#  Previous MBB Graduate Student Awards 

 



   
**FALL 2023**  
  
Syed Rakin Ahmed (Biophysics, MGH)   
*Generating Clinically Actional AI Models for Brain Metastases Radiogenomics*  
  
Daniel Barabasi (Biophysics, GSAS)  
*Biophilia: A sci-art exhibit on biological and artificial assembly*  
  
Anna Gifty Opoku-Agyeman (Public Policy, HKS)  
*Sticky Stereotypes: Biased Belief-Updating and Observability*  
  
Hande Sevgi (Linguistics, GSAS)   
*Encoding Path and Manner in Space*  
  
  
**SPRING 2023**  
  
Grace Finley (Public Policy, HKS)   
*Group Engagement’s Role in the Efficacy of Group Trauma Interventions*  
  
Ankana Saha (Linguistics, GSAS)   
*2023 Linguistics Society of America Institute*  
  
Emma Smith (Public Policy, Econ, HKS)   
*Refugee Labor Response to Return Expectation Shocks*  
  
  
**FALL 2022**  
  
Sachet Bangia (HKS)  
*Air Purifiers and Worker Productivity, Health, and Cognition*  
  
Daria Bikina (Linguistics, GSAS)   
*Processing interpretable and uninterpretable agreement features in Russian: an experimental study*  
  
Blake Bordelon (SEAS)  
*Neuro-Theory Journal Club*  
  
Gabriella Fleischman (HKS)  
*Removal and Reclamation: Evidence from US Landmark Names*  
  
Shelby Hanna (Philosophy, GSAS) and Xavier Roberts-Gaal (Psychology, GSAS)  
*Compositionality in cognition reading group – the language of thought and its discontents*  
  
Avinash Moorthy (HKS)   
*Pilot Study of the Happiness Curriculum*  
  
Hayley Ross (Linguistics, GSAS)   
*Pronoun reference in crossover sentences*  
  
Jeffrey Yang (Economics, GSAS)  
*Noisy Cognition and the Decision Relevance of Subjective Beliefs*  
  
Tian Zeng (Human Evolutionary Biology, GSAS)   
*ANANSI: A Global Database of Folklore for Analyses of Psychological Variation and Universals in Narrative and Character Representation*  
  
  
**SPRING 2022**  
  
Michael Eber (Health Policy, GSAS)  
*Cognitive Noise in Stated Preference Valuation*  
  
Peter Hickman (Economics, GSAS)   
*Paternalism and Aid Among the Poor: Evidence from Kenya*  
  
Ankana Saha (Linguistics, GSAS)   
*North American Summer School for Logic, Language, and Information (NASSLLI)*  
  
Audrey Scagnelli (Public Administration, HKS)  
*Nonpharmacological Interventions for Dementia Care: The Impact of Sensory Stimulation Therapy on Dementia Patients and Caregivers*  
  
Yiou Wang (Architecture, HGSD)   
*Inverse Incarnation: Metempsychosis with Mouse Motion Capture on Human Avatars*  
  
  
**FALL 2021**  
  
Phoebe Cai (Economics, GSAS)  
*Memory and Political Polarization*  
  
Alice Heath (Public Policy, HKS) and Kelsey Pukelis (Public Policy, GSAS)  
*Stigma and the take-up of targeted benefits*  
  
Lucy Lai (Psychology, GSAS)  
*Policy compression in ADHD*  
  
Bo Liu (Psychology, GSAS)  
*One nose but two nostrils: how to align cortical odor representations on two sides of the brain*  
  
Emma Rackstraw (Public Policy, HKS)  
*Inaccurate Beliefs & Bias-Motivated Updating*  
  
Ke Wang (HKS)  
*Positive emotions and ethical decision-making: The case of gratitude and bending the rules*  
  
  
**SPRING 2021**  
  
Jenna Anders (Economics, GSAS)  
*Economic Conditions and Welfare Stigma*  
  
Arielle Bernhardt and Dev Patel (Economics, GSAS)  
*Beliefs and Adaptation to Climate Change*  
  
Shannon Bryant (Linguistics, GSAS)  
*Event Conceptualization and Coreference*  
  
Amar Sarkar (Human Evolutionary Biology, GSAS)  
*Folk Evolution and Folk Genetics: A Survey-Based Psychology Toward Intuitions and Misconceptions about Evolutionary Biology*  
  
  
**FALL 2020**  
  
Ariella Kristal (Organizational Behavior, HBS)  
*The Dark Side of Willpower: How and Why Lay Beliefs About Self-Control Shape Goal Achievement*  
  
