PEOPLE

Current Members:

PI: Dr. Jason Fischer

I am lucky enough to work with all the fantastic people on this page! I am broadly interested in visual perception and its interface with cognition. My main focus is on intuitive physics — how people understand and predict the physical behavior of the world.

Alex Mitko | PhD student

I am a fifth year PhD student studying the interface between intuitive physics and other facets of perception and cognition. I’m interested in understanding what architecture is required in the mind in order to perform the wide array of physical judgements that confront us on a daily basis. I’m fascinated by the fact that we are able to effortlessly interact with a physical world without explicit knowledge of the underlying mathematical equations (which is a relief because physics equations are hard!). Outside of research, I love stand-up comedy, football, and hiking.

Giuliana Bucci-Mansilla | PhD student

I feel passionate about understanding how we perceive the world around us and how we resolve physics problems in the real world. Specifically, I have two main interests. 1) The understanding of visual dynamics in a complex environment and how they are related to other cognitive processes, like decision-making. 2) understanding how different primate species comprehend the world around them and uncovering the differences and commonalities between species when they have to resolve physics problems. I advocate for experiments with great ecological validity in order to understand how the brain works and how we behave in the real world. Besides science, I enjoy hiking, camping, rock climbing, and animal photography.

Garrett Goldin | Master's student

I am a master’s student in the Neuroscience B.S./M.S. program. Broadly defined, I am passionate about understanding how we as humans perceive, interpret, and respond to the many complex and dynamic physical environments that we encounter in our daily lives. More specifically, I am interested in investigating how physically interacting with the world around us might influence how neural systems process stimuli and thus produce physical predictions. Outside of the lab, I enjoy skiing and ultimate frisbee as well as playing the guitar, bass, and drums.