June 6, 2024. At farewell lunch for Peipei. Missing: Daisy Lin.

We are the research group of Prof. Wei Ji Ma in the Center for Neural Science and the Department of Psychology at New York University. The laboratory was founded in 2008 and moved to NYU in 2013.

Research

We study human cognition and perception using the methods of computational cognitive science and computational neuroscience. In most of our work, we aim to understand the algorithms and mechanisms that the brain uses to make decisions based on limited information. Our main tools are human behavioral experiments and cognitive models, but we also model neural populations, train neural networks, and collaborate with neurophysiologists and neuroimagers.

The lab's current focus areas are multi-step planning, approximate inference and resource rationality, and collaborative decision-making. We have also contributed to the understanding of visual and multisensory perception, working memory, visual attention, theories of neural coding and perceptual computation, experimental tests of these theories, exploration/exploitation, and social networks. Wei Ji wrote Bayesian models of perception and action: an introduction with Konrad Kording and Daniel Goldreich.

Community involvement

We care deeply about quality of teaching, good mentorship, a healthy lab culture, outreach, and engaging with the broader community. Examples: You can read more about these topics on Lab culture and Community. Many lab members are also active in these and other community efforts, and Weiji strongly encourages this participation.

Getting to know us

If you would like to get to know the lab, here are a few things you can do:

Links

Ma Lab Interactive Task Arena
Ma Lab GitHub
Ma Lab YouTube Channel
Applying to the lab
Lab Wiki (internal only)
Growing up in science (mentorship series)
Scientist Action and Advocacy Network
Concepts and Categories (seminar series)
Swartz Seminar on computational and theoretical neuroscience

Contact us

Address
Wei Ji Ma Lab
Meyer Hall
4 Washington Place
New York, NY 10003
Email
weijima@nyu.edu

The lab will not be accepting any new PhD students through the Cognition and Perception program to start in 2025. We also currently have no opportunities for undergraduates and high school students. If you email Weiji, he will say the same thing in reply, so there is not much point. Sorry!


2024

Oct 30-31
Weiji attended the National Diversity in STEM conference, organized by SACNAS, in Phoenix AZ, as a representative of the Neuroscience Graduate Program.
Oct 17
Ge (James) Jin, an undergraduate at Tandon School of Engineering, joined the lab. He will be working with Nastaran and Yiran on collaborative planning. Welcome James!
Oct 13
Peipei won the 2024 Best Dissertation Award from Society for Neuroeconomics.
Oct 8
Weiji was awarded an Award for Education in Neuroscience by the Society for Neuroscience.
Oct 1
Yotam Sagiv joined the lab, fresh off getting his PhD with Nathaniel Daw and Ilana Witten. Welcome, Yotam!
Jul 9
Xiang successfully defended his PhD. Congratulations, Xiang!
Jun 6
We said goodbye to Peipei, who will stay at NYU but start as a postdoc in Mark Ho's lab.
May 28
Jennifer Yu, an undergraduate at Harvard, joined the lab. Jennifer will be working with Weiji on move times in chess. Welcome Jen!
May 28
Yiran Gong, an undergraduate at Barnard College, joined the lab. She will be working with Weiji and Nastaran on communication during collaboration. Welcome Yiran!
May 8
Peipei is a documentarymaker in her spare time. Her documentary The opposite of dying was accepted to the prestigious Sheffield DocFest, to be held in June 2024.
May 8
We said goodbye to Shucheng Li, who will be returning to NYU Shanghai and continue to collaborate with us remotely.
Apr 25
Jordan and Weiji presented in the Center for Neural Science Lab Talks.
Mar 15-16
Weiji and Nastaran attended and presented at the Cognitive Control of Action workshop held at Princeton University. Nastaran presented new results from her work on collaborative planning.
Feb 29-Mar 4
Jordan and Jeroen attended and presented at Cosyne 2024 in Portugal. Jordan presented new results from our collaboration with Daeyeol Lee's lab on the neural basis of planning.
Feb 29
Weiji presented remotely in the Neuroeconomics Seminar at the University of Zurich.
Feb 2
Weiji participated in a CIMER workshop by Lindsay Frazier called ``Optimizing Mentoring Relationships".
Jan 8-10
Weiji directed a Math and Coding Bootcamp for NYU undergraduates majoring or minoring in neuroscience or psychology. Jordan was one of the instructors.

