I am a researcher at Vicarious, an artificial intelligence startup in the Bay Area. Before that, I was a postdoctoral fellow at the SAGE Center for the Study of the Mind at UC Santa Barbara. My research seeks mechanistic links between the complex, dynamic, distributed networks of the brain and the mind they create. Some questions I address are: How does the human brain use the visual system and working memory to mediate flexible, creative cognitive behaviors including artistic and scientific thought? Why is our species the only one to demonstrate these abilities? How does the brain reorganize as complex cognitive abilities are learned? And how are these abilities and plasticity realized in the dynamic interactions between the nodes of distributed neural networks?
My PhD work in cognitive neuroscience with Peter Tse at Dartmouth College focused on large scale neural networks that enable the flexible construction and manipulation of visual imagery. I previously received Bachelors degrees in physics, mathematics, and chemistry from NC State University and a Bachelor of Fine Arts in sculpture from Arizona State University.
My artistic work uses computational processes, electronics, and traditional materials to enable the direct experience of normally hidden patterns and processes in the environment.