Research Interests

Humans learn efficiently from environments that are simultaneously structured and fluctuate in ways both stable and unpredictable. From infancy, we manage to exploit regularities in our environment while remaining sensitive to meaningful change. What mechanisms allow children to navigate such varied contexts so effectively? Broadly, I am interested in how children flexibly build and use structured representations to guide adaptive cognition. How do children acquire representations of the structure of input from their physical and social environments? How do children adaptively use this structure to guide reasoning, learning, and behavior? How does this capacity develop across childhood? To address these questions, I aim to take an interdisciplinary approach combining behavioral and computational methods from cognitive and developmental science.

"My Village"

As a First-Generation college graduate and researcher forever trying to find my way in this field, I feel so grateful to have been supported by a network of such brilliant, kind, and inspiring mentors, collaborators, and peers. "It takes a village", and I owe so much to my village for teaching and uplifting me. Forever celebrating and thanking my village: Hyowon Gweon, Michael Frank, Bria Long, Aaron Chuey, Virginia Marchman, Veronica Boyce, Alvin Tan, Rebecca Zhu, Aneesa Conine-Nakano, Sarah Tung, Joseph Outa, Grace Keene, Fredo Ornelas, & Mar Lacsamana