2023

Dec 4
We said goodbye to Hsin, who will be starting a lab at The Ohio State University.
Nov 17
Peipei defended her PhD! Congratulations Peipei!
Nov 6
Ionatan defended his PhD! Congratulations Ionatan! He will be starting a postdoc position with Tom Griffiths at Princeton.
Aug 24-27
The lab was at the Computational Cognitive Neuroscience conference in Oxford. Ionatan, Jeroen, Jordan, Nastaran, and Peipei presented posters. Ili presented both a poster and a talk. Weiji and Ionatan moderated a group in the workshop How to be an Academic in a World on Fire.
Aug 17
Hsin's Current Biology paper with Clay Curtis was featured in various news outlets. Read the press release here.
Aug 9
Heiko was profiled in The Science Life by Columbia's Zuckerman Institute.
Jun 30
Today was Sixuan's last day in the lab. Sixuan will be starting as a Ph.D. student in Cognitive Linguistic and Psychological Sciences at Brown University in Fall. Best of luck, Sixuan!
Jun 28
Hsin-Hung has accepted a faculty position in the Department of Psychology at Ohio State University. Congratulations, Hsin!
May 31-June 1
Weiji gave a Neuroscience Graduate Program Seminar, a Psychology Colloquium, and a Growing up in Science talk at UC San Diego.
May 17
Ili, Ionatan, Jeroen, Jordan, Nastaran, and Peipei all got their abstracts accepted to the Cognitive Computational Neuroscience conference in Oxford in August.
May 12
Weiji gave a Perception and Cognition Seminar at the University of Uppsala.
May 4
Nastaran gave her fourth-year talk about collaborative planning.
May 3
Weiji gave a Foundations of Data Science Seminar at Yale University.
Apr 28
Weiji gave a talk at the annual retreat of NYU's Neuroscience Institute.
Apr 28
Sixuan gave her Computational Cognitive Science Community Forum research presentation about path length estimation.
Apr 14
Peipei gave her Concats talk about the dynamic nature of procrastination.
Mar 31
Today was Heiko's last day. He will be starting his own lab at the University of Luxembourg. Best of luck, Heiko!
Mar 23
Weiji received the Impact Goals Award from the Center for Advancing Research Impact in Society (ARIS).
Mar 9
Xiang and Weiji each presented a poster at Cosyne 2023 in Montreal.
Feb 24
Peipei presented in the annual meeting of the Society for Personality and Social Psychology.

2022

Dec 1
Jeroen gave his CNS first-year talk on complex problem solving with Rush Hour.
Jordan gave his CNS first-year talk on the effect of environmental stochasticity on depth of planning.
Nov 19
Ionatan discussed "How Subversion Saved Anime" in a panel at Anime NYC. He leads a parallel life as a podcaster about anime. You can listen to his podcast bakabanter here.
Nov 8
Wei Ji spoke in the Current Works in Cognitive Science series at Yale University.
Oct 23
Jordan co-directed a short film "Access Denied" with Asia Khmelova that premiered at the @imaginescience Film Festival. The Symbiosis Competition pairs scientists and filmmakers to make a short film in one week. Watch it here.
Sep 29
Peipei and Xiang presented in the Center for Neural Science Lab Talks.
Sep 6
Elsa Mauguin, a Masters student in computational neuroscience at EPFL (Lausanne), started her three-month research placement in the lab. Welcome!
Aug 31
Neuroscience PhD students Jordan Lei and Jeroen Olieslagers joined the lab, as well as Research Assistant/Lab manager Sixuan Chen. Welcome!
Aug 27
Wei Ji participated (mostly through a pre-recorded video) in the opening workshop of the Generative Adversarial Collaboration titled "To what extent does the brain simulate the external world?", part of the Cognitive Computational Neuroscience conference.
Aug 5
Today was Dongjae's last day in the lab. Dongjae was in the lab for just over a year, and he is now starting a faculty job at Dankook University. All the best, Dongjae!
Jul 8
Today was Luisa's last day in the lab. Luisa started out as an undergraduate Honors student, then continued as a research assistant/lab manager for the past half year. She is now going to prepare for the MCATs. All the best, Luisa!
Jul 5
Neuroscience PhD student Jordan Lei started a rotation in the lab. Welcome, Jordan!
Jun 29
Neuroscience PhD student Jeroen Olieslagers started a rotation in the lab. Welcome, Jeroen!
Jun 28
Dongjae received and accepted a faculty job offer at Dankook University. Congratulations, Dongjae!!
Jun 17
Cognition and Perception PhD student Nastaran Arfaei joined the lab. Welcome, Nastaran!
Apr 22
Luisa presented in the CNS Undergraduate Research Festival. The title of her talk was "Procrastination and its Subtypes."
Mar 9
Anatola Araba’s short film “Afro Algorithms”, in which Weiji was a scientific consultant, premiered at Mozfest. Read an interview with Anatola here.
Mar 4
Dongjae Kim and Daisy Lin presented in the CNS lab talks.
Feb 16
Jenn successfully defended her thesis "Representations of uncertainty in perceptual decision-making". Congratulations!
Jan 18
Quanta Magazine wrote about Hsin's recent paper on the neural representation of working memory uncertainty.


