Director

ude.lnu@2yebraba
Administrative Contact
Jeanne Schroeder, Administrative Coordinator
Email: ude.lnu@32redeorhcsj | Phone: 402-472-0198
Aron Keith Barbey is the Mildred Francis Thompson Professor and serves as Director of the Center for Brain, Biology & Behavior, as well as the Decision Neuroscience Laboratory at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. He began his academic career at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 2011, where he was promoted to full professor in the Departments of Psychology and Bioengineering in 2019. During his tenure at Illinois, Dr. Barbey held several leadership roles, including Founding Director of the Center for Brain Plasticity, Director of the Intelligence, Learning, and Plasticity Initiative, and Chair of the Intelligent Systems Major Research Theme at the Beckman Institute for Advanced Science and Technology.
Dr. Barbey’s research focuses on understanding how intelligence emerges from the network organization and dynamics of the human connectome. His interdisciplinary research integrates methods from cognitive psychology, computer science, and network neuroscience. A key objective of his work is to provide a sound foundation for clinical research aimed at addressing disturbances in brain function associated with psychiatric illness and traumatic brain injury.
Over the course of his career, Dr. Barbey’s research group has won more than $26 million in research funding, with support from organizations including the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, the Department of Defense, the White House BRAIN Initiative, the National Institutes of Health, the National Science Foundation, and private industry sponsors such as Abbott Nutrition, Google Brain, and PepsiCo.
Dr. Barbey has been recognized with multiple research awards, including the Mensa Foundation Prize for innovation in the neuroscience of human intelligence. He is the co-editor of The Cambridge Handbook of Intelligence and Cognitive Neuroscience and The Sage Handbook of Cognitive and Systems Neuroscience and serves as editor of the forthcoming Oxford Handbook of Cognitive Enhancement and Brain Plasticity. In 2023, he was appointed to the United States Defense Science Study Group at the Institute for Defense Analyses.
Dr. Barbey earned his Ph.D. in Psychology from Emory University and completed a research fellowship at the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke at the National Institutes of Health.
Primary Appointment
Director, Center for Brain, Biology & Behavior
Director, Decision Neuroscience Laboratory
Mildred Francis Thompson University Professor, Department of Psychology
Academic Affiliations
Professor, Beckman Institute, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Professor, Department of Bioengineering, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Professor, Department of Psychology, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Professor, Division of Nutritional Sciences, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Faculty Fellow, National Strategic Research Institute, University of Nebraska-Lincoln
Faculty Fellow, Defense Science Study Group, Institute for Defense Analyses
Research Assistant Professors

ude.lnu@2ycnumn | 402-472-1843
Nathan Muncy received his Ph.D. in Psychology – Cognitive and Behavioral Neuroscience from Brigham Young University in 2020, where he previously completed a M.Sc. of Neuroscience. He subsequently completed his postdoctoral fellowship at Florida International University in 2022 before working as a Research Associate at Duke University until 2024. He joined UNL at the Center for Brain, Behavior & Biology in 2024 as a Research Assistant Professor.
Dr. Muncy’s research interests are in the psychology, neuroscience, and epidemiology of traumatic brain injury. His work focuses on utilizing structural, functional, and diffusion neuroimaging techniques to identify biomarkers of injury and how such biomarkers relate to neurobehavioral sequelae. He is also interested in how epidemiologic factors relate to injury and recovery.

ude.lnu@ztluhcshd | 402-472-1843
Douglas Schultz received his Ph.D. from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee in 2014. He subsequently worked as a postdoctoral fellow at Rutgers University-Newark before joining the University of Nebraska-Lincoln in 2018 as a Research Assistant Professor in the Center for Brain, Biology & Behavior.
The goal of Dr. Schultz’s research program is to understand how the brain supports complex behavior. His work addresses this goal in several ways, with a particular focus on cognitive control, a key aspect of human intelligence. Cognitive control involves processes that enable the selection and monitoring of behaviors to accomplish goals. Part of his research examines how structural and functional properties of the brain support these processes.
Dr. Schultz’s research also explores disruptions to complex human behavior with the aim of informing interventions to address these challenges. One area of focus is concussion, a form of mild traumatic brain injury characterized by diverse symptoms and outcomes. His work seeks to identify brain network disruptions caused by concussion to improve diagnosis and treatment. Another area examines aging-related behavioral disruptions, particularly cognitive decline in older adults. His research investigates the use of language learning as an intervention to mitigate age-related cognitive decline and explores how such interventions affect brain structure and function.
Postdoctoral Fellows

ude.sionilli@2kabab | 217-300-2530
Babak Hemmatian received a degree in Clinical Psychology from the University of Tehran before moving to the United States for his graduate studies. Prior to joining the Decision Neuroscience Laboratory, he earned an M.S. in Computer Science and a Ph.D. in Cognitive Science from Brown University under the supervision of Steven A. Sloman.
In the Decision Neuroscience Laboratory, he studies how causal and categorical information is represented in the brain and used for adaptive complex reasoning. To this end, he applies advanced computational methods to mixtures of behavioral and functional neuroimaging data. Current projects include the dynamic modeling of inter-network communication to predict general intelligence, the development of a novel MR-compatible experimental paradigm for studying categorical and causal representation in working memory, and the deployment of a comprehensive battery focused on foundational causal reasoning competencies.
Graduate Students

