I am a postdoc at Dr. Tania Lombrozo's Concepts and Cognition Lab
at Princeton University. I study explanation, causal reasoning and categorical representation in adults and across development. I approach explanation both as a process and a product: I investigate cognitive consequences of engaging in explanation (process) and of producing different types of explanation, such as categorical, causal-mechanistic, teleological, mathematical, and structural, of different levels of complexity (product). My research on causal reasoning and structural explanation examines how acknowledging instability, or lack of robustness of causal and categorical relationships across background circumstances affects learning, inductive inference, language, and decision-making. I spend part of my time at UC Berkeley where I am running collaborative developmental projects with Dr. Alison Gopnik (Cognitive Development Lab) and Dr. Mahesh Srinivasan (Language and Cognitive Development Lab). In one of these active projects, I focus on the role of structural reasoning in representations of social categories, and examine consequences of engaging in structural explanation for reasoning about socioeconomic inequality. |