Jared Hotaling
Dr. Jared Hotaling is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Psychology at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. His research uses techniques from experimental psychology and computational modeling to develop and test theories of judgment and decision making.He is particularly interested in roles that attention, memory, and learning play in people’s choices. With this approach, Jared aims to situate decision making within the boarder context of cognition and bounded rationality. He earned his PhD in Cognitive Science and Psychology from Indiana University. Before arriving at UIUC, Jared spent time as a Research Scientist at the Center for Economic Psychology at the University of Basel, and as a postdoctoral fellow at the University of New South Wales.
Will Deng
Will is a PhD student in the cognitive division at UIUC. He is interested in both how people make complex decisions and in connection to how people perceive and remember about themselves and the rest of the world. As a result, he is interested in a combination of research methodologies such as behavioral research, computational modeling, and electrophysiology. The main goal of his research is to test and develop new cognitive theories and models that encompass a diverse population and linking perception, comprehension with decision making. In his free time, Will enjoys playing the Violin, working on his car, exploring local breweries, and refining his espresso-making techniques.
Babak Hemmatian
Babak received his bachelor’s degree in Clinical Psychology from University of Tehran, Iran, after which he obtained an M.S. in Computer Science and a Ph.D. in Cognitive Science from Brown University (2015-2021). He is currently a Beckman Postdoctoral Fellow at the Beckman Institute for Advanced Science and Technology. He studies how social information is internalized and negotiated with other community members, testing psychological theories with AI-aided text analysis, neuroimaging, and behavioral experiments. He is particularly interested in the causal and narrative frames for organizing and communicating information. His current project in collaboration with the CDM lab examines the relative persuasiveness of anecdotal vs. generalized arguments about hot-button topics, using controlled experiments and custom-designed neural networks for text analysis.
Jordan Navarro
Jordan is a first-year Ph.D. student working in the Department of Psychology at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. He is broadly interested in behavioral economics, decision-making, decision theory, game theory, judgment, logic, moral psychology, and neuroeconomics. He obtained a B.A. in both Cognitive Science and Philosophy from Carleton College. As an undergraduate, he worked in the Language and Cognition Research Lab under the supervision of Dr. Mija Van Der Wege.
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