(Top Row, L to R) Tara O’Sullivan, Ellie Travers, Daniel Kang, Laila Johnston, Annika McDermott-Hinman, Yanwan Zhu, Amanda Martino
(Bottom Row, L to R) Roman Feiman, Lila Feiman, Julia Ceccarelli, Isabelle Boun
Principal Investigator
Roman Feiman
Roman received his PhD in Psychology from Harvard University in 2015. He completed his postdoctoral work at Harvard and UC San Diego before coming to Brown. His work draws on a variety of approaches and methods from cognitive developmental psychology, language acquisition, psycholinguistics, and formal semantics. Roman directs the Brown Language and Thought Lab.
Lab Manager
Amanda Martino
Amanda received her Bachelor’s degree in Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience from Western University in Canada and completed a clinical Master’s of Health Science degree in Speech-Language Pathology from the University of Toronto. She is currently the lab manager of the BLT Lab. Outside of the lab, she enjoys cooking, reading, and being outdoors.
Postdoctoral Fellow
Gabor Brody
Gabor’s research explores infants’ and children’s ability to keep track of the identity of objects, agents, and other entities. He defended his dissertation in 2020 at the Cognitive Development Center of Central European University. During his PhD, he also conducted research at the Harvard Lab for Developmental Studies and at RICO (Universitat Pompeu Fabra).
Website: www.gaborbrody.com
Graduate Students
Yanwan Zhu
Annika McDermott-Hinman
Annika received her bachelor’s degree from Harvard University, where she studied Linguistics, with a secondary concentration in Computer Science. She is interested in understanding how children learn the complex ways that concepts and their linguistic expressions combine to create meaning. Outside of academics, Annika enjoys reading, playing board games, and meeting new people.
Laila Johnston
Laila is a PhD Student in Cognitive Science interested in the computational mechanisms of human question asking. More specifically, how question asking can provide insights into the kinds of knowledge and models humans have of the world. Laila received a B.S. in Mathematics with minors in Computer Science and Philosophy at the University of Central Florida, and is a NSF Graduate Research Fellow.
Sam McGrath
Sam is a 5th year Ph.D. candidate in the philosophy department (A.B.D.) who has just started a Sc.M. in the department. He is interested in thought, language, and the relation between the two. He did his undergrad at the University of Chicago and an MPhil at Trinity College, Dublin. He has written on Frege, Wittgenstein, Carnap, Quine, Davidson and a number of other central figures in the analytic tradition. In his free time, he likes to play basketball and surf.
University of Bath Interns
Ellie Travers
Ellie is a Psychology student from the University of Bath, currently spending her third year at Brown University as an Undergraduate Research Assistant. She is excited to learn more about children’s development of thought and behaviour whilst furthering her understanding of the research process. In her free time Ellie likes running, travelling and playing soccer.
Tara O’Sullivan
Tara is a third-year undergraduate Psychology student at the University of Bath. She is currently interning as a research assistant in the Brown Language and Thought Lab. She is excited to learn more about the research process whilst furthering her interests in child language development and comprehension. In her free time, Tara loves going to the theatre, cooking and exploring new places.
Honors Thesis Students
Daniel Kang
Daniel is concentrating in Linguistics and Mathematics – Computer Science at Brown University. He is interested in how language mediates, facilitates, or allows for rational thinking, especially in the context of discourse. He is interested in employing formal tools and computational methods to study such a relationship. Outside of academics, Daniel likes to go for a run, play music, and read poetry.
Undergraduate Research Assistants
Adia Colvin
Adia (’28) is a Junior at Brown University concentrating in Linguistics and Literary Arts. She is primarily interested in how language operates on an individual basis, feels the most rewarded when working with children, and plans to pursue a masters in speech language pathology after graduation. In her free time she can be found reading about reptiles, writing fiction and plays, and watching reality television.
Neha Nabar
Neha (‘28) intends to concentrate in Cognitive Neuroscience and Anthropology at Brown University. She is curious about multilingual language acquisition, child development, and the relationship between language/ communication and the brain. Outside academics, Neha likes to paint, go on nature walks, and spend time with family and friends.
Before coming to Brown, Yanwan was an undergraduate at Smith College majoring in Linguistics and Statistical & Data Sciences. While working with Prof. Jill de Villiers at Smith, she developed her interest in studying the relationship between language and thought. Currently, she is interested in using experiments and corpus studies to understand how children and adults represent – or learn to represent – complex meanings of linguistic constructions in their mind. When she’s not doing science, Yanwan enjoys everything music-related and spending time with her cat Seraphina.