Sam

Samuel D. McDougle
Principal Investigator
Sam is an Assistant Professor in Yale's psychology department, and is a program faculty member for Yale's Interdepartmental Neuroscience Program, Cognitive Science Program, and the Wu Tsai Institute. He earned his PhD in psychology and neuroscience from Princeton University, and did a postdoctoral fellowship at the University of California, Berkeley. Sam uses psychophysical, computational, and neurophysiological techniques to investigate human learning and memory, with a particular interest in the interface of cognition and motor behavior. Sam also likes: playing folk music (fiddle & guitar), opaque IPAs, and rainy days.

CVScholarGitTwitter@smickdougle
Skill!Old-time fiddle & guitar



Chris

Christopher Hewitson
Postdoc
Chris earned his PhD in Cognitive Science from Macquarie University in Sydney, Australia. Chris uses behavioral methods and computational modelling to investigate sensorimotor learning and is particularly interested in how sensory uncertainty influences motor learning. Chris' recent work has also focused on how expert surgeons learn to cope with a variety of visual and tool-based perturbations encountered during minimally invasive surgery. Outside of the Lab, Chris enjoys playing soccer, practices the Japanese martial art of Aikido, enjoys hobby bladesmithing, is an avid gamer, and enjoys nothing more than walking his cat Lily, on a lead, throughout the neighborhood.

CVScholar
Skill! ⇾ Aikido



Zekun

Zekun Sun
Postdoc
Zekun earned her PhD in Cognitive Psychology from Johns Hopkins University, where she studied the perception of complexity - what makes things look informationally dense or sparse. Zekun is broadly interested in exploring how the human mind represents and reconstructs complex information to achieve various goals. Her recent work focuses on the temporal construction of mental representation of scenes and actions. Out of the lab, Zekun enjoys spicy food, hot pot, anime, board games, Chinese crosstalk (Xiangsheng), and playing with her very playful dog Gray Bean.

Scholar
Skill! ⇾ Dog grooming!



Hanna

Hanna Hillman
Graduate Student
Hanna is interested in taking a multimodal approach to better understand the process of cognitive motor learning and its computational underpinnings. She graduated from the University of Minnesota where she studied psychology, neuroscience, and sociology. As a research assistant in Uri Hasson's lab at Princeton, and then in Sam Gershman's lab at Harvard, Hanna used fMRI and novel computational methods to investigate human learning behavior and individual differences. Outside of the lab, Hanna enjoys dancing Lindy Hop, painting, carpentry, Star Trek, and going on recreational geology adventures.

CVScholarTwitter@hannahillman
Skill!Unicycling & medical illustration



Sanghoon

Sanghoon Kang
Graduate Student
Sanghoon is interested in how actions change memories, and how memories change actions. Specifically, he's interested in how actions exploit the adaptive nature of memories, and how organizational principles of memory and context drive this adaptability. He graduated from Seoul National University, majoring in Psychology and minoring in the Brain-Mind-Behavior combined program. Afterwards, he worked with Woo-Young Ahn at SNU, and then Elizabeth Goldfarb at Yale, investigating how changes in emotional memories relate to substance abuse. In his off-time, he likes to run around town and write short stories. He hopes that, someday, his research will help him to finally learn the keyboard.

CVScholarGit



Apoorva

Apoorva Sharma
Graduate Student
Apoorva completed her bachelor's degree in Life Sciences, followed by a master's degree in Cognitive Science from IIT Gandhinagar in India. She is interested in sensorimotor learning, and how cognitive factors like attention and decision-making contribute to generating effective movement. Her previous work includes studying the mechanisms of motor adaptation. When not delving into brain matter, she watches an unhealthy number of movies, unrestricted by language or era. You can often find her tapping her feet to Dire Straits while attempting to pet every dog that crosses her path.

Twitter@Apoorva___18
Skill! ⇾ Painting



Juliana

Juliana E. Trach
Graduate Student
Juliana is interested in how people learn about structure in the world and how knowledge about structure supports efficient behavior. She's particularly interested in hierarchy in the brain and how neural systems interact to constrain and facilitate structure learning. Juliana obtained her ScB in Cognitive Neuroscience at Brown University in 2018. After Brown, she spent two years working with Casey Lew-Williams and managing the Princeton Baby Lab. Outside of the lab, Juliana can be found listening to political podcasts on walks with her dog, Ruby, exploring EVERY local brewery, and testing the limits of her newly discovered quarantine skill, cooking.