2021

Nov 11
Sam gave his CNS first-year talk on the project he has been doing with the lab.
Nov 1
Weiji gave a talk and a Growing up in Science session at the Cognitive Science program at Indiana University, Bloomington.
Oct 26
Weiji discussed gradeless teaching during NYU's TeachTalks. The session is called To B or not to B: Low-Stakes Assessment and “Ungrading”.
Oct 21
Ionatan gave his CNS third-year talk, on a statistical model for planning.
Oct 21
Weiji held a remote Growing up in Science session for the Chinese Open Science Network.
Oct 8
Jenn published a review in Science for the people about the documentary In Silico about the monstrous, failed Human Brain Project.
Oct 8
Xiang presented at the Concepts and Categories seminar.
Oct 7
Weiji presented at the CRCNS PI Meeting on his joint work with the lab of Daeyeol Lee at Johns Hopkins.
Sep 28
Weiji held a remote Growing up in Science session at the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences.
Sep 16
Weiji held a remote Growing up in Science session at the Vienna Doctoral School in Cognition, Behavior and Neuroscience.
Sep 4
The video of Weiji's acceptance speech of the Jeffrey Elman prize for scientific achievement and community building of the Cognitive Science Society is now available.
Jul 11 and Aug 8
Weiji was a panelist in the professional development sessions "Mentor-mentee communication" in Neuromatch Academy 2021.
Jul 27
Also at CogSci 2021, Ionatan had a talk and Peipei a poster.
Jul 26
Weiji spoke in the workshop Using games to understand intelligence at CogSci 2021. In the same workshop, Jiawen Huang (Columbia) presented collaborative work between Chris Baldassano's lab and our lab.
Jul 28
Weiji received the Jeffrey L. Elman Prize for Scientific Achievement and Community Building during a special symposium.
Jun 9
Peipei spoke in the Life Improvement Science inaugural conference.
June 4
The Computational Cognitive Science laboratories in the Department of Psychology (Gureckis, Hartley, Lake, Ma, and Rehder) held a joint lab meeting with cross-presentations (which means that everyone presents someone else's slides). Peipei and Xiang presented.
June 7
Weiji co-organized the Computational Neuroscience Symposium of the joint Training Programs in Computational Neuroscience.
Jun-Jul
Weiji participated in a faculty mentorship course organized by Yael Niv and Laura Murray.
May 28
Heiko Schütt and Hsin-Hung Li presented in the Center for Neural Science Lab Talks.
May 26
Weiji organized and spoke in the 2021 Teaching Symposium for the Department of Psychology. Recording (NYU login required)
May 25
Weiji participated in "Meet the professors" at the virtual meeting of the Vision Sciences Society.
May 21
Ionatan and Weiji presented about the Scientist Action and Advocacy Network for the Science and Education Policy Association, a joint group between Weill Cornell Medical School, Rockefeller University and Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center.
May 17 and 24
Weiji gave a talk and a Growing up in Science session at the Max Planck Institute Tuebingen.
Apr 15 - May 6
Weiji was the co-organizer and moderator of the Workshop on Race and Racism in Science, held by the Department of Psychology, the Center for Neural Science, and the Department of Biology.
Apr 30
Luisa presented in the CNS Undergraduate Research Festival. The title of her talk was "An empirical measure of procrastination and the intention-behavior gap".
Apr 14
The lab had one CogSci abstract accepted as a poster and two as talks. Congrats all!
Apr 7
Qixiu Fu (recent lab alumna) accepted an offer to join the Neuroscience Ph.D. Program at Mount Sinai Icahn School of Medicine. Congratulations, Qixiu!
Mar 11
Weiji gave a Growing up in Science talk at Maastricht University, organized by the Maastricht Young Academy.
Mar 3
A goat visited our lab meeting. Invite one too.
Mar 1
Weiji was a panelist in the Science Communication and Activism Career Panel organized by Biomedical Graduate Studies and the Immunology Graduate Student Association at the University of Pennsylvania.
Feb 24
Weiji was the organizer and moderator of a mini-symposium at the Cosyne 2021 conference on the role of race and racism in science. Video here.
Feb 24-25
Weiji gave a scientific talk and a Growing up in Science talk in the Department of Cognitive Science at Central European University.
Feb 5
Xiang gave his fourth-year talk in the Cognition and Perception miniconvention.
Jan 22
It was announced that Weiji was awarded the Jeffrey L. Elman Prize 2021 for scientific achievement and community building by the Cognitive Science Society.
Jan 21
Weiji was the inaugural guest in the Psych Mic podcast by Maya Metser.
Jan 15
Weiji spoke at UCLA's Cognitive Psychology Forum.
Jan 11
Weiji spoke at Stanford's Center for Mind, Brain, Computation, and Technology Seminar.


