Team

Jorge Morales

Jorge Morales

Lab Director

 

Jorge is an Assistant Professor of Psychology and Philosophy. He’s interested in conscious experiences and how we know them. His research focuses on vision, imagination and introspection to study the subjective character of the mind. To do this, he employs an interdisciplinary approach that integrates tools from psychology, neuroscience, and philosophy. Before joining Northeastern, Jorge earned a PhD from Columbia University and was a postdoc at Johns Hopkins. Jorge was born and raised in Mexico City, where he obtained an MA at Mexico’s National University (UNAM) and a BA from Universidad Panamericana. Jorge loves good coffee, photography and is currently obsessed with the Rubik’s cube.

         

j.morales@northeastern.edu

Dillon Plunkett

Dillon Plunkett

Post-doctoral Researcher

 

Dillon is interested in consciousness, complex thought, and the relationship between the two. Which mental processes do we consciously experience and what determines the character of those experiences? What kinds of thoughts are we capable of thinking and how does the brain encode them? He investigates these questions using neuroimaging, computational modeling, and behavioral experiments. He did his PhD research at Harvard with Joshua Greene. Before that, he studied philosophy at Harvard as an undergraduate and was a lab manager at UC Berkeley with Tania Lombrozo and Tom Griffiths. Outside of research, Dillon is interested in climbing, physics, wilderness conservation, and team games (with a particular fondness for bughouse chess). His favorite color is purple.

      

d.plunkett@northeastern.edu

Xueyi Huang

Xueyi Huang

Graduate Student

 

Xueyi is a PhD student in the Department of Psychology. She is interested in mental representations, perception, and imagery, and in how the external world constructs our inner minds. During her undergraduate research, she compared the attentional biases from items embedded in visual imagery and visual working memory, and she explored whether visual imagery and visual working memory share the same representational system. Xueyi was born and raised in Shanghai and obtained her B.S. from Zhejiang University in Hangzhou, China. In her spare time, she enjoys exploring Boston, watching movies and tennis games, and playing ping pong.

huang.xueyi@northeastern.edu

Michael McPhee

Michael McPhee

Graduate Student

 

Michael McPhee is a PhD student in the Department of Psychology. His research focuses on consciousness, perception and metacognition, and uses psychophysics, pupillometry and neuroimaging to investigate conscious awareness in neurotypical people and patients with disorders of consciousness. Before coming to Northeastern, Michael was a Junior Research Scientist and Lab Manager in the Ripollés Lab at New York University, the Assistant to the Associate Director of NYU’s Music and Audio Research Laboratory (MARL), and a research assistant in the Laboratory of Neural Systems at Rockefeller University. Michael received a B.A. in Biology, Neuroscience, and Cognitive Science from Williams College in 2015. Outside of the lab, Michael loves to bike around Boston and overanalyze TV shows. He and his team are the 2023 champions, and he was the MVP, of the Boston chapter of the APA (American Pool Association).

mcphee.mi@northeastern.edu

Bridget Leary

Bridget Leary

Research Assistant

 

Bridget is a third-year Computer Science and Cognitive Psychology major. She has studied numerous different programming languages alongside various topics in psychology, including cognition, perception, and social interaction. She is interested in utilizing computers to better analyze and assess psychological processes. At the Subjectivity Lab, Bridget will be working on virtual-reality software that tracks pupil dilation to evaluate perception and consciousness. Outside of her studies, she volunteers all over Boston through Alpha Phi Omega and participates in trivia competitions with the Northeastern Trivia Club.

leary.br@northeastern.edu

Morgan McCarty

Morgan McCarty

Research Assistant

 

Morgan is a third-year Computer Science major in the Artificial Intelligence concentration with a minor in Cell and Molecular biology. His studies have focused on missing components of AI and how incorporating psychological research can help finding them. His research interests are very diverse: from evolutionary algorithms to the dangers of autonomous driving, Morgan is very interested in studying anything that can have a direct connection to the human world through the use of AI. In the Subjectivity Lab, Morgan is working on a project for assessing conscious awareness using pupillometry and Virtual Reality. Outside of research and study, Morgan loves to take a step back from technology and hike trails in the woods, go for long bike rides, or row on the Charles River.

morgan.mo@northeastern.edu

Shivani Manikandan

Shivani Manikandan

Research Assistant

 

Shivani is a student at Princeton Day School in Princeton, New Jersey. She is fascinated by the brain and cognition, and her goal is to better understand why people think the way they do and how they perceive their own mind. During her internship, she will work on a project about the perception of absences. In the future, she plans to understanding of the mind, specifically mental illnesses, through the lens of computer science and data analytics. When she’s not studying or doing research, Shivani is a music fanatic and loves exploring the different forms of music and playing instruments. She enjoys having fun and competing as a coxswain for the Girls Varsity Team at the Princeton National Rowing Association, playing with her dog and sister, and hanging out with her friends.

Collaborators


Alumni