Dr. Adam Anderson, Professor

I received my B.A. in cognitive science at Vassar College, doctoral training in cognitive psychology at Yale University, and post-doctoral training in cognitive neuroscience at Stanford University. I most recently worked at the University of Toronto for 10 years before moving to Cornell. Born and raised in Staten Island, I was happy to be back in my home state of NY and hope to live up to Cornell's land grant mission!

My research is on the role of emotions in human life. Taking many perspectives, we examine how emotions involve and interact with all aspects of the mind, brain and body. This work is recognized by an American Psychological Association Distinguished Scientific Contributions Early Career Award and cited as being in the top 1% of scientific impact across the world. More importantly, we aim for social impact. We achieve this through communication, outreach and work with industry.

Communication: Whether it is being featured in Museums (e..g, American Museum of Natural history, Royal Ontario Musem), popular media, (e.g., NY Times, Wall St Journal, NPR) or serving as a scientific delagate at the World Economic Forum and presenting our work to the Dalai Lama, we engage with the public to demonstrate how research has value not just to specialists but to all people.

Outreach: Co-creator of Get to Know Your Brain and BrainSTEM education programs in Syracuse NY, the Community Neuroscience Initiative, and the online platform Interactive Psychology: People in Perspective. These efforts increase the accesibilility and inclusivity of neursocience and psychology, affording increased curiosity in STEM though new ways to understand and interact with one’s brain.

Industry: Passionate about developing accesible techonologies for research to get out into the world for better mental and physical health. This has included roles as Chief Scientific Officer in the area of digital health and co-founder of start ups that that apply AI to mental and physical health. This includes training the next generation of PhDs in psychology and neuroscience to have an entrepreneurial outlook.


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E-mail: aka47@cornell.edu

Dr. Eve De Rosa, Professor

Dr. De Rosa's work can be best described as comparative cognitive neuroscience, which is characterized by two related approaches. One is a cross-species approach, comparing rat models of the neurochemistry of attention and learning to humans, focusing on the neurochemical acetylcholine. The other is an across the lifespan approach, examining the cholinergic hypothesis of age-related changes in cognition.

She uses activity mapping from fMRI data to provide theoretical models that can then be more fully tested in rats combining local field potential recordings with immunotoxic lesions and pharmacology.

She received her B.A. in Biology-Psychology from Vassar College and then worked as a research assistant for a few years at Harvard University School of Medicine and fell in love with research. She was trained in animal neuroscience and received her Ph.D. in Experimental Psychology from Harvard University and then received training in human neuroscience as a postdoctoral fellow at Stanford University School of Medicine. She enjoys bringing both of these approaches together in her lab.


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E-mail: edd56@cornell.edu

Dr. Elizabeth Riley, Postdoctoral Associate

Elizabeth Riley spent part of her childhood in Ithaca, NY and has returned as a postdoctoral fellow after getting her BS in Bioengineering from MIT and PhD in neuroscience from Boston University School of Medicine. She uses pupillometery, MRI (functional and structural) and neuropsychological tests to study the locus coeruleus, the norepinephrine system and their role in cognition and cognitive aging.


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E-mail: er482@cornell.edu

Dr. Hayford Agbanu Perry Fordson, Ph.D. (D.Eng.), Research Scholar

As a proud Ghanaian, my whole life has always been about hard work, improving myself, and using the experiences that I have acquired to making this world better.

I earned a B.Eng. in Computer Science and Technology, M.Eng., and D.Eng. (Ph.D.) in Information and Communication Engineering from the South China University of Technology, Guangzhou, China. I am currently a Postdoctoral Associate at the Department of Psychology, Cornell University where I apply machine learning to understanding the relationship between the brain and bodily physiology and how this can serve to diagnose mental function. My main research interest includes artificial intelligence, neuroscience, perception science, physical and physiological signals, affective computing, knowledge graph, and human-computer interactions.

In 2011 after high school, I founded Perry Fordson Companies Limited. I remain its Chairman and Chief Executive Officer.

In the same way, in 2022 after my doctoral degree, I established KooTech Trading Company Limited in hopes of keeping my research vision alive. Kootech would provide electronic devices in wearables with advanced technology to customers around the world.

Business Focus: I am currently working on an AI-Based pain biomarker in attempt to accurately and effectively assess and discriminate pain from emotional distress at the heart. We love to call it 'Objective pAIn.' Our focus physiological data is ECG/PPG readings.

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E-mail: perryfordson@cornell.edu

Hetvi Doshi, Graduate Student

Hetvi Doshi is a doctoral candidate studying food-related nostalgia in human brains and behaviour. Her research was inspired by the movie ‘Ratatouille’, especially that moment towards the end when the food critic - Anton Ego - takes a bit of Ratatouille and is mentally transported to his childhood. Nostalgia is a powerful emotion, often triggering autobiographical memories (and mental time-travel) upon exposure to sensory stimuli. Food-related nostalgia is especially unique in that experiences with food are multi-sensory and integral to our nutrition and metabolism. Hetvi conducts fMRI and behavioural experiments to investigate the relationship between food-related nostalgia, health and metabolism. Her previous research in the lab has explored the experience of nostalgia, with an emphasis on autobiographical memories. She has also founded the Community Nostalgia Initiative, which organizes exhibitions, murals, and other community events that integrate the arts and sciences to create a shared experience of nostalgia in its audience.