2020

Dec 18
Daisy gave her first-year talk at the Center for Neural Science, on the components of complex planning.
Dec 15 and 17
The lab did a mini-symposium on complex planning with the labs of Chris Baldassano, Nathaniel Daw, Cate Hartley, Tom Griffiths, Daeyeol Lee, Sanjay Manohar, and Marcelo Mattar.
Nov 19
Andra Mihali and Joshua Calder Travis presented Visual search with heterogeneous distractors, based on their recent preprints The psychophysics of visual search with heterogeneous distractors and Explaining the effects of distractor statistics in visual search. Video recording | Slides Andra | Slides Joshua
Oct 20
Weiji gave a scientific talk and a Growing up in Science talk at Seoul National University.
Sep 23
The Computational Cognitive Science laboratories in the Department of Psychology (Gureckis, Hartley, Lake, Ma, and Rehder) held a (remote) joint data blitz. We did cross-presentations, in that everyone presents someone else's slides.
Sep 1
Qixiu Fu, who was an undergraduate researcher in our lab, started a research assistantship in the lab of Xiaosi Gu at Mount Sinai School of Medicine. Best of luck!
Sep 1
Aspen Yoo, who was a PhD student and then a postdoc in our lab, started a postdoc in the lab of Anne Collins at UC Berkeley. Best of luck!
Sep 1
Dongqi Bao, who was a postbac researcher and lab manager in our lab, started her PhD in the lab of Todd Hare at the University of Zurich. Best of luck!
Sep 1
Yichen Li, who was an undergraduate researcher in our lab, started her PhD in the labs of Joshua Greene and Tomer Ullman at Harvard University. Best of luck!
Aug 15
CNS students Daisy Lin and Sam Zheng started their rotations in our lab. Welcome!
Aug 09
Gallatin undergraduate student Sammy Tavassoli joined the lab. She will be doing a meta-project to compare storytelling in science and literature. Welcome!
Jul 30-Aug 1
Jenn, Anne, and Peipei each presented a poster at the virtual conference of the Cognitive Science Society.
Jul 22
CNS undergraduate student Luisa Leonelli joined the lab. She will be working with Peipei on procrastination. Welcome!
Jul 22
Wei Ji co-organized a Growing up in Science conversation with Angela Saini, author of Superior: the return of race science. More information here.
Jul 10
Wei Ji attended an online Growing up in Science panel discussion on mentorship as a panelist. More information here.
Jul 9
Carolina successfully defended her thesis "On altruism: a behavioral study". Congratulations!
Jul 6
Edgar Walker gave an online research talk about his paper A neural code for probabilistic computation in visual cortex. Slides | Video
Jun 25
Dongqi Bao and several other students from China published a Neuroscience/Cognitive Science PhD Application Guide (in Chinese). It includes experiences and advice about early-stage preparation, finding research positions abroad, networking, choosing programs, preparing materials, interviewing, etc.
Jun 24
We held Part 2 of a tutorial in Bayesian Statistics: Parameter estimation and practice, presented by Gianni Galbiati. Part 2 covered Bayesian parameter estimation with a practical emphasis. The first section briefly covered parameter estimation as a statistical paradigm for scientific inference and software options for doing it in Python. The second section was a hands-on tutorial using PyMC3 to complete analyses in worksheets. Video
Jun 17
We held Part 1 of a tutorial in Bayesian Statistics: Basics and Bayes factors, presented by Ronald van den Berg. Part 1 reviewed frequentist hypothesis testing (based on p values) and contrasted this approach with Bayesian hypothesis testing (using Bayes factors). Basic concepts of Bayesian statistics were reviewed (posteriors, priors, etc) and several standard hypothesis tests were discussed from both the frequentist and Bayesian perspective, including correlation, t-test, and ANOVA. Video
Jun 10
With Mina Cikara, Nancy Padilla, and Yael Niv, Weiji co-organized and co-hosted a Growing up in Science and ScAAN workshop on anti-racism allyship in science. Documentation here.
Jun 1
Benjamin Peters and Weiji hosted a Virtual Journal Club on their preprint A neural network walks into a lab. Target audience: cognitive scientists and neuroscientists interested in exploring whether and how deep neural networks could become good models of behavior. Video
May 27
Anne Churchland and Weiji hosted a virtual Growing up in Science event in collaboration with the Neuromatch conference. They told their life and career stories. Crowdcast link to follow.
May 12
Peipei presented in the decision-making joint lab meeting of the Institute for the Study of Decision-Making.
May 7-8
Qixiu Fu presented in NYU's Undergraduate Research Conference. Watch and comment here.
May 7
Weiji co-organized and co-hosted (with Yael Niv and Celia Ford) the second Growing up in Science Online Open Forum, with the theme "feeling apathetic about research. Video of the meeting
May 4
Hsin and Weiji hosted a virtual journal club on Li and Ma (2020). Video | Slides
Apr 24
Weiji co-organized and co-hosted (with Yael Niv) the first Growing up in Science Online Open Forum.
Apr 24
Weiji spoke in the NYU Psychology Masters Program Research Conference.
Apr 17
Weiji spoke in a virtual symposium Problems in neural and cognitive computation, organized by the Intitiave for the Theoretical Sciences at the CUNY Graduate Center.
Apr 16
Weiji won one of the Golden Dozen Teaching Awards from NYU's College of Arts and Sciences.
Apr 3
Weiji (with Daryl Fougnie) hosted a virtual journal club on Honig, Ma, Fougnie (2020). About 130 people attended! Video
Mar 30
Ionatan won a Graduate Research Fellowship from the National Science Foundation. Congratulations!
Feb 28-29
Weiji gave an invited lecture and a Growing up in Science seminar at the Computational and Systems Neuroscience conference in Denver, CO.
Feb 26
Weiji gave an invited lecture in the Department of Psychology at Princeton University.
Feb 24
Weiji gave an invited lecture in the Department of Psychology at Columbia University.
Feb 21
Aspen and Ionatan presented in the Center for Neural Science Lab Talks seminar series.
Feb 17
Weiji teamed up with Aaron Duffy to teach a guest lecture about illusions, inference, and a better society in Yael Niv's freshman seminar at Princeton University.
Jan 22, 2020
Weiji gave a Growing up in Science seminar at Weill Cornell Medicine.
Jan 16-17, 2020
Weiji, Bas, and Ionatan visited Oxford University, where Weiji spoke about human planning in large state spaces and gave a Growing up in Science seminar the next day.
Jan 15, 2020
Weiji, Bas, and Ionatan visited the Gatsby Computational Neuroscience Unit at University College London, where Weiji spoke about human planning in large state spaces and gave a Growing up in Science seminar.
Jan 14, 2020
Weiji, Bas, Ionatan, and Jake visited Google DeepMind, where Weiji spoke about human planning in large state spaces.
Jan 13, 2020
Weiji, Bas, and Ionatan visited Peak Brain Training in London, a company with whom we are collaborating to collect mobile game data.


