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| Director Antonio Rangel Staff |
Postdoctoral Scholars Erie Boorman John Clithero Alison Harris Cendri Hutcherson Seung-Lark Lim Leila Montaser-Kouhsari Peter Sokol-Hessner |
Graduate Students Jaron Colas Geoff Fisher Cary Frydman Shabnam Hakimi Taisuke Imai Vanessa Janowski Alice Lin Nikki Sullivan |
Undergraduates Joy Lu Alumni & Collaborators See all » |
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Antonio Rangel is a Professor of Economics at the California Institute of Technology, director of the Neuroeconomics Laboratory, and co-director of the Caltech Brain Imaging Center. He received his Ph.D. in Economics from Harvard University. |
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Erie Boorman is a Henry Wellcome Postdoctoral Fellow working between the Rangel and Adolphs Labs at Caltech and the Behrens Lab at the University of Oxford, England. He is broadly interested in computational and systems analyses of primate brain function. Of all the fascinating topics within this field, he has chosen to focus on the neural systems that underlie components of reinforcement learning and decision-making. He is also interested in exploring the multiplicity of learning systems within the primate brain. If you think you see Erie in LA, make sure it’s really him first, since he has an identical twin wandering around the city as well. | |
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John Clithero is a Postdoctoral Scholar in Neuroeconomics at Caltech. His academic interests focus on the neural and cognitive processes behind decision making under uncertainty. He also enjoys contemplating new ways to integrate economic and biological models. John has been known to experience extreme reward anticipation before Blue Devils basketball games, during movie trailers, and while opening Reese's wrappers. | |
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Jaron Colas is a graduate student in the Computation and Neural Systems program at Caltech. He is interested in the roles of awareness and attention in decision making, among other topics. For example, how and to what extent do unconscious neural computations influence ultimate conscious decisions and behaviors? Jaron hails from MIT but assures everybody that there are no intercollegiate pranks up his sleeve.
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Geoff Fisher is a graduate student in Behavioral and Social Neuroscience at Caltech. He is interested in neuroeconomics and behavioral economics. His previous work has examined how economic preferences are affected by religious identity norms and abstract versus concrete thought processes. | |
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Cary Frydman is a graduate student in economics at Caltech. His current research focuses on using neuroeconomic techniques to study financial decision making. He is also interested in asset price bubbles and information aggregation in markets. website » |
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Shabnam Hakimi is a neuroscience graduate student in the Computation and Neural Systems program at Caltech. She is interested in how individual differences (e.g., genetics, personality, environment) affect the neural computations underlying human regulatory processes, such as self-control. She enjoys absurdity, and is always looking for a good reason to laugh. website » |
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Alison Harris is a Postdoctoral Scholar in Neuroeconomics at Caltech. Applying her background in neurophysiology (MEG, ERP), her current research focuses on the temporal dynamics of valuation and decision making. A recent transplant from the East Coast, she is currently attempting to master the intricacies of the California highway system, and enjoying the taco trucks and lack of snow. | |
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Campus Hippo is interested in the computations subserving memory encoding in the brain. He is extremely huggable, and is beloved by children and adults alike. | |
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Cendri Hutcherson is a Postdoctoral Scholar in Neuroeconomics at Caltech. Her interests include the neural computations underlying habit-based and goal-directed learning, the neural bases of emotion regulation, and the behavioral and neural bases of moral cognition. In her spare time** she errs toward the domestic, playing violin, singing in the shower, quilting, and baking fattening foods. website » **What spare time?? Are you crazy? |
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Taisuke Imai is a graduate student in Behavioral and Social Neuroscience at Caltech. His current research focuses on applying neuroeconomic methods to study biases in individual decision making. He is also studying how to survive in LA without a car. | |
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Vanessa Janowski is a graduate student in Economics. She is interested in neuroeconomics and behavioural economics, and her research focuses on the neural mechanisms of decision-making. website » |
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Seung-Lark Lim is a Postdoctoral Scholar in Neuroeconomics at Caltech. His interests include attentional and affective influences on decision-making process and their clinical implication (e.g., addiction, decision-making in affective disorders). Currently, he is investigating (1) how visual attention modulates neural valuation system, (2) how nicotine influences neural process of reward learning, and (3) how semantic learning influences neural valuation process. website » |
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Alice Lin is a graduate student in the CNS division of Caltech. Her interests include the neural bases of social rewards, embodied cognition, and eating Snickers ice cream bars. | |
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Joy Lu is an undergraduate research assistant in the Rangel Neuroeconomics Lab. | |
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Leila Montaser-Kouhsari is a Postdoctoral Scholar in Neuroeconomics at Caltech. She obtained her M.D. from Iran University of Medical sciences and her Ph.D. from the department of Psychology at New York University. During her Ph.D., she investigated how modulatory factors such as attention and context affect visual perception. What fascinated her were the performance-related individual differences, she observed even when participants were making simple sensory-based decisions. She is currently interested in understanding the individual differences that exist in computation of the value. | |
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Morgan Rangel is a fourth-year in the lab. Her research focuses on development, with a special interest in the impact of younger siblings on social and emotional functioning. In her spare time she likes to play with Hippopotamus the Elephant and wear pretty shoes. She has an impeccable sense of style. | |
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Peter Sokol-Hessner is a Postdoctoral Scholar in Neuroeconomics at Caltech. He is interested in understanding how components of emotion may systematically contribute to the choices we make by informing our assessments of value. Topics of interest include the neural and physiological correlates of emotion regulation, interpersonal economic interactions, addiction, and the roots of commonly observed behavioral phenomena like loss aversion. When not considering the integration of psychological theories of emotion with economic models of choice behavior, Peter has been known to enjoy the outdoors as a hiking guide, itinerant road cyclist, and intense lawn-game competitor. website » | |
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Nikki Sullivan is a graduate student in Computation and Neural Systems at Caltech. Prior to Caltech, Nikki worked for the University of Chicago Departments of Psychology and Economics, and received her M.A. there in Social Science. Her research interests include factors influencing, and individual and group differences in, the neural computations relating to economic and social decisions. In addition to science, Nikki enjoys fiction, running, hedgehogs, fireworks, and the state of Ohio. website » | |
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