People

Professor & Chair

Department of Cognitive & Psychological Sciences

Carney Institute for Brain Science at Brown University

Email: david_badre@brown.edu

[curriculum vitae]

[website]

Assistant Professor (Research)

Email: apoorva_bhandari@brown.edu

Research Interests: I am broadly interested in understanding the neural and computational basis of flexible human cognition. My work addresses questions from a broad range of topics including fluid intelligence, working memory, learning & generalization, cognitive control, and social decision making, employing behavioral methods, functional MRI, computational modeling and machine learning. I’m currently investigating the role of neural representational geometry in enabling flexible cognition, with a particular focus on prefrontal cortex representations of task information.

[curriculum vitae]

Postdoctoral Research Associate

Email: ladan_shahshahani@brown.edu

Research Interests: I am interested in understanding the neural mechanisms underlying perceptual memory. In a collaborative project with “3D Information for Perception and Action Lab”, we aim to bring together two seemingly disconnected fields of research: 3D perception and visual working memory. We explore computational theories of visual perception incorporating psychophysical methods and fMRI.

[curriculum vitae]

Postdoctoral Research Associate

Email: atsushi_kikumoto@brown.edu

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.

[curriculum vitae]

Email: michael_freund@brown.edu

Research Interests: I am broadly interested in how the human brain supports cognitive flexibility and context-dependent decision-making. How are these mental abilities supported and constrained by the structure of the task representations that we have learned, and by the dynamics that our brains generate? In the Badre lab, my research includes studying (1) novel task learning, including how working memory constraints, such as constraints on gating operations, may shape learning, and (2) the neural dynamics involved in transitioning between tasks. While in the Badre lab and at Brown, I intend to learn how to use cognitive computational and neural network modeling in service of this work.

[curriculum vitae]

[website]

[github]

Postdoctoral Research Associate

Email: benjamin_rangel@brown.edu

Research Interests: I am interested in using behavioral and neurophysiological measures to investigate how expectations and behavior can be automatically shaped by singular past events. Specifically, I am focused on how these past events lead to adjustments of ongoing control processes, which systems are involved, and under what circumstances would they help or hinder the pursuit of goals in the present.

[curriculum vitae]

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.

[website]

Graduate Student

Email: ziqi_zhao1@brown.edu

Research Interests: I am interested in how people adapt or transfer control policies learned from one context to another. I am using both neural and computational methods to investigate the underlying mechanisms that support the learning and adapting cognitive control.

[curriculum vitae]

Lab Manager

Email: ashwin_srinivasan@brown.edu

Research Interests: I graduated from Washington University in St. Louis with an AB in Philosophy-Neuroscience-Psychology and History in 2024, where I studied the relationship between event segmentation and long-term memory with Dr. Jeffrey Zacks. I’m interested in understanding how information is maintained and manipulated by our memory systems, with a particular focus on understanding working memory through a process memory framework. How is information gated in and out of working memory in naturalistic contexts? What determines when information in working memory is consolidated for long-term storage? I hope to study these questions at Brown and beyond.

[curriculum vitae]

Email: joemari_pulido@brown.edu

Research Interests: I’m interested in understanding the neural and computational mechanisms underlying flexible goal-directed behavior. During my time here, I plan on strengthening my training in cognitive neuroscience, to have the skills needed for the rigorous experimentation of human cognition. I plan on applying to PhD programs, to start in Fall of 2026

[curriculum vitae]

[website]