2019

Dec 11
Weiji spoke in the Minds and machines event at NYU.
Dec 10
Ionatan gave his CNS first-year talk, on human planning in four-in-a-row.
Dec 3
Weiji spoke in the Scholars Lecture Series at NYU, a lecture series primarily for undergraduates in the Presidential Honors Scholars Program.
Nov 7
Peipei gave her CNS third-year talk, on factors affecting procrastination, with a reinforcement learning model.
Nov 21
Weiji spoke in Behind the CV: Stories from Faculty (a 'Growing Up in Science' event) at the University of Pennsylvania.
Nov 17
We said goodbye to Jenn Lee, who will start a job at the data science branch of Employment and Social Development Canada, while continuing her PhD.
Nov 15-17
The lab participated in the Center for Neural Science retreat.
Nov 7
Jenn gave her CNS third-year talk, on representational constraints on Bayesian perceptual reasoning.
Nov 7
Weiji gave the Cognition and Perception Seminar.
Oct 16-17
Weiji gave the Millward Colloquium at Brown University, and led a Growing up in Science session.
Oct 10-13
We went on lab retreat in Shelter Island, NY. This was the fourth lab retreat.
Sep 27
Xiang presented at Cognition & Perception Program's 40th Annual Miniconvention.
Sep 24
Weiji gave the Social Psychology Brown Bag seminar.
Sep 20
The lab participated in the global climate strike.
Sep 17-20
Marie Chancel, a postdoc working on body ownership with Henrik Ehrsson at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, visited the lab.
Sep 13-16
Heiko, Ionatan, Jenn, Peipei, Xiang, Yichen, and Weiji attended the Cognitive Computational Neuroscience meeting in Berlin, and each presented a poster. Weiji moderated a breakout session on tasks to compare human and artificial intelligence.
Sep 9
Former postdoc Luigi Acerbi visited and gave a workshop on model fitting, in particular the BADS algorithm.
Sep 6
Aspen successfully defended her dissertation! Congratulations!
Sep 1
Weiji started as Director of Undergraduate Studies for the Department of Psychology. He will fill this role for one year.
Aug 30
Yichen was admitted as an undergraduate trainee to NYU's Training Program in Computational Neuroscience. Congratulations!
Aug 30
Dongqi (Sherry) Bao joined the lab. She will be a research assistant and lab manager. She got her Masters from ETH Zurich in Computational Biology and Bioinformatics. Welcome!
Aug 29
We said goodbye to Anne-Lene Sax, who was a visiting PhD student this summer and will continue as a collaborator.
Aug 23
Peipei, who has side aspirations as a documentary film maker, made a short film about a day in her life in the lab and in New York. Prospective students can also get a sense of our lab.
Aug 20
We said goodbye to Jake Topping, Aditi Singh, and Angela Joseph. Aditi worked in the lab for two years as a high school student and will now start college at Princeton. Jake and Angela were summer visitors.
Jul 24-27
Jenn, Yichen, Xiang, Peipei, and Weiji attended the Cognitive Science Society meeting in Montreal, with the first three presenting. This was the first time the lab attended the CogSci meeting and we really liked it.
Jul 17
Qixiu Fu, an NYU undergraduate in Psychology, joined the lab for her Honors project. She will work on a sequential planning task. Welcome!
Jul 16-17
Aspen Yoo spoke in the workshop The dynamics and limitations of working memory in the Computational Neuroscience 2019 conference in Barcelona.
Jul 1
Jake Topping and Angela Joseph joined the lab for the summer. Jake is a soon-to-be PhD student in Statistics at Oxford University, and Angela is a high school student from New York. Welcome!
Jun 29
Wei Ji gave a tutorial about Bayesian modeling of behavior and led a Growing up in Science session at the Sloan-Nomis Summer School on Cognitive Foundations of Economic Behavior in Vitznau, Switzerland.
Jun 27
Wei Ji spoke briefly about his research and then led a Growing up in Science session for Growing up in Science Zürich.
Jun 10
Anne-Lene Sax joined the lab for the summer. She is a PhD student in Psychology at the University of Bristol. Welcome!
Jun 4
Edgar Walker (joint student between Andreas Tolias and Weiji) defended his PhD at Baylor College of Medicine, on encoding and decoding in primary visual cortex. He is already a postdoc in the lab of Fabian Sinz at the University of Tübingen. Congratulations, Edgar!
Jun 3
This summer, Yichen will be doing research in the lab of Sam Gershman at Harvard.
Jun 3
Wei Ji organized the third annual NYU Computational Neuroscience Symposium.
May 24
We held a lab reunion in New York, with 9 current and 12 former lab members attending.
May 17-22
Aspen, Heiko, Andra, Joshua, and Yichen presented at the annual meeting of the Vision Sciences Society in St. Pete Beach, Florida.
May 4
Wei Ji co-hosted the Scientist Action and Advocacy Network table at the March for Science NYC Science Expo.
May 3
Yichen spoke at NYU's Undergraduate Research Conference.
May 2
Jenn was the organizer and moderator of the Scientist Action and Advocacy Network panel discussion on animal experimentation. RSVP here.
Apr 26
Wei Ji spoke in the Workshop on Natural Environments, Tasks, and Intelligence at UT Austin.
Apr 12
Wei Ji spoke in the Neurotheory seminar at Columbia University.
Apr 29
We said goodbye to Andra Mihali, who did her Ph.D. and a short postdoc in the lab. She is starting a new postdoc in the lab of Guillermo Horga at Columbia University. All the best, Andra!
Mar 13
Jenn spoke in the Science and Policy Symposium at Columbia University, co-organized by Women in Science at Columbia.
Mar 7-13
Aditi participated in the Regeneron Science Talent Search 2019 Finals Week competition in Washington D.C. The title of her project was "Descriptive and normative accounts of color localization performance in visual short-term memory".
Mar 5
Wei Ji spoke at the workshop Neural representations and coding under resource limitations at Cosyne 2019.
Mar 2
Edgar presented a poster at Cosyne 2019.
Mar 1
The lab, Growing up in Science, and the Scientist Action and Advocacy Network were featured in the "Lab work" section of the APA Monitor. The profile was written by science writer and neuroscience PhD Chris Palmer.
Feb 28
Wei Ji gave a tutorial on Bayesian modeling of behavior at Cosyne 2019. Jenn was a teaching assistant. Find the slides, exercises, and answers to exercises here.
Feb 23
Xiang spoke in the Sloan-Nomis 2019 Workshop on the Cognitive Foundations of Economic Behavior at NYU.
Feb 6
Wei Ji spoke in the "Teaching at the Tap Room" discussion series organized by NYU's Center for the Advancement of Teaching.
Feb 5
Abstracts by Aspen, Andra, Heiko, Joshua, and Yichen were accepted for the Vision Sciences Society 2019 conference.
Jan 23-26
Lab retreat in Shelter Island!
Jan 23
Aditi Singh, a high school student doing research in the lab with Andra, was selected as a top 40 finalist in the Regeneron Science Talent Search 2019. The title of her project was "Descriptive and normative accounts of color localization performance in visual short-term memory".

