BASC LAB - Key Persons
Aaron (joined lab in spring 2021) is an undergraduate research assistant on the video coding team. He is a psychology major with an emphasis in biology and plans on pursuing a career in medicine. In his free time, Aaron loves playing basketball, lifting weights, watching television, and spending time with friends.
Abbigayle (joined lab in winter 2022) is a research assistant on the participant testing team. Her academic interests are in clinical psychology, with an emphasis on child and young adult development. Her goal is to gain more experience and insight into different concepts relative to children's mental health and development. Outside of her interest in psychology and working with children, one of her biggest life goals is to travel to as many countries as possible!
Allysa (joined lab in winter 2022) is a third year neurobiology, physiology, and behavior major and a psychology minor. In the lab, Allysa is part of the participant testing team. Her interests align with child development specifically in children with disabilities such as Autism Spectrum Disorder. Allysa's goal is to become a child life specialist in help diagnosing and working with children on the autism spectrum and plans to further her education in graduate school to obtain a masters in child development. In her free time, Allysa loves to watch anime, explore thrift shops in the city, and spend time with her cat!
Alycia (joined lab in winter 2022) is a third year psychology major with a minor in neuroscience. Since starting her psychology education, she has been looking forward to being involved in the research process and is currently a research assistant on the testing team. She hopes to go on to earn her master and Ph.D. to one day practice as a Clinical Neuropsychologist. She especially loves working with children and hopes to be able to do so in her future career. Outside of school, she enjoys creating art and hosting board game nights with her friends.
Amanda (joined lab in winter 2022) is a second year undergraduate research assistant majoring in cognitive science with an emphasis on neuroscience. She is particularly interested in human development, and is planning to pursue a minor in the subject. After graduating, she hopes to continue studying psychology and neuroscience in a graduate program. Besides cognitive science, she is also interested in sewing, synchronized swimming, and music.
Ayushi (joined lab in winter 2021) is an undergraduate research assistant. She is a computer science major who is very curious about psychology. She hopes to attend graduate school and explore ways to combine her passions in both computer science and psychology. In her free time, Ayushi likes to read and watch Bollywood films.
Dr. Christopher Gonzales is a post-doctoral scholar at the Center for Mind and Brain at the University of California, Davis where he contributes to both the Memory and Development Lab (P.I. Dr. Simona Ghetti) and the Brain and Social Cognition Lab (P.I. Dr. Lindsay Bowman). Chris received his Ph.D. from Arizona State University in developmental psychology and was formally a post-doctoral researcher at Oregon State University as part of the Kindergarten-Readiness project (P.I. Dr. Megan McClelland). His research aims to elucidate young children's metacognitive development and its relation to related areas such as children's theory of mind and executive functioning. His current research utilizes both neuroscientific and behavioral methods to understand how metacognition develops during the preschool years and how this influences children's academic and social outcomes.
Courtney is currently pursuing her PhD at Dartmouth College in the Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences.
Danielle (joined lab in spring 2022) is a senior and member of the recruitment team. She is a pre-med student with aspirations to go on to medical school. In the future, she would like to work in a health field specializing in pediatrics such as adolescent psychiatry or oncology. In her free time, she loves to travel! Her goal is to one-day step foot on all seven continents. She also loves to exercise, specifically strength train, and has her personal training certification.
David (joined lab in spring 2022) is a third year psychology major and education minor. He will be a member of the video-coding team and looks forward to learning more about Theory of Mind in young children. David is passionate about developmental and clinical psychology and hopes to join these two interests by becoming a pediatric psychologist. In his free time, David enjoys playing badminton, cooking new recipes, and playing games with his friends online.
Job Titles:
- Assistant Professor of Psychology
- Assistant Professor of Psychology at the University of California
Dr. Lindsay Bowman is an assistant professor of Psychology at the University of California, Davis, and Principle Investigator of the Brain and Social Cognition (BASC) Lab. She received her Ph.D. from the University of Michigan in Developmental Psychology. With experience as a post-doctoral researcher at the University of Maryland Child Development Lab and as a research fellow in the Labs of Cognitive Neuroscience at Harvard Medical School and Boston Children's Hospital, her work brings together unique perspectives on neuroscience, cognition, social understanding, and development. Her lab uses a combination of neuroscientific and behavioral methods to understand how cognition develops over infancy and childhood and how these early developments set the course for social success or impairment.
Ellicia is currently pursuing a Doctor of Pharmacy.
