Postdoctoral Students and Graduate Students

Director

HANAKO YOSHIDA, PH.D.

Dr. Yoshida is an Associate Professor in the Department of Psychology. Her central research focuses on language learning mechanisms creating highly specialized learning processes and the cognitive consequences of the language learning. The core idea behind her research is that these specialized learning processes are derived from domain-general mechanisms and the process involving the fine-tuning and contextual cueing of attention to aspects of the learning environment. Dr. Yoshida studies these processes by studying young children learning different language(s). Her work provides insight into questions of how early learning interacts with regularities in the world, and how this relation feeds into self-sustaining learning.

Curriculum Vitae of Dr. Hanako Yoshida

Areas: Cognitive development (word/language learning, bilingual cognition, cross-linguistic comparison with children's category learning)

yoshida@uh.edu

Postdoctoral Students and Graduate Students

LICHAO SUN

I am the first-year graduate student in the cognitive development lab. I am interested in the relationship between cognitive development and language learning. Specifically, I focus on the influences of dual/multi-language learning on cognitive flexibility and attention allocation during social interaction.

Curriculum Vitae of Lichao Sun

Graduate Student Alumni

JOSEPH BURLING

Joseph received his Ph.D. in Developmental Psychology (Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience Program) at the University of Houston in May 2015. Upon graduation, Joseph accepted a post-doctoral position at UCLA in the Computational Vision and Learning Lab. While at the lab, Joseph investigated cognitive factors that lead to the attentional development.

CRYSTAL TRAN

Crystal received her Ph.D. in Developmental Psychology (Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience Program) at the University of Houston in May 2015. She is an assistant professor of Psychology at University of St. Thomas.

BETH WOODS

Beth received her Ph.D. in Developmental Psychology (Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience Program) at the University of Houston in December 2013. She is an assistant professor of Psychology at Texas Lutheran University.

Research Assistants

AAKASH PATEL

My primary reason for joining the lab was to work with an active research group and engage in the practice of cognitive development. My research interests focus on brain development and attentiveness during learning. I am eager to learn about cognitive simulations and modeling to help provide insight on early learning.

MEGAN WHELEN

I joined the Cognitive Development Lab in order to further my understanding of what goes into research in psychology. I hope to go to graduate school for Clinical Psychology, where I will be trained as both a clinician and researcher, and with the experience I gain here I can go into it with extensive experience in the research process. I also look forward to learning about cognitive development and broadening my knowledge within the field of psychology.

VINCE BUI

Spurred by a fascination of the process of word-learning in children, I joined the Cognitive Development Lab. As a research assistant, I hope to gain practical experience as I learn more about the language development in children. I am particularly interested in the means children comprehend and form sentences. In the future, I plan to apply my experience and understanding of children as I head to medical school, specializing in pediatrics.

LAURA LAY

I joined the UH Cognitive Development Lab in hopes of getting hands-on experience in research. I am interested in the pediatrics side of the medical field, so being part of the Cognitive Development Lab is not only a way for me to learn more about cognitive science, but is also an opportunity for me to work with children. My research interests include learning about how maternal depression affects word learning and how autistic children learn.

CAROLYN NGUYEN

I joined the Cognitive Development Lab because I was interested in how the visual search performance of children is connected to their early learning. I hope to gain valuable research experience and learn more about what contributes to children's word learning. As an aspiring optometrist, I believe the knowledge I gain will deepen my understanding of vision and its impact on cognitive development..

KARINA GEORGE

My passion for education and interest in how early childhood moments impact long term success drove me to join the Cognitive Development Lab. I am excited to learn more about how different factors influence knowledge acquisition. As a research assistant, I hope to gain practical research experience and broaden my skills as well as gain more exposure to the psychology field.

K. KELLY MEINE

I am a senior majoring in Psychology with a minor in Quantitative Social Science. In addition to being a research assistant with the lab, I am also the website administrator. My research interests include how language is developed and processed in the brain, and how social factors affect cognitive development.

FRANCISCA (FRANKIE) TORRES

Passionate about understanding neurodevelopmental processes, I joined the Cognitive Development Lab to expand my practical experiences working in a research setting. Within my time at the lab, I plan on familiarizing myself with the equipment and methods used to analyze eye-gaze in children and to measure how it effects their learning. To support my interest in neurodevelopment, I aim to further comprehend the learning differences of typically-developing children to those identified with Autism Spectrum Disorders.

ZAINAB ARIF

I am currently a Junior majoring in Biology with minors in Psychology and Business Administration. I joined the UH Cognitive Development lab to further my understanding of child psychology and brain development. I want to pursue a career in Pediatric Neurology, and so getting experience working with children and discovering correlations between their behavior and developmental process would be valuable experience towards this long-term goal. This experience will also sharpen my understanding of the research process. I am particularly interested in how children process words and learn language and how that correlates with their social environment and interactions.

KEVIN DANG

I joined the Cognitive Development Lab because I was fascinated by neuroscience and language acquisition in children. In this research lab, I hope to apply the scientific method, obtain invaluable research experience, and learn more about the psychological and biological processes involved in language acquisition in children. I am interested in how skills such as attention, visual processing, and gestures affect word learning. As an aspiring pediatrician, I hope the beneficial experience that I acquire from this lab will enhance my knowledge of cognitive and language development.

ZAINUB MALLICK

I joined the Cognitive Development lab under Dr. Yoshida because I plan to pursue a career in researching ABA therapy in relation to children with ASD. The work done here in the lab appealed to my interest in languages as well as cognitive development. Spending time volunteering with kids at the Children's Assessment Center combined with my desire to research cognitive process in children on the spectrum pushed me to join this lab and partake in conducting the research it is doing. In the future, I hope to obtain a PsyD in Clinical Psychology, and conduct further research on learning styles and therapy types for children on the spectrum.

LILIANA RAMOS

As an undergraduate student pursuing a degree in Psychology with a minor in Sociology, research is very important to me. My ultimate goal is to attend graduate school and obtain a Ph.D in Psychology and I hope to become a professor and researcher at a university. My research interests revolve around personality psychology, developmental, and cognitive psychology. More specifically, how our personality develops over our lifespan and even how language affects our personality. I joined this lab because I am well aware of how crucial it is to have research experience and because it is a part of my research interests in the future.