CV



Alex

Alexander D. Forrence
Research Scientist
Alex earned his BA in Neuroscience from Johns Hopkins University, and previously worked as a research assistant in the Brain, Learning, Animation, and Movement Lab at Hopkins. He is interested in how people acquire new motor skills, and has previously done research in habitual action selection and stroke rehabilitation. Alex enjoys writing code, the great outdoors, and playing racquet sports.

CVScholarTwitter@AForrence




Maya

Maya Ingram
Postbac Researcher
Maya graduated from Yale in 2023 where she studied English and Russian. She pivoted to psychology her senior year and began working as a research assistant for the Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence where she studied early childhood emotion knowledge. Maya has always loved learning about memory, and since coming to the ACT Lab has become interested in how the brain conceptualizes structure. In addition to her love of psychology and literature, she is also an avid musician, and you might find her playing violin, piano, or singing around campus. However, there is nothing Maya loves more in life than rock climbing.


Skill! ⇾ Hitting high notes




Tolu

Tolu Adanri
Undergraduate Researcher
Tolu is a second-year at Yale in Davenport College, considering majoring in psychology. She is interested in the cognitive processes of learning, particularly how people learn new skills. As a research assistant in the ACT Lab, she is exploring habitual motor behaviors in humans and hierarchical categorizations of tools. Outside of the lab, she enjoys watching reality television, playing board games, and exploring the New Haven food scene.

Skill! ⇾ Board game pro



Katherine

Katherine Chou
Undergraduate Researcher
Katherine is a first-year undergrad in Silliman College. She is interested in the hierarchical structures neural systems create when learning, and exploring where cognitive psychology and human learning might intersect with artificial intelligence. She is into neuroscience, creative writing, and tech policy. Outside the lab, Katherine enjoys playing badminton, finding good poetry to cry over, and unearthing the best crannies of campus to nap in.

Skill! ⇾ Badminton



Steph

Stephanie Hu
Undergraduate Researcher
Stephanie is a sophomore in Saybrook College majoring in Statistics & Data Science. As a research assistant in the ACT lab, she is interested in applying computational methods to model the processes involved in human learning. Outside the lab, she enjoys binging podcasts, hiking, and learning to invest.





Tess

Tess Levy
Undergraduate Researcher
Tess Levy is a junior in Pierson College studying Cognitive Science. As a research assistant in the ACT Lab, she is exploring hierarchical learning structures and how they differ between motor and non-motor domains. Outside of the lab, she enjoys running, live music, and playing backgammon with friends.

Skill! ⇾ Backgammon



Taylor

Taylor McClure
Undergraduate Researcher
Taylor McClure is a sophomore in Ezra Stiles College studying Cognitive Science. As a research assistant in the ACT Lab, she hopes to draw from her background in ballet to explore applications of motor learning to dance and physical therapy. Outside the lab, Taylor enjoys practicing yoga and pilates, and she dances and choreographs for Yale Dancers and the Yale Undergraduate Ballet Company.

Skill! ⇾ Ballet





Lab Alumni
Olivia KimAssistant Professor at Bates College
Cameron BergAI researcher at Meta
Tabea BotthofProfessional hockey player based in Stockholm
Naser Al-FawakhiriMD/PhD student at Johns Hopkins
Ophelia PilkintonMedical student at U of Tennessee
Michael IriasPsychology graduate student at Florida State
Liang ZhouNeuroscience PhD student at UCL
Jed Burde
Addison BeerResearch assistant at Yale's Wu Tsai Institute
Sabrina SantosUndergraduate Researcher at University of Puerto Rico
Liz Pandolpho


[Your name here...]
The ACT lab is currently recruiting for a postdoc position. We are looking for individuals who are interested in human cognitive psychology and/or cognitive neuroscience, with an emphasis on learning and memory (especailly w/r/t action), and with experience in (or an interest in acquiring experience in) designing and performing behavioral experiments, computational modeling, and/or human neurosecience methods. Note, being primarily experienced with/interested in pursuing one of the above research approaches (behavior, computational modeling, neuroimaging, etc.) is totally fine!


The ACT lab is committed to equality, diversity, and inclusion, and in maintaining a fun, challenging, and supportive research environment for everyone.
If you are interested in joining the lab, please email Sam (see the Contact link at the top of the page for info) to discuss your interests and whether our group would be a good fit.