Haley (joined lab in winter 2022) is an undergraduate research assistant on the participant testing team. She is a psychology major with an emphasis on biology, and is planning on pursuing a career in clinical psychology. In her free time, Haley loves meeting new people and hanging out with friends, as well as baking pies and roller skating.
Hannah (joined lab in winter 2022) is a third year undergraduate research assistant majoring in human biology with an interest in neurobiology. She is interested in learning more about how social factors impact neural development and processes and plans to pursue a career in medicine. In her free time, she enjoys crochet and music.
Jazmine (joined lab in winter 2022) is interested in learning about how brain development in children is influenced by various aspects of their environment. After completing her undergraduate education, she would like to pursue a medical degree and specialize in psychiatry to assess both the mental and physical aspects of psychological problems. She is a member of the video coding and data entry teams. In her free time she likes to workout, play sports, watch Netflix, and go on walks with her dog, Milo.
Jienel (joined lab in spring 2022) is a third-year undergraduate research assistant majoring in cognitive science with a computational emphasis. In the lab, Jienel is part of the video coding team. Her interest area is very broad and open to a lot of areas of cognitive science; she is curious about how cognitive functions develop throughout an individual's life and how environmental factors affect the brain. In the future, Jienel would like to learn more about language processing and decision making in both humans and machines. In her free time, she enjoys writing stories, listening to music, watching animated shows/films, and going to escape rooms with friends and family.
Jillian is currently pursuing her master's degree in speech-language pathology at the University of Arizona, Tucson.
Joya (joined lab in winter 2022) is a second year undergraduate research assistant majoring in neurobiology, physiology, and behavior. In the lab, she is involved in the video coding team. She is passionate about neuroscience, and is particularly interested in mental disorders among adolescents. After graduation, she plans to attend graduate school to continue studying social-emotional development. In her free time, she enjoys sewing, baking, playing musical instruments, and traveling.
Kaashvee (joined lab in winter 2022) is a second-year psychology major. She is on the participant recruitment team and is so excited to meet all the wonderful families that help make this lab a success. She is particularly interested in how children assess the social environment, such as understanding that someone is a stranger and should be avoided compared to a friendly face. She has wanted to become a teacher for as long as she can remember, but she is also considering school psychology and counseling! She loves working with children, and she has experience working as a counselor at a summer camp in her hometown. She enjoys watching sports, mainly baseball, and she loves trying out all the cute coffee shops around Davis in her free time.
Kainat (joined lab in winter 2022) is an undergraduate research assistant on the participant testing and recruitment teams. She is interested in anything related to psychology, especially the different ways one can assess the developing social minds of growing adolescents/toddlers. Her goals are to pursue her education in psychology to become a clinical psychologist. She loves painting, spending time with family and friends, and looking after her cat and house plants.
Kara (joined lab in spring 2021) is an undergraduate research assistant. She is double-majoring in Biochemistry & Molecular Biology, and Psychology. She takes a particular interest in epigenetics and developmental psychobiology, and plans to continue her education after graduation to further investigate the effects of factors like malnutrition on infant development. In her free time, Kara enjoys baking, hiking, reading, and running.
Kate is working as a research assistant at the Anxiety Disorders Center and will be applying to graduate school in clinical psychology.
Kathleen (joined lab in spring 2022) is a Cognitive Science major with a Neuroscience emphasis and a Japanese minor. She plans to pursue a Linguistics minor next, and if time permits, a Psychology minor as well. She hopes to attend graduate school for Psycholinguistics. She is on the lab's coding team as a research assistant. In her free time, she likes playing Genshin Impact, making graphics/gifs, and studying foreign languages.
Kayla (joined lab in fall 2021) is a fourth year undergraduate majoring in psychology with a minor in sociology. Her interests focus on child development and she hopes to work with children in her future career helping them toward a healthy developmental path. She is considering going to graduate school to obtain an MSW degree to work as a social worker. Some of her hobbies include cooking, watching sunsets, and spending time by the water.
Kristen (joined lab in fall 2021) is an undergraduate research assistant majoring in psychology with a minor in human development. Her interests include how children develop and what factors have an impact on their growth, specifically social and emotional aspects. She hopes to obtain her master's and become a child psychologist. In her free time, she loves watching sunsets, playing volleyball, going on spontaneous trips, and spending time with friends, family, and her cat!