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E-mail: hsd37@cornell.edu

Senegal Mabry, Graduate Student

Senegal Alfred Mabry is a second-year Ph.D. Student in the neuroscience area of the Department of Psychology at Cornell University. Mabry is working on characterizing the potentially shared pathology and the comorbidity between Parkinson's Disease (PD) and cardiovascular disease (CVD). People with PD are at a greater risk of CVD. Yet CVD risk factors like smoking history and past myocardial infarctions do not increase likelihood of PD diagnosis. There are, however, powerful psychosocial risk factors for CVD (perceived social support, socioeconomic status, racial bias, anxiety, and depression). Yet, the potential role of these risk factors in the pathogenesis and the comorbidity between CVD and PD is not well understood. He is an alum of the Summer Program for Neuroscience Excellence and Success at the Marine Biological Laboratory at Woods Hole. He is team lead at the Community Neuroscience Initiative at Cornell, training preservice educators to use neuroscience to innovate their classroom curriculum. Senegal is the Graduate Student Advisor of the Cornell University chapter of Parkinson's Pals, an organization partnered with the Davis Phinney Foundation to connect people with PD to undergraduates for social interaction and support.


E-mail: sam469@cornell.edu

Lia Chen, Graduate Student

Lia is a PhD student in the Affect and Cognition Lab and a 2021 NSF Graduate Research Fellow. She graduated from Cornell University with a B.S. honors in Human Development (2019), and also worked as Lab Manager & Research Assistant in the Holmes Lab at Yale University for two years. Lia is interested in using genetics and neuroimaging approaches to study age-related changes in brain function, as well as genetic risk factors for presymptomatic dementia. She also aims to computationally model functional networks of psychiatric disorders in the brain. Outside of the lab, Lia enjoys singing/rapping, producing electronic dance music, and improvising music on the piano/flute.


E-mail: lc748@cornell.edu

Jordan Johnson, Graduate Student

Jordan is from the Tuscarora Reservation in Western New York. She earned her B.S. in psychology with a minor in neuroscience from SUNY University at Buffalo in 2022. She then completed a post-baccalaureate research education program (NIH-PREP) at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine where she worked in psychiatric neuroimaging. She is interested in the neural and psychological mechanisms underlying brain health disparities.


E-mail: jmj275@cornell.edu

Mary MacMillan, Lab Manager

Mary graduated from Cornell in 2020 with a major in Human Biology, Health, and Society and a minor in Cognitive Neuroscience. As an undergraduate in the lab, she worked with Dr. Tayler Eaton studying the encoding of traumatic memories. As the new lab manager, she works on various lab projects including emotion sharing preferences in children, writing and debugging programs for the lab, and assisting in Dr. Riley's study that uses MRI to study the aging brain. Her most recent project focuses on changes in heart rate variability (HRV) in behaving rats during a proactive interference task. In her free time, Mary likes to cook, garden, and read.


E-mail: mkm265@cornell.edu

Sihan Zhou, Master's Student

Sihan graduated from UC Davis with majors in Psychology and Communication and a minor in Education. Now she is pursuing her master’s degree in Human Development at Cornell University with Dr. Anderson. Her research interest is Memory, Emotions, and cultural differences. Also, she is developing her interests in forensic evidence and law. Besides, she loves tarot and baking.


E-mail: sz664@cornell.edu

Sheng-Ling Chang, Master's Student

Sheng-Ling received her B.A. in History from National Taiwan University and graduate training in counseling and mental health services, developmental psychology, and program evaluation from the University of Pennsylvania and Claremont Graduate University. For the past three years, she has worked as a lecturer, teaching young and older adults about mental health and positive psychology. She has also been a research assistant at Kaohsiung Medical University and National Chengchi University in Taiwan, conducting research on ideal affect, critical thinking, and creativity. Sheng-Ling is currently interested in interpersonal emotion regulation in adulthood. She has also explored how personal history, collective memory, and developmental trajectory can influence our emotional experience.


E-mail: sc3298@cornell.edu

Carolyn Ji, Master's Student

Carolyn graduated from University of Michigan, Ann Arbor in April 2023 with a B.S. (Honors) Psychology degree. During her time in college, Carolyn explored many research areas including cognitive neuroscience, family relationship, language development, mental health, and finally found her passion in close relationships in Dr. Amie M. Gordon's lab. Her main research interests include emotions, interpersonal relationships, and well-being. At this lab, Carolyn plans to conduct research on the topic of facial expressions and social decision-making. After graduation, she hopes to get a Ph.D. degree in social psychology or organizational behavior.


E-mail: yj493@cornell.edu

Yujie (Aurora) Zhao, Research Assistant

Yujie (Aurora) received her B.S. in Psychology and Molecular and Cell Biology from UC San Diego in 2022, and her M.A. in Human Developmental Psychology from Cornell in 2023. She worked as a research assistant in Dr. Katherine J. Bangen’s lab studying the pathogenesis of diabetes-related cognitive dysfunction for two years. Recently, she has been working with Dr. Elizabeth Riley on LC Aging and with Dr. Adam K. Anderson on the impact of breathing regulation on orienting response. Yujie’s primary research interest lies in the area of human visual cognition and attention.


E-mail: yz2853@cornell.edu

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