Lab Members
Principal Investigator
David Badre
Professor
Department of Cognitive, Linguistic, and Psychological Sciences
Carney Institute for Brain Science at Brown University
Post-Doctoral Fellows
Apoorva Bhandari
Postdoctoral Research Associate
Email: apoorva_bhandari@brown.edu; curriculum vitae
Research Interests: I am interested in how people rapidly learn the structure of complex, novel tasks. I am using novel behavioral and computational methods to probe subject’s knowledge about structure as they are learning the task.
Avinash Vaidya
Postdoctoral Research Associate
Email: avinash_vaidya@brown.edu; curriculum vitae
Research Interests: I am interested in the brain mechanisms underlying decision-making. My research investigates the neural processes that are involved in constructing the expected value of complex decision options from multiple sources of information. Specifically, I am examining how estimates of expected value are flexibly adapted to changing goals and contexts.
Olga Lositsky
Postdoctoral Research Associate
Email: olga_lositsky@brown.edu; curriculum vitae
Research Interests: I am interested in how we learn to represent new tasks and how the way in which we structure our memories reflects our assumptions about the world and influences how we generalize our knowledge to new situations. Using psychophysics and computational modeling, I am testing under which conditions people combine their experiences to form general representations that apply to various contexts, as opposed to forming representations that are context-specific. Using fMRI, I hope to investigate how complementary learning systems in the brain (such as the medial temporal memory system and prefrontal / basal ganglia circuits) regulate this trade-off.
Atsushi Kikumoto
Postdoctoral Research Associate
Email: atsushi_kikumoto@brown.edu; curriculum vitae
Research Interests: I am interested in the dynamic process in which control-related representations are shaped to achieve flexible behavior. I hope to investigate how we generate and link abstract knowledge to specific action contexts in working memory.
Graduate Students

Emily Levin
Graduate Student
Email: emily_levin@brown.edu; curriculum vitae
Research Interests: I am interested in understanding how the brain uses cognitive control and working memory processes to flexibly guide behavior. I hope to investigate what neural correlates are involved during working memory gating and examine how these processes allow us to adapt to a rapidly changing environment.

Haley Keglovits
Graduate Student
Email: haley_keglovits@brown.edu
Research Interests: I am interested in how the brain formats information as it guides difficult cognitive processes like multitasking. Using fMRI and behavioral data, I hope to create testable computational models that further our understanding of what enables the amazing flexibility of the human mind.
Lab Manager

Emily Chicklis
Lab Manager
Email: emily_chicklis@brown.edu
Undergraduate Research Assistants

Amanda Ng
amanda_ng@brown.edu

Isabel Reyes
isabel_reyes@brown.edu

Emily Smith-Feldman
emily_smith-feldman@brown.edu

Ijeoma Uche
ijeoma_uche@brown.edu

Michelle Zhu
michelle_zhu@brown.edu
Lab Alums
Johanny Castillo
Post-Baccalaureate Researcher & Food Reviewer (thru 2020)
Michelle Kassel
Clinical Psychology Resident (thru 2020)
Yael Braverman
Undergraduate RA & Honors Student (thru 2020)
Thesis Presentation
Emily Waters
Undergraduate RA & Honors Student (thru 2020)
Thesis Presentation
Ramses Ngachoko
Undergraduate RA (Summer 2020)
Rachael Blackman
Psychiatry Resident (thru 2020)
Jordan Rubin-McGregor
Undergraduate RA (thru 2019)
Henry Jones
Undergraduate RA (thru 2019)
Lab Manager Emerita

Adriane Spiro
Manager of Labs and Baker of Cakes
After working in the Badre Lab for 3 years, Adriane is now enrolled in medical school at UNC!