Ayushi Narayan and Rodriguez-Padilla (Economics, GSAS)  
*Identity and Positional Preferences*  
  
Dev Patel and John Conlon (Economics, GSAS)  
*Stereotypes, Demand for Information, and College Major Choice*  
  
Ethan Wilcox (Linguistics, GSAS)  
*Reading Group*  
  
**SPRING 2020**  
  
Ghazal Jessani (Human Development, GSE)  
*Lyrical Music and Vocabulary*  
[Interview](https://drive.google.com/file/d/1A4nakVU-ENu9DmklVW-oesSZ8_PIoMR3/view?usp=sharing)  
  
Malinda McPherson (Speech and Hearing Bioscience and Technology, HMS)  
*Cross-Cultural Auditory Study*  
[Interview](https://drive.google.com/file/d/1UQHT77OCoTsNKN3WPn6a_qN2jLdZRcjt/view?usp=sharing)  
  
Steven Meisler (Speech and Hearing Biosciences and Technology (SHBT), HMS)  
*Music, Reading, and Language at the NeuroMusic VII Conference*  
[Interview](https://drive.google.com/file/d/1FkPHMzZtgNN8RbMm3b3UbhJBCuAvRc_d/view?usp=sharing)  
  
Graham Noblit (Human Evolutionary Biology, FAS)  
*Evolution of Ostracism*  
  
Arunima Sarin (Psychology, FAS)  
*Computational Social Cognition Group*  
  
Marius Vollberg (Psychology, FAS)  
*The Neural Basis of the Interplay Between Episodic Simulation and Emotion*  
  
Emily Walco (Human Evolutionary Biology, FAS)  
*Core Knowledge and Exploration in Bonobos*  
  
Anthony Yacovone (Psychology, FAS)  
*Investigating Linguistic Prediction in ASL*  
[Interview](https://youtu.be/Zg4v0L3A3PQ)  
  
**FALL 2019**  
  
Dana Boebinger (Medical Sciences, FAS)  
*Musae on the Brain at ARO Conference*  
[Interview](https://drive.google.com/file/d/1YeYdY6hdFlm3JCyHmo9pUqrDAfxPgvl0/view?usp=sharing)  
  
Peter Hickman and Brandon Tan (Economics, FAS)  
*Motivated Laziness: A Theory and Experiment*  
  
Ivan Kroupin (Psychology, FAS)  
*Interdisciplinary Lab Transfer and Cross-Cultural Fieldwork Experience*  
  
Leyla Tarhan (Psychology, FAS)  
*The Effects of Socio-Economic Status on the Development of the Visual System*  
[Interview](/file_url/670)  
  
Ethan Wilcox (Linguistics, FAS)  
*Climate Change & Linguistics Workshop*  
  
**SPRING 2019**  
  
Riley Carney (Government, FAS)  
*Reconsidering the Urban-Rural Divide: An Experimental Investigation into Political Orientation, Density, and Residential Selection*  
  
Joseph Coffey (Psychology, FAS)  
*PsychEd*  
  
Ze Hong (Human Evolutionary Biology, FAS)  
*Folk Epistemology and the Cultural Variation of Information Generating Methods*  
  
Saadia Sediqzadah (Health Policy and Management, HSPH  
*Cost-Effectiveness Analysis of Antipsychotic Treatment of Schizophrenia*  
  
Mattie Toma (Economics, FAS)  
*Does Selfless Reflection Lead to Selfless Behavior? Evidence from an Online Experiment*  
  
Ethan Wilcox (Linguistics, GSAS)  
*Presentation at "Blackbox NLP" at EMNLP 2018*  
  
**FALL 2018**  
  
Dániel Barabási (Biophysics, FAS)  
*CoSyNe Conference*  
  
Nina Begus (Comparative Literature, FAS)  
*Medical Procedures and Diagnoses Associated with Human Enhancement and Creation: A Literary Perspective*  
[Interview](https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Mqv9laXz8IInJLFNhpLPK3YD1szL1auj/view?usp=sharing)  
  
Ben Bellet (Psychology, FAS)  
*Prevalence-Induced Concept Change in Human Judgment of Traumatic Events*  
[Interview](https://youtu.be/_w5hjoSeO8A)  
  
Kevin Carney (Public Policy, HKS)  
*Time Preference and Demand for HIV Testing*  
  
Payton Jones (Psychology, FAS)  
*International Conference for Psychological Science*  
[Interview](https://youtu.be/SAlX8qd9bEE)  
  
