MEET THE TEAM
Principal Investigator
Postdoctoral Fellows
Ting earned a B.A. in Philosophy from the Chinese University of Hong Kong, an M.A. in Philosophy and Certificate in Social, Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience from the University of Pennsylvania, and a Ph.D. in Philosophy from the University of Texas at Austin. His research investigates the structure of awareness. Integrating analytic metaphysics with cognitive neuroscience and insights from diverse philosophical traditions such as Buddhism, his work asks how various kinds of awareness – perceptual awareness, meditative awareness, and aesthetic awareness – are similar to one another. His research also has a normative aspect, exploring the cognitive, epistemic and ethical value of awareness.
Shanna Slank joined the lab in August 2022. Prior to that she was an assistant professor of philosophy at Kansas State University. She received her PhD from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 2019, her MA from Georgia State University in 2012, and her BA from Boston University in 2008. From 2016-2018, she was a visiting student at the Ludwig Maximillian University in Munich.
Trey earned a B.A. in Philosophy from Lewis & College Clark, an M.A. in Philosophy from Simon Fraser University, and a Ph.D. in History and Philosophy of Science from the University of Pittsburgh. His research focuses on explanation and causal inference in neuroscience, with specific interest in how the robustness of neural functions presents challenges for standard approaches to causal inference in biological systems. Trey also has active interests in philosophy of perception related to attention and vagueness in perceptual representation.
Graduate Students
Ricardo studied psychology in the Pontificia Universidad Catolica de Chile. He later earned a M.Sc. in Neuroscience from the Universidad de Chile, working with Eugenio Rodriguez on the neural correlates of bistable perception. Currently he is a Cognitive Neuroscience PhD student interested in episodic memory, executive functions and counterfactual thinking.
Gabriela earned her B.A. in Psychology from Universidad Javeriana and her M.A. from Universidad de los Andes (Bogotá, Colombia). Currently, she is a Psychology & Neuroscience PhD student working with Felipe De Brigard and Kevin LaBar trying to disentangle the relationship between forgiveness and memory. Through her Ph.D. project, she
hopes to gain a deep understanding of the interactions between forgiveness and memory, the cognitive and emotional processes leading to forgiveness, and the effect forgiveness has on our memories. She is also interested in the impact that the severity of the harm and the context have on forgiveness.
Nina Van Rooy
Nina is a Philosophy PhD student at Duke. She earned an M.A. in Philosophy at King’s College, London. She has broad interests in philosophy of psychology and cognitive neuroscience, but she is particularly interested in the relationship between the various levels at which the mind is studied and related issues of reductionism and multiple realizability. She is currently working with Trey Boone and Felipe De Brigard on a project that aims to give a comprehensive account of the ontology and epistemology of neural networks in neuroscience.
Kevin is a PhD student who joined the lab through the Cognitive Neuroscience Admitting Program. He received a B.S. in Cognitive Science and Computer Science at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, where he worked in the Rensselaer Artificial Intelligence and Reasoning (RAIR) Lab, and later worked as a computer scientist at the US Naval Research Laboratory (NRL). Currently, Kevin is working with Felipe De Brigard, John Pearson, and NRL to investigate how the brain coordinates cognitive processes (e.g., attention, perception, and memory) to support inference and reasoning in a variety of domains.
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Anna Smith
After receiving her B.A. in Cognitive Science from Carleton College in 2017, Anna spent two years working with Dr. Michael Yassa on studies of episodic memory mechanisms and performance trajectories associated with healthy and disordered aging. At Duke, Anna’s research centers around what artistic creation and reception can tell us about basic cognitive processes, including attention and memory. For her dissertation work, she is interested in the imaginative and recollective aspects of art viewing; specifically, the contributions of autobiographical memory to aesthetic experience.
Shenyang Huang
Shenyang joined the lab in 2018 as an undergraduate research assistant. He received a B.S. in Neuroscience and Mathematics from Duke University in 2020. He is now a fourth-year PhD student in the Cognitive Neuroscience Admitting Program, and he is interested in investigating how the functional networks of the brain support declarative memory and moral reasoning.