2018

Dec 7
Wei Ji moderated a Minisymposium on Diversity and Inclusion in Science, part of the Growing up in Science series.
Nov 30
Wei Ji moderated a Growing up in Science session with guest Rui Costa, at Columbia University, organized by the Columbia University Postdoc Society. Announcement.
Nov 26
Heiko Schütt was awarded a postdoc grant by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft. Congratulations, Heiko!
Nov 21-22
Wei Ji gave a lecture and a Growing up in Science session at the Centre for Neuroscience Studies at Queens University.
Nov 19
Yichen won a Dean's Undergraduate Research Fellowship. Congratulations, Yichen!
Nov 15
Wei Ji delivered the keynote lecture and led a Growing up in Science session at the OPAM conference in New Orleans.
Nov 10
Wei Ji and Jenn Lee gave a workshop on the ScAAN model of scientist-nonprofit partnerships at the National Science Policy Symposium in New York. #NSPNSymposium18
Oct 29
Bas van Opheusden successfully defended his PhD thesis, titled "Complex decision-making". Congratulations, Bas!
Oct 26
Wei Ji led a Growing up in Science session at the Zuckerman Institute at Columbia University, organized by the Columbia University Postdoctoral Society.
Oct 26
Wei Ji led a Growing up in Science session as part of the Professional Development in the Sciences course for first-year graduate students and postdocs in NYU's Department of Chemistry.
Oct 1
Heiko Schütt joined the lab as a postdoc, also working with Niko Kriegeskorte at Columbia University. Heiko did his PhD at the University of Tübingen with Felix Wichmann. Welcome, Heiko!
Sep 25
Yichen Li, an undergraduate majoring in math and computer science at NYU, joined the lab. Welcome, Yichen!
Sep 21
Wei Ji spoke in the Current Work in Behavior, Genetics and Neuroscience seminar series at Yale University, and led a Growing up in Science session.
Sep 13
Joshua Calder-Travis joined the lab as a visiting PhD student from Oxford University. Welcome, Joshua!
Aug 27
Xiang Li joined the lab as a PhD student. His bachelors was from Beijing University. Welcome, Xiang!
Aug 24
Jenn Lee moderated a panel discussion about diversity and identity in science, part of the Growing up in Science mentorship series.
Aug 23
Wei Ji spoke at the symposium celebrating the 30th anniversary of the Methods in Computational Neuroscience summer school at the Marine Biology Laboratory in Woods Hole.
Aug 3
With Colin Bredenberg, Weiji hosted a "Science and Advocacy Jeopardy" at the Science and Society happy hour organized by the March for Science NYC, part of the "Pregame your brain" series held at Caveat.
Jul 11
Wei Ji gave a lecture and a Growing up in Science session at the Computational Neuroscience: Vision summer school at Cold Spring Harbor.
Jul 8
Wei Ji gave a workshop titled "Pro-bono science: How ordinary scientists can team up with non-profits to directly influence social and environmental policy" about the ScAAN model at the 2018 March for Science "S|GNS" Summit in Chicago.
Jul 4
Wei Ji lectured in the Sloan-Nomis Summer School on the Cognitive Foundations of Economic Behavior.
May 10
Andra presented a poster at the Annual Meeting of the Society for Biological Psychiatry.
May 4
Wei Ji received the Iakobachvili Faculty Science Award and gave a lecture Do people think like computers?.
Apr 26
Will received the NYU President's Service Award for founding and leading ScAAN.
Apr 25
Will published a piece about ScAAN in Scientific American Observations.
Apr 19
Aspen gave her fourth-year talk for the Cognition and Perception PhD program.
Apr 18
Jenn and Weiji spoke about ScAAN in the NYU Science Diplomacy workshop.
Apr 14
Weiji spoke about Raise the Age NY and the Scientist Action and Advocacy Network at the March for Science NYC.
Apr 13
Weiji appeared in a video titled Illusions for a better society for TED2018, directed by Aaron Duffy and his team at SpecialGuest.
Apr 9
Andra defended her Ph.D. thesis, titled Measures and models of covert visual attention in neurotypicals and ADHD.
Mar 13
Aditi won the "Exceptional Accomplishment in Behavioral Science” Achievement Award at the Westchester Engineering and Science Fair.
Feb 26
This month, we said goodbye to Zahy Bnaya, Maija Honig, and Zeming Fang (will continue as a PhD student with Chris Sims at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute).
Feb 23-24
Weiji was a discussant in the Sloan-Nomis 2018 Workshop on Attention and Choice.
Feb 7
Jenn Lee and Weiji gave four guest lectures about the brain in the Career Day of North Star Academy in Newark, NJ.
Feb 3
Aditi Singh, lab member and high school student, presented the poster Measures and mathematical models of color memory at the Westchester-Rockland Junior Science and Humanities Symposium held at John Jay High School in Cross River, NY. Andra and Weiji volunteered as poster judges.