Laura Lewis (Human Evolutionary Biology, FAS)  
*Ingroup-Outgroup Discrimination and Long-Term Recognition of Past Groupmates in Bonobos and Chimpanzees*  
[Interview](https://youtu.be/-lFVrHKhnAI)  
  
Joshua Martin (Linguistics, FAS)  
*European Summer School in Logic, Language and Information*  
  
Jayden Maya (MCB, FAS)  
*CoSyNe Conference*  
  
JohnMark Taylor (Psychology, FAS)  
*Using fMRI to Examine Orientation Representation in a Neuropsychological Case Study*  
  
Chris Umphres (Judgment and Decision Making, HKS))  
*Sunk costs in Social Contexts*  
  
**SPRING 2018**  
  
Colin Conwell (Psychology, FAS)  
*Eyes to the Horizon*  
  
Scott Delaney (Social and Behavioral Sciences, HSPH)  
*Family Function and the Brain*  
  
Ivan Kroupin (Psychology, FAS)  
*Dubrovnik Conference on Cognitive Science*  
  
Sibylla Leon Guerrero (Education, GSE)  
*Dynamic Neural States of Emerging Bilinguals in Learning and Rest*  
  
Javier Masis (Molecules, Cells and Organisms, FAS)  
*Diversity and Plasticity of Visual Processing Centers in the Jumping Spider*  
  
Laura Mesite (Human Development and Education, HGSE)  
*Neural Correlates of Speech Perception and Reading Processes in English Learners*  
  
Chanmo Park (Psychology, FAS)  
*A Mind/Body Unity Test for Diabetes: Suggesting A Psychological Treatment*  
  
Ethan Wilcox (Linguistics, FAS)  
*Can Neural Nets Learn Linguistic Dependencies?*  
  
Anna Yermakova (History of Science, FAS)  
*Open Forum towards PN15: Ephemera, Entropy, Infinity -- An Interdisciplinary Collaboration*  
  
**FALL 2017**  
  
Jack Cao (Psychology, FAS)  
*The Tension Between Accuracy and Fairness*  
  
Christopher Michael Celaya (Government, FAS)  
*The Efficacy of Deliberative Democracy*  
  
Maya Mathur (BioStatistics, HSPH)  
*Psychological Mechanisms of the ‘Uncanny Valley’ Phenomenon in Human-Robot Interaction*  
  
James Reisinger (Public Policy, HKS)  
*An Experimental Evaluation of the Effects of Atheist Messaging on Pro-Social Behavior*  
  
Kate Vredenburgh (Philosophy, FAS)  
*Cross-Disciplinary Research on Choice*

   
Jayden Robert Ziegler (Psychology, FAS)  
*Studying Linguistic Development in Children Using EEG*  
  
**SPRING 2017**  
  
Matt Lester Baum (Harvard-MIT Health Science & Technology & Neuroscience, HMS)  
*Neuroethics Conference*  
  
Rosie Caitlin Bettle (Human Evolutionary Biology, FAS)  
*Can Chimpanzees Use Human-Like Mentalising Skills to Enable Successful Cooperation*  
  
Ishita Dasgupta (Physics, FAS)  
*Cross-Disciplinary Experiences: Resource Rationality in Human Probabilistic Inference*  
  
Meirav Furth (Harvard Law School)  
*Unenforceable Terms in Consumer Contracts*  
  
Bernd Huber (Computer Science, FAS)  
*Parent Child Interaction Therapy Support*  
  
Sa-kiera Tiarra Jolynn Hudson (Psychology, FAS)  
*The Biology behind Social Dominance Orientation*  
  
Heidi Liu (Public Policy, HLS)  
*Bringing Support to Survivors’*  
  
Justin Warren Martin (Psychology, FAS)  
*Boston Area Moral Cognition Group*  
  
Maya Mathur (BioStatistics, HSPH)  
*APS Conference*  
  
Dakota McCoy (Organismic and Evolutionary Biology, FAS)  
*Game Theory, Thermoregulation, and the Evolution of Cooperation*  
  
Sana Rafiq (Economics/Public Policy, HKS)  
*Behavior Exchange 2017*  
  
Tyler Wooldridge (Organismic and Evolutionary Biology, FAS)  
*Using Reverse Genomics to Study the Evolution of Mammalian Behaviors*  
  
**FALL 2016**  
  
Gasper Begus (Linguistics, FAS)  
*Influences of Transmission and Learnability on Human Speech*  
  
Siobhan Greatorex-Voith (Sociology, FAS)  
*Integrating Genetics and the Social Sciences Conference*  
  
