People

Ajay Satpute – Ph.D., Lab Director

Ajay Satpute

Curriculum Vitae

Email: a.satpute@northeastern.edu

I am an assistant professor at Northeastern University in the psychology and neuroscience departments and director of the ABSLAB.  The main focus of our lab is to understand how people classify their subjective experiences into socially meaningful categories, and particularly those relating to affect (e.g. ‘pleasantness’) and emotion (e.g. ‘anger’ or ‘sadness’). A long-term goal of my work is to enable predictions–using neuroscience–for the kinds of categories people use to describe their experience.  This may help us understand what another person’s subjective experience is like (i.e. bridging the subjectivity gap), and may also help inform questions of enduring theoretical interest, such as, when do people’s subjective experiences match their behavioral decisions, and whether and how our categories also shape perception experience. To address these questions, our lab uses behavioral techniques couple with neuroimaging techniques, ranging from high-resolution functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) at 7 Tesla to ambulatory imaging using functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS).

Kent Lee – Post-doctorate

Email: kentml19@gmail.com

I am a postdoc in the lab. I am interested in studying how representations of bodily states (affect) and prior experiences (concept knowledge) combine to form emotions, attitudes, perceptions and other socially-relevant mental phenomena using social cognitive, psychophysiological, and neuroimaging methods. Kent is currently looking for a faculty position in psychology.

Josh Rodriguez – Research Assistant

I graduated with a B.S. in Data Science and Psychology from here at Northeastern University. I am generally interested in causal and computational models of affective and decision-making processes. I also enjoy local music, comics, and cycling.

Yiyu Wang – Graduate Student

Email: wang.yiyu@northeastern.edu

I graduated with a B.S in Psychology from the University of Washington. After graduation, I worked for one year as a research assistant at the Stanford Social Neuroscience Lab. I am interested in combining computational modeling and neuroimaging to study the neural basis of affective and cognitive processes. I am particularly interested in the neural representations that give rise to subjective experiences.

Alessia Iancarelli – Graduate Student

Email: iancarelli.a@northeastern.edu

I received my B.S. in psychology at the University of L’Aquila (in Italy) and my Master in Clinical and affective psychology at the University of Geneva (Switzerland). After my graduation, I moved to Boston where I worked as a research assistant at Harvard in Sidanius’Lab. Currently, I am interested in moral violence and its neuro-representation in the brain. I am interested in neuroimaging, machine learning analysis (predictive coding), and chocolate.

Kieran McVeigh – Graduate Student

Email: kieran.mcveighc@gmail.com

I am from Middlesex, Vermont.  I am broadly interested in Psychological Constructivism, particularly the biological and psychological effects of different conceptualizations of the same sensation, how malleable existing conceptualizations are, and the ways one’s body’s state affects cognition.  I am also an avid surfer, skier, and rock climber.

Mahiya Agarwal – Undergraduate Research Assistant

Madeline Gong – Undergraduate Research Assistant

Keerthana Karthik – Undergraduate Research Assistant

Ella Lanzaro – Undergraduate Research Assistant

Ella Lesney – Undergraduate Research Assistant

Erin O’Neill – Undergraduate Research Assistant

Remie Paguio – Undergraduate Research Assistant

Dhanvi Patel – Graduate Research Assistant

Harper Stotland – Graduate Research Assistant

Krystal Qiao – Undergraduate Research Assistant (previous co-op)

Katherine (Kathie) Yang – Co-op

Teja Zeribi – Undergraduate Research Assistant