ude.lnu.sreksuh@2tdnarbegnaa | 217-300-1464
Alexanndra (Allie) Angebrandt earned her B.S. in Cognitive and Behavioral Neuroscience from the University of California, San Diego, in 2019. She completed a postbaccalaureate fellowship at the National Institute on Drug Abuse in 2021 before joining the Decision Neuroscience Laboratory at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. There, she earned her master’s degree in Cognitive Neuroscience. In 2023, she joined the University of Nebraska’s Center for Brain, Biology and Behavior with the Decision Neuroscience Laboratory to continue her doctoral studies under the mentorship of Dr. Aron Barbey.
Currently a National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellow, Allie’s research examines how brain network organization influences individual differences in executive functions. She employs structural and functional brain network analyses, drawing on principles from graph theory and control theory, to investigate the systems that support higher cognitive functions and learning. Her work also explores methods to enhance cognitive performance through a proactive and personalized approach to intervention.

ude.lnu.sreksuh@2drahcuobh | 217-300-1464
Heather Bouchard earned her B.S. in Interdisciplinary Studies in Neurobiological Sciences and a minor in Health Sciences from the University of Florida in 2018. Her undergraduate thesis examined the effects of exercise on the default mode network following mild traumatic brain injury. After graduation, she relocated to North Carolina and worked as a research coordinator in the PTSD and TBI Neuroimaging Lab at Duke University and the Durham VA. There, she contributed to a study investigating the cognitive effects of subconcussive blast exposure in U.S. Veterans and spearheaded a structural connectivity project with the ENIGMA Military Brain Injury consortium.
In 2020, Heather began the Clinical Psychology Training Program at the University of Nebraska–Lincoln, specializing in neuropsychological assessment. Her research has focused on the effects of sports-related concussions in collegiate athletes and the influence of hormonal changes on recovery trajectories. In 2023, Heather joined the Decision Neuroscience Laboratory to further develop her expertise in neuroimaging methodologies. Her current work applies graph theory principles to investigate how structural networks are impacted by and change throughout recovery from sport-related concussions.

ude.lnu.sreksuh@2gnialj | 217-300-1464
Julia Laing earned her B.A. in Psychology from Hofstra University in 2017. After graduation, she moved back home to Michigan and worked as a study coordinator and research technician in The Research Program on Cognition and Neuromodulation Based Interventions at Michigan Medicine under Dr. Ben Hampstead. There, she contributed to a study investigating high-definition transcranial direct current stimulation paired with mnemonic strategy training to improve cognition among older adults diagnosed with Mild Cognitive Impairment.
In 2019, Julia began the Clinical Psychology Training Program at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, specializing in neuropsychology. Her research examines modifiable lifestyle factors, specifically exercise, to improve executive functioning, utilizing neuropsychological assessment and neuroimaging methods, such as fMRI and fNIRS.

ude.lnu.sreksuh@5xocliwr | 217-300-1464
Ramsey Wilcox earned his B.A. in Neuroscience with a minor in Philosophy from the University of Colorado. As an undergraduate, he served as a research assistant in the Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience Laboratory, where he played a lead role in a neuroimaging study investigating the effectiveness of Mindfulness-based Cognitive Therapy for depressed women. After graduating, he moved to the University of Arizona to work as the lab coordinator for the Neuroscience of Emotion and Thought Lab, where he contributed to the establishment of the lab and supported the development and running of several neuroimaging studies on the neural mechanisms of internal mentation. In 2019, he joined the Decision Neuroscience Laboratory as a graduate student under the mentorship of Dr. Aron Barbey. He now continues his research with the lab at the University of Nebraska’s Center for Brain, Biology & Behavior.
Ramsey’s research explores the core principles of the Network Neuroscience Theory of Intelligence. His work examines whether intelligence: (1) emerges from interactions between multiple networks rather than relying on a single brain region or network; (2) relies on weak, long-range connections that support flexible and efficient global network coordination; (3) involves structural control mechanisms that orchestrate network interactions and drives global activity; and (4) depends on the brain’s small-world architecture, highlighting its capacity for flexible and efficiently organized global information processing. To assist in these investigations, he leverages advanced neuroimaging techniques, including joint structure-function network models, dynamic functional connectivity analyses, connectome-based predictive modeling, and graph and structural control theory metrics. Additionally, he serves as a data analyst for DARPA’s Measuring Biological Aptitude project, contributing to the development of predictive AI models.

ude.lnu.sreksuh@26uwj | 217-300-1464
Jisheng Wu earned his B.S. in Psychology and Economics from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 2019. During his senior year, he joined the Decision Neuroscience Laboratory as an undergraduate research assistant and later continued as a graduate student in the lab. In 2023, he joined the University of Nebraska-Lincoln with the Decision Neuroscience Laboratory to continue his doctoral studies at the Center for Brain, Biology & Behavior.
Jisheng’s research primarily focuses on: (1) understanding how lifestyle factors influence brain and cognitive aging; and (2) conducting intervention studies designed to enhance cognitive performance and overall brain health. Using advanced methods in neuroimaging, psychology, and nutritional sciences, his work has examined how better nutrition, indexed by higher levels of specific blood-based nutrient biomarkers, may be associated with healthier patterns of brain and cognitive aging. His other projects include creating novel neuropsychological batteries for assessing causal reasoning, and developing non-invasive experimental protocols aimed at improving visual attention and working memory.