Kriti (joined lab in winter 2022) is an undergraduate research assistant on the testing team! She is a neurobiology, physiology, and behavior major, and her research interests lie in understanding the development of a child's brain, and would like to have a career combining developmental neuroscience and medicine in the future. In her free time, she enjoys dancing, reading, and singing.
Lorelei (joined lab in spring 2021) is an undergraduate research assistant majoring in cognitive science. In the lab, she works with the video coding team, and is interested in the emotional development of adolescents. She hopes to pursue a career path that involves clinical psychology. In her free time, Lorelei enjoys drawing, playing video games, and journaling.
Mariya received a B.A. in Psychology from Penn State University, where she studied cognitive control and bilingualism in Dr. Judy Kroll's lab, and emotion regulation and anxiety in Dr. Jose Soto's lab. Mariya then worked as a faculty research assistant at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine with Drs. Kerry Ledoux and Emily Coderre, studying language and face processing in autism using eye-tracking and electrophysiological event-related potentials (ERPs). This experience expanded her interest in developmental cognitive neuroscience and motivated her decision to pursue a PhD in Human Development. At UC Davis, Mariya works with Drs. Susan Rivera and Lindsay Bowman investigating individual differences in visual attention and social-emotional development of typically developing children and children with fragile X Syndrome. Specifically, she uses a combination of ERPs, eye-tracking, and behavioral measures to assess neural and behavioral correlates of attention to threat and anxiety outcomes. When not working, you can find her exploring the mountains of California, and hanging out with her two dogs and three cats.
Melany (joined lab in winter 2022) is an undergraduate research assistant on the participant recruitment team. She is interested in how environmental factors such as culture and family relationships influence the overall development of children. In the future, she hopes to pursue a career in clinical psychology. She also enjoys cooking, hiking, drawing, and listening to music.
MJ HEISE, M.A. B.S., Child Psychology, University of Minnesota, 2013 M.A., Psychology, University of California, Davis, 2020 MJ graduated summa cum laude from the University of Minnesota in 2013, where she earned a B.S. in Child Psychology. She earned her M.A. in Psychology from UC Davis in 2020. MJ's research in the BASC Lab is focused on the developmental trajectories of different types of mental state reasoning (e.g., beliefs, desires, and knowledge). She is also interested in the behavioral and neural correlates of children's false belief understanding, including the ability to update non-social abstract representations.
Natalie is currently pursuing a doctorate in clinical psychology at Palo Alto University.
Patrice (joined lab in winter 2022) is an undergraduate research assistant majoring in psychology and English. She is part of the participant testing team and is interested in learning more about how children's brains socially and emotionally develop, respond, and interact with everything around them. In the future, she hopes to teach English abroad to kids and eventually become an OB/GYN, and maybe also open her own coffee and tea shop. During her free time, she likes to spontaneously eat, drive around, and go to parks. She is currently trying to learn how to roller skate!
Paul will be applying to schools to get a doctorate in clinical psychology or an M.S. in counseling.
Reese (joined lab in spring 2022) is a Psychology major with Associate's degrees in Psychology, Social Sciences, Social and Behavioral Sciences, and Arts and Humanities. They are interested in the collective learning process, and it is a dream of theirs to write about psychological findings for the public. Eventually, they would like to continue schooling so they can serve the community in therapy. Currently, they are part of the video coding and data entry teams. Outside academics, they write trauma-informed short stories and poetry, and they occasionally perform spoken word. They are also a huge nerd for queer literature and a new volunteer at their local LGBTQ+ library, the Lavender Library.
Rowan (joined lab in fall 2021) is an undergraduate research assistant majoring in psychology with an emphasis in social psychology. They are interested in the impact of experience and genetics on a person's social, emotional, and physical wellbeing, driving them to pursue a career in social work. They are planning on continuing their learning around the social aspects of brain development post-graduation. In their free time, Rowan enjoys gaming, painting, reading and baking desserts
RUOHAN XIA, M.Ed. B.A., Psychology & Criminal Justice, University of Wisconsin - Madison, 2018 M.Ed., Educational Psychology - Applied Developmental Science, University of Virginia, 2020 Ruohan is a PhD student in BASC Lab. She earned her M.Ed. in Educational Psychology with an emphasis on Applied Developmental Science from the University of Virginia in 2020. At UVA, she used dyadic hyperscanning EEG paradigms to investigate parent-child engagement behaviors in various activities in families with or without an autistic child. Being able to investigate parent-child dyads as a whole and witnessing how a child's emotional response in different situations is impacted by the family dynamics made her wonder what roles family and cultural traditions could play in children's development. To continue exploring the reciprocal parent-child interactions, Ruohan's research in the BASC Lab aims to understand the cyclical process between parental response to emotional disclosures and children's emotional development, and to explore how social conventions and cultural values serve as contexts in the process.
