2020 FACULTY
AMANDA
SEED
University of St. Andrews
I am interested in the evolution of flexible behaviour and abstract thought. In particular I study the extent to which non-human primates and human children solve problems using object concepts and causal reasoning. I am also interested in executive functions and episodic cognition.
ANDREW
BARRON
Macquarie University
I study mechanisms of cognition and the insect brain.
ANNA
CORWIN
Saint Mary's College of California
My research seeks to understand how language and interaction shape human experience. My work focuses on how humans understand and interact with the divine and each other and how these patterns of interaction shape health and well-being.
BRIANA
TOOLE
Claremont McKenna College
My research lies at the intersection of epistemology, feminist philosophy, and critical race theory. My past research examined the relationship between knowledge and social identity, but my current research investigates epistemological systems (like white supremacy and patriarchy).
EMMA
COHEN
University of Oxford
My research studies social affiliation in everyday human behaviour, culture and health. In particular, I am interested in how forms of collective physical activity build and benefit from social bonding and support among individuals.
ERICA
CARTMILL
UCLA
I study the acquisition and evolution of human language. My work bridges anthropology and psychology and involves both comparative and developmental approaches to communication.
JACOB
FOSTER
UCLA
I am interested in the birth, life, and death of ideas. Fundamentally, I aim to understand the social world as constituted by, and constitutive of, ideas, beliefs, and practices.
JAY
GARFIELD
Smith College and
Harvard Divinity School
My research addresses issues in Cognitive Science, the philosophy of mind, Buddhist Philosophy, the history of Western Philosophy, modern Indian philosophy, Ethics, and cross-cultural interpretation.
JOSEP
CALL
University of St. Andrews
My research focuses on technical and social problem solving in animals with a special emphasis on the great apes. Ultimately, my goal is to elucidate how cognition evolves.
PETER
TODD
Indiana University
I study the evolved cognitive mechanisms that humans and other organisms (terrestrial or otherwise) use to meet the challenges posed by their environments, including finding and choosing mates, food, information, and other resources.
RAFAEL
NÚÑEZ
UCSD
I investigate cognition from the perspective of the embodied mind. I am particularly interested in high-level cognitive phenomena such as conceptual systems, abstraction, and inference mechanisms, and the biological and cultural phenomena that make them possible.
STEPHEN VAISEY
Duke University
The main goal of my research is to understand moral and political beliefs: what they are, where they come from, and how they change (or not) over time.