2017

Dec 15
Will Adler successfully defended his PhD thesis, Computational mechanisms of human confidence reports.
Nov 11
Wei Ji spoke at the Interdisciplinary Metacognition and Uncertainty Meeting held at the CUNY Graduate Center.
Oct 27
This month, we said goodbye to Luigi Acerbi (will continue as a postdoc with Alex Pouget) and Paul Gucik (will apply to PhD programs).
Oct 24
Will and the Scientist Action and Advocacy Network were featured in the Monitor on Psychology, under "10 Trends to watch in psychology: psychologists are standing up for science".
Oct 13-15
Weiji spoke in the inaugural symposium of the Sloan-Nomis program on Attentional and Perceptual Foundations of Economic Behavior.
Oct 10
Andra and Weiji taught Neuroscience Outreach Group at NYU guest lessons at Crossroads Juvenile Detention Center.
Sep 30
This month, we said goodbye to Long Ni (will continue as a research assistant in China) and Angelo Pennati (will continue as an undergraduate at NYU, with a special interest in the intersection of science and art).
Sep 29
Will and Weiji were featured in SfN members inspire lawmakers to become neuroscience champions.
Sep 29
Weiji was a braiNY volunteer at a neuroscience outreach event at Caveat, a geeky bar on the Lower East Side.
Sep 28
Weiji was a panelist at the orientation meeting of NYU Neuwrite.
Sep 27
Will and Jenn presented at the orientation meeting of Scientist Action and Advocacy Network.
Sep 23
Wei Ji was the moderator and Will a panelist at a panel discussion Science and the public at the CNS Retreat in Mohonk.
Sep 7
Wei Ji gave a tutorial "Modeling of behavior" at the Cognitive Computational Neuroscience conference. Download his slides here: Keynote (62 MB) | PDF (17 MB).
Sep 6-8
Hsin, Mingyu, and Emin gave talks at the inaugural Conference on Cognitive Computational Neuroscience. Andra, Aspen, Bas, Long, Luigi, Maija, Wei Ji, Will, Yanli, Zahy, and Zhiwei presented posters.
Sep 1
Weiji's article The stories behind a CV, on the Growing up in Science series appeared in Science! See also pointers to get your own series started.
Aug 14
Wei Ji and all other main speakers at the upcoming Conference on Cognitive Computational Neuroscience conference answered some thought-provoking questions from the organizers. Check the answers out here.
Aug 14
As part of Regional Hill Day of the Society for Neuroscience, Will and Wei Ji visited the office of U.S. Senator Kirsten Gillibrand to advocate for science funding. Will is an Early-Career Policy Ambassador of the Society for Neuroscience.
Jul 10
The lab and friends held a Science/Dance workshop with a group of modern dancers who were previously involved in The Brain Piece. It consisted of demonstrations of psychophysics experiments and illusions, 15 blitz talks about neuroscience, a movement workshop, and dinner together. Schedule.
June 30
Abstracts by Andra, Aspen, Bas, Emin, Hsin, Long, Luigi, Maija, Mingyu, Rachel, Ronald, Will, Yanli, Zahy, and Zhiwei got accepted for the inaugural Conference on Cognitive Computational Neuroscience, to be held Sep 6-8 at Columbia University.
June 30
This month, we said goodbye to several lab members: Yunqi Li (will be a PhD student at Stanford), Gianni Galbiati (will do the Insight AI Fellowship), and Zhenyu Zhu (will continue as an undergraduate at NYU Shanghai).
June 28-Jul 1
The Brain Piece, an interactive dance performance by Jody Oberfelder, premiered at New York Live Arts. Weiji was a neuroscience consultant (and occasional extra) since its inception (2014). Preview in the NY Times.
June 16
Weiji co-organized (with Xiao-Jing Wang) the first NYU Computational Neuroscience Symposium, which featured faculty speakers as well as trainees of the Training Program in Computational Neuroscience. Yunqi was one of the speakers.
June 13
Bas presented a poster at the Conference on Reinforcement Learning and Decision-Making.
June 9
Weiji gave a guest lecture about perception as inference to two AP Psychology classes at Stuyvesant High School.
May 30
Will, Jenn, and Weiji co-organized a symposium "The role of science in criminal justice reform" for the Scientist Action and Advocacy Network. Will and Jenn also spoke.
May 22
Weiji gave a tutorial about Bayesian modeling at the Vision Sciences Society conference. Tutorial notes are here.
May 19-22
Aspen, Andra, and our collaborator Tommy Sprague each presented a poster at the Vision Sciences Society conference. Long presented a poster from his earlier work. Yanli, our collaborator Rachel Denison, and Weiji each gave a talk. Our collaborator Janneke Jehee received the Young Investigator Award!
April 22
On Earth Day, many lab members participated in the March for Science, some in Washington D.C. Will presented his organization, the Scientist Action and Advocacy Network, during a "teach-in" preceding the march.
Feb 23-26
Yunqi, Bas, Luigi, and our collaborator Elyse Norton each presented a poster at the Cosyne 2017 meeting. Weiji held a Growing up in Science event. Our collaborator Rachel Denison gave a talk.
Feb 20
Weiji spoke at Columbia Teachers College, in the Neuroscience and Education lecture series for Masters students.