Frederik is a visiting PhD student from the University of Copenhagen. He received a B.A. and M.A. in Philosophy from the same university. In his PhD project, he investigates the nature and functions of mind-wandering with a focus on its role in planning, reasoning, and decision-making. He also has an interest in Predictive Processing models of neurocognitive processes, particularly how such models intersect with philosophical accounts of agency and motivation. Frederik also maintains an interest in the Philosophy of AI.
Lab Manager
Kaylee Miceli
Kaylee earned her B.A. in Neuroscience, Philosophy, and Religion from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 2021, where she worked as a research assistant in the Cognitive Neuroscience of Memory Laboratory under Kelly Giovanello. Now, she manages the IMC Lab and coordinates the Summer Seminars in Neuroscience and Philosophy. She is interested in episodic counterfactual thinking, the philosophy of neuroscience, and the interaction of memory and interpersonal relationships.
Research Assistants
Anna Ghelfi is a junior majoring in Neuroscience. She is primarily interested in cognitive neuroscience, especially in the relationship between conscious and unconscious behavior. She is currently exploring the relationship between memory and imagination through mental control.
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Daniel Robelo is a sophomore studying Neuroscience and Philosophy. He is interested in cognitive neuroscience and the epistemology of perception, particularly how perceptions of reality can differ from person to person, and what underlying biological and epistemological factors contribute to such differences.
Anthony Salgado is a senior majoring in Neuroscience. He is primarily interested in cognitive neuroscience, particularly memory and the physiological aspects of it. He is currently exploring different features of memory and its impact on forgiveness.
Caroline Howard is a junior majoring in Neuroscience. Within this field, she is especially excited about the complexities of memory and decision-making, with a focus on understanding how ethical principles and personal morals shape our choices. In lab, she is investigating the interplay between memory and forgiveness.
Julia Simon is a freshman majoring in Neuroscience and Philosophy. She is interested in cognitive neuroscience, including the problem of consciousness and its implications for public policy. She is currently working with the Memory and Forgiveness project to gain a greater understanding of the relationship between forgiveness and forgetting.
Annika Socia is a junior majoring in Neuroscience with a minor in Chemistry and a Certificate in Philosophy, Politics, and Economics. Most interested in the intersection of neuroscience and philosophy, she explores the profound connections between these disciplines and their implications for language, religion, and moral decision-making. Her current work involves research on memory and forgiveness.
Collaborators
past and present
Donna Rose Addis, Rotman Research Institute
Tim Brady, University of California, San Diego
Paul Bello, US Naval Research Laboratory
Roberto Cabeza, Duke University
Simon Davis, Duke University
Kelly S. Giovanello, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill
Sangeet Khemlani, US Naval Research Laboratory
Joshua Knobe, Yale University
Tamar Kushnir, Duke University
Kevin LaBar, Duke University
Kourken Michaelian, Université Grenoble Alpes
John Pearson, Duke University
Sarah Robins, University of Kansas
Zach Rosenthal, Duke University
Daniel L. Schacter, Harvard University
R. Nathan Spreng, McGill University
Walter Sinnott-Armstrong, Duke University
Peggy L. St. Jacques, University of Alberta
Nina Strohminger, University of Pennsylvania
Karl K. Szpunar, University of Illinois, Chicago
Marty Woldorff, Duke University
Fuchsberg-Levine Family Associate Professor of Philosophy
Associate Professor, Psychology and Neuroscience
Core Faculty, Duke Institute for Brain Sciences & Center for Cognitive Neuroscience
Felipe earned a bachelor's degree from the National University of Colombia, where he studied philosophy and neuropsychology. He earned a masters degree from Tufts University, where he studied philosophy and cognitive science under the direction of Daniel Dennett. Then, he earned a doctoral degree from the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, where he studied philosophy and cognitive neuroscience under the direction of Jesse Prinz and Kelly Giovanello, respectively. Before coming to Duke, he spent two years as a post-doctoral fellow in Daniel Schacter's Cognitive Neuroscience of Memory Lab at Harvard University. With Walter Sinnott-Armstrong, he launched the Summer Seminars in Neuroscience and Philosophy that have been hosted every year at Duke since 2016. He is also principal investigator to the Memory and Forgiveness project.