Sam (joined lab in spring 2022) is a research assistant on the video coding team. He is studying Cognitive Science with an emphasis in neuroscience and a minor in Psychology. In his free time he loves to skate around, workout, and watch sports. After he graduates from UC Davis, he wants to go to Medical School to become a Psychiatrist and use brain scans as part of his diagnosis. This lab is extremely interesting to him because a lot of how we are as people relates to theory of mind and understanding how the development occurs can be extremely beneficial to future psychiatric work.
Serena received her A.B. in neuroscience with a minor in linguistics from Princeton University. At Princeton, she worked with Dr. Adele Goldberg to study conventional metaphor processing using pupillometry. She looks forward to studying the factors contributing to theory of mind development and learning about EEG. Outside of the lab, she enjoys crocheting amigurumi and watching TV, usually at the same time.
Shabaz (joined lab in spring 2022) is a research assistant on the video coding team. He was a psychology major at UCLA and is currently pursuing a career in medicine. In particular, he has an interest in sports medicine or interventional radiology. In his free time, he likes to play basketball, weight lift, and work on his art.
Sharlene received a M.S. in Medical Health Science and will be attending Touro University California to receive her Doctor of Osteopathic Medicine (D.O.) degree with intentions to become a primary care physician.
Sharon (joined lab in winter 2022) is a cognitive science and psychology double major and a member of the participant testing team. She is interested in the environment's role in child development, specifically how upbringing influences the brain, personality and behavior. In the future, she wants to become a social worker or a therapist and lessen the stigma of getting care for mental health. In her free time, she enjoys baking, painting, visiting grocery stores, riding her bike, and playing badminton.
Shreya (joined lab in winter 2022) is an undergraduate research assistant on the video coding team. She is majoring in Psychology and her interests include the relationship between childhood stress and trauma and emotional intelligence in adulthood as well as adult relationships. She is also passionate about battling the stigma around mental health and promoting easy access to therapy and mental health resources. She hopes to attend law school in the future. In her free time she enjoys dancing, reading, watching reality tv, and spending time with friends!
Sofia (joined lab in spring 2022) is an undergraduate research assistant on the video coding team. She is majoring in Cognitive Science and her interests are in learning more about the ways we interact with and learn about the world through cognition. One of her goals for the future is to design products that are accessible to all, efficient, and easy to use. In her free time, Sofia enjoys baking, reading, watching tv shows with friends & family, and going for hikes!
Tammy (joined lab in winter 2022) is an undergraduate research assistant on the video coding team. Additionally, she is a second-year psychology major with a special interest in abnormal psychology and goals to pursue a career in psychology. She has five Pomeranians that she loves to spoil, and she has big Bay Area pride!
Ujashi (joined lab in spring 2019) is an undergraduate research assistant on the participant testing team. She is a neurobiology, physiology, and behavior major with a specific interest in neurobiology and psychology and is planning on pursuing a career in medicine. She is passionate about biology, but also loves playing with animals, reading, watching true crime or cooking shows, and writing poetry in her free time.
Zena (joined lab in fall 2021) is an undergraduate research assistant majoring in psychology and minoring in public health and neuroscience. Her interests are in children's brain development and she is a member of the data entry and participant recruitment teams. She hopes to apply her experience in this lab in her future career as a pediatrician or neurologist. She also really loves cats and cooking!
Zoe is a second year PhD student in the lab. She graduated from Hampshire College in 2018 with a B.A. in Cognitive Neuroscience and Psychology. Her senior thesis was on the neural correlates of chronic pain and empathy through the use of electrophysiological methods (ERP). She also worked as a research assistant there, under the guidance of Dr. Jane Couperus, studying the neurodevelopment and functioning of visual selective attention using event related potentials. After graduating, Zoe worked as a lab manager at the University of Florida with Dr. Lisa Scott studying the neurological underpinnings of how visual experiences influence learning and attention in infants and young children. In the BASC Lab, Zoe investigates the individual differences in the neurodevelopment of emotion processing in children. When not in the lab, Zoe enjoys hiking, baking, and fostering rescue animals.