2016

Dec 13
Weiji spoke about the neural basis of probabilistic inference at the Harvard Center for Brain Science. He also led a Growing up in Science session.
Dec 2-6
The lab went on a writing retreat in Shelter Island!
Nov 16
Weiji gave workshops about attention and perception at the Career Day of North Star Academy, a college preparatory high school in Newark, New Jersey.
Oct 27
Bas and Will both gave Third-Year Talks (Neuroscience Ph.D. Program).
Oct 20
Weiji gave the Neuroeconomics Seminar at the University of Zurich. He also led a Growing up in Science session.
Oct 17
Weiji spoke in the "Workshop on Uncertainty and Action" at the Royal Society at Chicheley Hall.
Oct 10
Yanli presented in the Decision-Making Joint Lab Meeting.
Sep 30
Aspen gave a Second-Year Talk (Cognition and Perception Ph.D. Program).
Sep 14
Will gave a talk at the Open House of the Neuroscience Ph.D. Program.
Aug 8
Ronald van den Berg (former postdoc) and Weiji gave talks about visual working memory at the Mathematical Psychology conference.
Aug 6
Zahy presented a poster on human reasoning in games at the International Conference on Thinking (work with Bas and Gianni).
Jul 29
Zhenyu Zhu presented his summer research on the neural implementation of Bayesian integration in the Summer Undergraduate Research Program symposium at the Center for Neural Science.
Jul 22
Weiji gave a tutorial about Bayesian modeling of perception and held a Growing up in Science" event at the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Computational Neuroscience: Vision course.
Jun 30
Bas gave a talk on human reasoning in games at the Computers and Games conference (work with Zahy and Gianni).
May 27
Weiji gave a talk at the Columbia University Attention and Decision group meeting.
May 17-18
Aspen presented a poster on probabilistic orientation change detection at the Vision Sciences Society meeting (work with Luigi). Maija presented a poster on uncertainty in color working memory (work with Daryl Fougnie).
May 27
Weiji gave a talk at the conference The representation of value and economic choice at Columbia University.
Apr 22
Weiji gave a talk about human decision-making in games in the Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences at MIT (work with Bas, Gianni, and Zahy).
Mar 17
Weiji gave a lecture about perceptual illusions, gave a lecture about decision-making in games, held a Growing up in Science" event, and gave a tutorial about Bayesian modeling of perception at NYU Shanghai. Tutorial notes.
Jan 18
Weiji gave a public lecture about visual illusions at Studium Generale Groningen: Announcement and video recording.
Jan 15
Weiji gave a public performance lecture about visual illusions at the Merchant House in Amsterdam: Announcement.
Jan 14
Weiji spoke about cognitive decision-making at the Donders Institute at Radboud University Nijmegen: Announcement. He also led a "Growing up in Science" event.
Jan 13
Weiji spoke about cognitive decision-making at the University of Amsterdam: announcement. He also led a a "Growing up in Science" event.

2015

14 Dec
Weiji spoke at the Center for Perceptual Science at UT Austin. He also led a "Growing up in Science" event.
10 Dec
Stuart Jackson successfully defended his thesis!
3 Dec
Weiji spoke at the NYU workshop "Is the brain Bayesian?"
26 Nov
We are pleased to introduce a new website! Please bear with us while we finish polishing.
24 Nov
Maija presented a poster at the "Object Perception, Attention, and Memory" (OPAM) conference in Chicago (work with Daryl Fougnie).
19 Nov
Andra gave her third-year talk to the CNS department.
15 Nov
Bas, Will, Aspen, and Stuart presented posters at the CNS retreat. Luigi gave a chalk talk on Bayesian model fitting. Weiji, with Andre Fenton, led a workshop on neuroscience outreach.
25 Oct
Stuart and Carolina presented posters at the Society for Neuroscience meeting.
17 Oct
Weiji gave a talk at the Fall Vision Meeting of the Optical Society of America in San Jose, CA. He also led a "Growing up in Science" event.
13 Oct
Weiji gave a talk in the Physics Department at Rockefeller University.
25 Sep
Bas and Carolina presented posters at the Conference of the Society of Neuroeconomics.
1 Sep
The lab went to Princeton for a joint retreat with the labs of Yael Niv and Jonathan Pillow. Many of us gave a talk, some in cross-presentation format (presenting someone else's work, after joint preparation).
19 Aug
Weiji gave a talk in the SAMSI CCNS workshop. He also led a "Growing up in Science" event.
12 Aug
The videos of the David Knill Memorial Symposium at the Vision Sciences Society conference are now on Youtube. They give an overview of Dave's many contributions to vision and decision science, from ideal-observer models of visual depth to motion perception in V1-damaged patients. Slides are here.
20 Jul
Weiji collaborates on (and participates in) Jody Oberfelder's "Dance of the neurons"
4 Jul
We are introducing our new lab seal, a variant of the NYU seal. Will and Luigi did most of the work. Note the psychophysics laptop in the image. The Latin phrase "Homines stercus nesciunt" means "People don't know shit", an appropriate motto if you work in science.
25 Jun
Wei Ji gave a tutorial on modeling behavioral experiments at the Summer Institute in Cognitive Neuroscience. Click here for the lecture notes. He also led a "Growing up in science" event.
03 Jun
Weiji gave a Psychology Colloquium at Stanford University on "Decision-making in combinatorial games". He also led a "Growing up in science" event.
30 May
Weiji published an article on Chessbase.com, about the possible origins of gender gaps in chess, based on recent work by Andrei Cimpian and Sarah-Jane Leslie.
29 May
Luigi presented a poster on auditory-visual causal inference at the Janelia Research Campus workshop "Combining information from multiple modalities". Weiji gave a talk introducing causal inference in a variety of multisensory illusions.