a little bit about me

I am an NRC postdoctoral research associate in the Naval Center for Applied Research in Artificial Intelligence at the Naval Research Laboratory in Washington, DC. I am interested in developing better measures of the sense of agency of the self, or the experience of control over our actions and their outcomes. My current projects are aimed at developing and testing a more refined theory of agency in an effort to develop better explicit and implicit measures. I am interested in using this knowledge in applied contexts, such as in HRI settings, so we can better measure, maintain, and possibly improve the experience of control.

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I received my PhD in Cognitive Psychology in 2023 from Rutgers University where I worked in the Human Computational Cognition Laboratory with Drs. Pernille Hemmer and Julien Musolino. My dissertation investigated the cognitive mechanisms underlying the temporal binding effect, a proposed implicit measure of the sense of agency. This program of research, which incorporated computational (Bayesian) and cognitive (ACT-R) model simulations as well as experiments, revealed that the sense of agency is likely not the best explanation for the temporal binding effect and detailed suggestions for future experiments in this domain.

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Click here to download my CV. 

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Though I am a South Jersey native (go Sterling Knights), at this point I identify proudly as a Philadelphian after 10+ years of living in the (best) city. Outside of my research endeavors, I spend my time teaching color guards in the tri-state area, most notably AMP winter guard, a WGI world championship color guard from South Jersey. (Click here to watch one of my favorite performances ever.) I also enjoy running and training for long distance races.

Lastly, and most importantly, I am the proud owner of two adorable cats named Lio and Stu.