Research Areas

I am interested in an historical understanding of how the molecular and electrophysiological study of cognition intersects with philosophical and cognitive science discourse on the nature of consciousness. I want to uncover how neuroscientific data embodies cultural values and the reciprocal relationship between basic experimental neuroscience outcomes and scholars’ approach to understanding how the mind makes sense of the world. I will ask how changing meanings of “normal” brain functioning shaped by evolving notions of how the brain encodes information and represents knowledge affects ideas about “abnormal” brain functioning in disease. My work will explore how our increasing reliance on neuro-explanations transformed the meanings of psychiatric and neurological disabilities in the 20th century U.S. I aim to understand how ideas from neuroscientific research on memory and perception intersect with computational models of the brain and shape our cultural perception of intelligence and the concept of the ideal human brain.