I am excited to share that I’ll be joining Penn State as an Assistant Professor in August 2026 🎉 My lab will study how the mind simulates concept meaning, bridging perception, action, imagery, and language. sites.psu.edu/cisclab/ I am recruiting grad students for Fall 2026. Connect if interested!

Excited to share that I’ve joined the @culhamari-lab.bsky.social Lab at Western University as a postdoctoral researcher ! I will be exploring 💭 mental imagery in 🫳🏼 visually-guided actions, especially in aphantasia. Can’t wait to dig in!

I'm not great at taking notes, but this might be a new low for me 🙃

Join us on August 22nd in collaboration with CSBBCS and SPARK Society for a free online webinar on finding postdoc opportunities! Visit the following link to register for the event: shorturl.at/BVPtC We hope to see you there!! Please note that the meeting will be held exclusively in English.

🧠 Just out with @pennypexman.bsky.social “Simulation in the ‘Blind’ Mind”. We found that even without conscious imagery (aphantasia), people still simulate sensorimotor info when processing language. 💭🔤

As I wrap up my PhD journey, I want to profoundly thank my supervisor @pennypexman.bsky.social . Her generous mentorship shaped my vision of what research can be and guided my next big steps – a postdoc and tenure track position (more on those soon!) I couldn’t have asked for a better mentor. 🙏🧠💫

Excited to announce a call for papers for a new virtual special issue in Cortex on Concept Knowledge. Our opening editorial, plus further information and guidance for authors can be found here: www.sciencedirect.com/special-issu...

🚨📄 New paper! Abstract words are hard to acquire: Does social relevance help? We tested if social experience helps children learn words—analyzing >4,000 words by socialness, valence, and concreteness. 👬 More social words were learned earlier 💭 Socialness particularly helped abstract words, but…

Join us on June 5th, 2025 for a virtual Teams panel from 12-1:30 PM EDT featuring professionals who have successfully navigated the transition from PhD studies to fulfilling careers in industry, academic administration, and government. This is a FREE virtual event! Register here: shorturl.at/5vWjR

🚨 New paper out in Human Brain Mapping! 🚨 with @pennypexman.bsky.social and @rjbinney.bsky.social 🧠 We show that the anterior temporal lobe (ATL) semantic hub supports abstract verb processing—with distinct activity patterns for: • Emotional verbs • Mental verbs • Non-embodied verbs

🚨 NEW PAPER 🚨
We show that concrete (e.g., FLAG) and abstract (e.g., DEMOCRACY) concepts differ not just in the info they contain (e.g., sensorimotor, affective, social, linguistic) but in how these conceptual dimensions interrelate. 🔗 Link: rdcu.be/eb53b