Joshua Jeong (Global Health and Population, HSPH)  
*Understanding the Role of Fathers in Their Young Children’s Care, Health, and Development: A Qualitative Study*  
  
Jennifer Kotler (Organismic and Evolutionary Biology, FAS)  
*An Interdisciplinary Perspective on Mother/Offspring Conflict in Humans*  
  
Thomas Pouncy (Psychology, FAS)  
*RLDM Conference*  
  
**SPRING 2016**  
  
Matt Lester Baum (Harvard-MIT Health Science & Technology & Neuroscience, HMS)  
*Neuroethics of Biomarkers*  
  
Jelena Borise (Linguistics, FAS)  
*Investigating the Interaction of Syntax and Prosody in Georgian*  
  
Scott Delaney (Social and Behavioral Sciences, HSPH)  
*Early-life Social Determinants of Amygdala Connectivity in the Generation R Study: Lab Visit for Training in Neuroimaging Data Collection and Processing*  
  
Charles Adam Dorison (Public Policy, HKS)  
*Emotion and Intertemporal Choice*  
  
Adrian Jinich (Systems Biology)  
*Increasing the Dimensionality of Color Space*  
  
Flora Jun Lin Or (Social and Behavioral Sciences, HSPH)  
*Difficulty of "Now": Behavioral Consequences of Depression*  
  
Pooja Paul (Linguistics, FAS)  
*What Do numbers Mean, Exactly?*  
  
Rachel Rene Romeo (Speech and Hearing Bioscience and Technology, Division of Medical Sciences)  
*Family Home Audio Recordings*  
  
Michelle Ashley Seliger-Schamberg (Education)  
*Martinos Center Freesurfer Workshop*  
  
Manasi Sharma (Social and Behavioral Sciences, HSPH)  
*A Mixed-Methods, Cross-Cultural, Social-Ecological Study of Individual, Family, and Community Risk and Protective Factors Mediating the Association Between Traumatic War Events and Mental Health Outcomes in Conflict-Affected Regions of Liberia and South Sudan*  
  
Manvir Singh (Human Evolutionary Biology, FAS)  
*The Social and Cognitive Foundations of Group-Functional Religion*  
  
Elaine Fruehauf Stranahan (Linguistics, FAS)  
*Effects of Working Memory Load and Speaker-Specific Knowledge on Semantic and Pragmatic Processing*  
  
Alexandra Urban (Mind, Brain, and Education, GSE)  
*Ideas in Education Festival*  
  
Jennifer Zuk (Public Policy, HKS)  
*Evaluating the Associations Between Music and Speech Production in Children with Musical Training and Speech Delays*  
  
**FALL 2015**  
  
Dakota McCoy (Organismic and Evolutionary Biology, FAS)  
*23rd International Conference on Comparative Cognition*  
  
Justin Martin (Psychology, FAS)  
*Boston Area Moral Cognition Group*  
  
Samuel Ronfard (Human Development and Education, GSE)  
*Between East and West: Preschooler’s Search for Corroborative Evidence in Belarus*  
  
Manvir Singh (Evolutionary Biology, FAS) and Samuel Mehr (Psychology, FAS)  
*The Natural History of Song*  
  
**2015**   
  
Samura Atallah (Public Policy, HKS)  
*The Motivational Tax Across Economic and Educational Domains When Women Feel Helpless in One Domain*  
  
Gasper Begus (Linguistics, FAS)  
*Linguistic Summer Institute 2015, University of Chicago: The Evolution of Language from Ecological Perspective by Prof. Salikoko Mufwene*  
  
Tina Chou (Psychology, FAS)  
*Neuromodulation of Mind-Wandering Using Transcranial Direct Current Stimulation*  
  
Yujing Huang (Linguistics, GSAS)  
*Testing Unaccusative Hypothesis Online: A Visual World Paradigm Study*  
  
Nam Wook Kim (Computer Science, SEAS)  
*Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI2015)*  
  
Benedek Kurdi (Psychology, GSAS)  
*New approaches to studying the acquisition of implicit attitudes (Jan De Houwer at Ghent University)*  
  
Justin Martin (Psycholoogy, GSAS)  
*Boston Area Moral Cognition Group*  
  
Alexander Prescott-Couch (Philosophy, GSAS)  
*Analyzing Social Wrongs*  
  
Morgan Shields (Social and Behavioral Sciences, HSPH)  
*Evaluating the interplay among organizational factors, staff-patient relationships, and patient satisfaction within acute psychiatric care wards: A mixed-methods approach.*