehdi Orouji)
I received my PhD in Cognitive Sciences from UCI in 2024. I previously received a Master’s degree in electrical engineering from the University of Missouri and a second Master’s in bioengineering from UC Riverside. I am interested in the applications of classification and machine learning to learn about how and where consciousness arises in the brain. I am working on a neural network architecture to understand categorical object representations in different regions of the
Yusuf Ezzeldine
BS & Postbac Researcher
II received my B.S. in Cognitive Science at UCI with a minor in the History and Philosophy of Science in 2023 and worked in the CNClab as a Research Assistant in 2021-2022. I’m intent on tackling the hard problem of consciousness and am foremost interested in the computational and ethical foundations of biological and artificial self-awareness alike. My research focused on computational modeling and statistical measures for experiments on metacognition.