Cognitive Science Learning Laboratory
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Alicia Chang

Research Interests: Alicia earned her Ph.D. in cognitive psychology at UCLA in 2008. Her research examines how language and culture shape the way people think, reason, learn, and communicate. She is also interested in applications of these questions to "real-life" settings such as education and foreign policy. Her "real-life" interests include karaoke, dance, spinning, cuisine, and pop culture.

Soniya Gadgil-Sharma

Research Interests: Soniya's research interests include conceptual change, learning in ill-structured domains, creativity, learning via collaboration, metacognition, and acquisition of domain-independent higher-order cognitive skills. Other interests include yoga, architecture, and being a news junkie.

Liz Richey

Research interests: Liz’s research explores the implications of cognitive psychology on education practices, with particular emphasis on math and science education. She is interested in conceptual learning and problem-solving skills; analogical reasoning and transfer; complex
cognitive tasks and the constraints of cognitive load; and the relationship between existing knowledge and future learning. She enjoys running, taking care of her two cats, and visiting sites of historic significance.

Mike Ansell

Research Interests: Mike is a recent graduate of the University of Pittsburgh with majors in Psychology and Anthropology. Research interests include cognition, emotions, and basically anything involving the brain. His all-time favorite subject within the field is Evolutionary Psychology which he will eventually strive to obtain a PhD in. He also enjoys Archaeology, Physical Anthropology, cultural studies, and playing with bones. In his spare time his activities involve playing the guitar and drums, listening to music, pretending he knows how to play a piano, and learning.

Marge Gibson

Background and Interests: Marge has attended secretarial school and completed classes in Business Administration. With her educational background, she has a full understanding of the many aspects involved in the administration of a working research lab. She has been working at LRDC for seven years, and her experience includes but is not limited to: IRB Protocol Administration, travel arrangements and reimbursements, purchasing. participant screening, scheduling, and payments, retaining accurate study records, maintaining grant accounts and expenditure, and scheduling meetings. Marge is also the mother of two children, Melissa and Scotty; when she is not at the University, she is most likely spending time with them

Kristen Moltner

Alicia Heim

Research Interests: Alicia is a Senior at Pitt majoring in Psychology and Sociology. Her research interests include peer-interactions and problem solving. Future plans include working for Teach for America followed by obtaining her masters in psychology.  Aside from her love of data coding and using the copier, Alicia also enjoys playing soccer, dancing, and relaxing.

Research Interests: Linnea is a senior at Pitt, finishing up her majors in biology and psychology and planning to pursue a Masters in Public Health beginning in the fall of 2010. Her research interests include learning via schemas and analogies, the effects of stress on learning, as well as the bidirectional interaction of psychology and physical health. When she is not entering data and running experiments, Linnea enjoys exploring Pittsburgh, being a couch potato with a good book or movie, eating New Mexican green chile, and being outdoors.

Greg Cox

Research Interests: Greg is a student at the University of Maryland, pursuing bachelor's degrees in Psychology and Music Composition, and works with the CSL Lab via the Pittsburgh Science of Learning Center. He passed through many intellectual realms before settling in Cognitive Science, the crossroads of his myriad interests. He is primarily interested in computational models of memory, learning, and analogy, and enjoys applying these models to music composition and analysis. While not in school, doing research, or inventing clumsy metaphors, Greg does computer graphics, plays jazz piano, and conducts an orchestra dedicated to playing music from video games. His goal in life is to become the answer to a crossword puzzle clue.

Ivan Ash

Assistant Professor, Department of Psychology
Old Dominion University  

Michelene T.H. Chi

Senior Scientist, LRDC
Professor, Department of Psychology
University of Pittsburgh

John M. Levine

Senior Scientist, LRDC
Professor, Department of Psychology
University of Pittsburgh

Michelle Meade

Assistant Professor, Department of Psychology
Montana State University  

Jose Mestre

Professor, Department of Physics and Educational Psychology
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Faculty, Beckman Institute

Dan Morrow

Associate Professor, Institute of Aviation
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Faculty, Beckman Institute   

Stellan Ohlsson

Professor, Department of Psychology
University of Illinois at Chicago

Brian Ross

Professor, Department of Psychology
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Faculty, Beckman Institute

Christian D.Schunn

Research Scientist, LRDC
Associate Professor, Department of Psychology, Education, Intelligent Systems Program
University of Pittsburgh

Kurt VanLehn

Senior Scientist, LRDC
Professor, Department of Computer Science, Psychology, Intelligent Systems Program