Valentina Di Pietro

Post Doctoral Fellow

Email: ku.ca.mahb@orteiPiD.V
Lab Phone: 217-300-1464

Babak Hemmatian

Post Doctoral Fellow

Email: ude.sionilli@2kabab
Lab Phone: 217-300-2530

Babak grew up and went to college in Iran, where he received a B.A. in Clinical Psychology from University of Tehran. He then completed an M.S. in Computer Science and a Ph.D. in Cognitive Science at Brown University in 2021. Having started a 3-year Beckman Postdoctoral Fellowship in January 2022, he studies how social information is internalized and negotiated with other community members using theory-driven but AI-aided text analysis, neuroimaging, and behavioral experiments. He is particularly interested in the causal and narrative frames for organizing and communication information. Current projects include neuroimaging investigations of the interplay between causal inference and executive functions, longitudinal analysis of Reddit discourse about marijuana legalization using modern neural networks, and evaluation of social biases in text generation.

Rebecca Power

Post Doctoral Fellow

Email: ude.sionilli@rewopr
Lab Phone: 217-300-1464

Chris Zwilling

Post Doctoral Fellow

Email: ude.sionilli@1nilliwz
Phone: 217-300-2530

Chris Zwilling is interested in model based cognitive neuroscience which uses cognitive or behavioral models to gain insight into the underlying neural substrate. He is currently interested in models of higher order cognition, including decision making processes and working memory.  To accomplish these goals, he employs various statistical methodologies, including Bayesian analyses and structural equation modeling.