@ Martinos Center and Tufts University

Principal Investigator

Gina R Kuperberg, M.D. Ph.D., Dept. Psychology, Tufts University and Dept. Psychiatry, Massachusetts General Hospital Biography Grant Funding Invited Talks Awards kuperber@nmr.mgh.harvard.edu

 

Post-docs and Fellows

	Hugh Rabagliati, Ph.D., Department of Psychology, Harvard University & Department of Psychology, Tufts University How are word meanings different from concepts? How is efficient sentence comprehension achieved? And what happens when it breaks down? My research uses methods and techniques from psycholinguistics, development and cognitive neuroscience to illuminate issues in semantic interpretation that are not amenable to traditional tools, and to test how higher-level linguistic information is used to make predictions about, and guide processing at, lower levels of representation. I assess these questions across a variety of populations, including adults, children and patients. In the lab, I will be using eye-tracking to study how individuals with schizophrenia integrate top-down and bottom-up information during sentence processing. I am currently a post-doc with Jesse Snedeker (Harvard) and Gina Kuperberg. Prior to arriving in Boston, I received a B.A. from Oxford and a Ph.D from NYU, and was then a post-doc at Brown. hugh@wjh.harvard.edu
	Kirsten Weber, Ph.D., Dept. Psychology, Tufts University and Dept. Psychiatry, Massachusetts General Hospital Kirsten's current research focusses on language production as well as semantic processing in healthy adults and patients with schizophrenia. For the latter she is involved in a project combining EEG, MEG and fMRI data. She received her BSc in Cognitive Science from the University of Exeter, Exeter, UK and an MSc as well as PhD degree in Cognitive Neuroscience from the Radboud University Nijmegen, the Netherlands, where she worked at the Donders Centre for Cognitive Neuroimaging under the supervision of Peter Hagoort and Peter Indefrey. Her PhD research focussed on second language learning and bilingual language processing. kweber@nmr.mgh.harvard.edu
	Eddie Wlotko, Ph.D., Dept. Psychology, Tufts University and Dept. Psychiatry, Massachusetts General Hospital My research probes the cognitive and neural mechanisms that support building meaning from everyday language use. I use electro-magnetic and optical brain imaging techniques to elucidate the differential contributions of the two cerebral hemispheres to comprehending sentences. Recent work focuses on how hemispheric modes of comprehension are dynamically implemented in the young adult brain dependent on situational context or differing language goals and outcomes, and how this flexibility shifts with normal healthy aging. Current research will examine this type of malleability of language mechanisms in schizophrenia patients to simultaneously gain insight into the basis of disrupted language use in schizophrenia and to inform and refine models of typical language processing. ewlotko@nmr.mgh.harvard.edu

 

Graduate students

	Nate Delaney-Busch, B.A., Dept. Psychology, Tufts University nathaniel.delaney-busch@tufts.edu
	Eric Fields, B.S.,B.A., Dept. Psychology, Tufts University I graduated from Middle Tennessee State University with a B.A. in philosophy and a B.S. in psychology. After graduation, I worked in Dr. Kuperberg's lab as a full time research assistant for two years before staying on as a graduate student. My current work examines social and emotional factors in language processing. eric.fields@tufts.edu

 

Research Coordinators

Kristina Fanucci, B.S., Dept. Psychology, Tufts University and Martinos Center, Mass. General Hospital Kristina graduated from MIT with an S.B. in Brain and Cognitive Sciences, minors in Mathematics and Psychology, and a concentration in Linguistics. As an undergraduate, she worked in the MIT Center for Neuroeconomics investigating the neural basis of trust and self-deception. kfanucci@nmr.mgh.harvard.edu

Candida Jane Maria Ustine, M.Eng., Dept. Psychology, Tufts University and Martinos Center, Mass. General Hospital Candida's research interests include Medical Image Analysis, Neuroimaging and Neurolinguistics. She graduated from Cornell University with a Master of Engineering in Electrical and Computer Engineering, working with Dr. Anthony Reeves to develop an automated system for body surface segmentation to aid in needle guided biopsies. After graduation, she worked with Dr. Eric Olson from SUNY Upstate Medical University on a Research project studying dendritic genesis, migration and orientation of cortical neurons in prenatal mice under the influence of protein Reelin. She is currently working with Dr. Lau and Dr. Kuperberg in integrating Neuroimaging techniques to study and analyze language performance by the brain in healthy individuals and those with schizophrenia. candida@nmr.mgh.harvard.edu

 

Undergraduate Research Assistants

Visiting Scholars

Eva Wittenberg M.A., Deptartment of Linguistics, University of Potsdam, Germany

 

Consultants

Tali Ditman, Ph.D., Dept. Psychology, Tufts University and Martinos Center, Mass. General Hospital Dr. Tali Ditman received her BA and MA from Binghamton University and her PhD from Tufts University under the guidance of Drs. Phillip Holcomb and Gina Kuperberg. Her dissertation work, which was partially supported by an APA Dissertation Research Award, used EEG/ERPs to examine the interaction between lexico-semantic and discourse influences in tracking temporal, spatial, causal, and referential information during discourse comprehension. She is now a post-doctoral Research Fellow with Dr. Kuperberg, and explores discourse-level language comprehension in healthy adults as well as patients with schizophrenia using ERPs, fMRI, and behavioral methodologies. Her work is partially supported by an Advanced Multimodal Neuroimaging Training Award from MGH and a NARSAD Young Investigator's Award. tali.ditman@tufts.edu

Collaborators

Phillip Holcomb, Ph.D., Dept. Psychology, Tufts University          Link to lab website

David Caplan, M.D. Ph.D., Dept. Neurology, Mass. General Hospital          Link to website

Don Goff, M.D., Dept. Psychiatry, Mass. General Hospital          Link to website

Daphne Holt, M.D. Ph.D., Dept. Psychiatry, Mass. General Hospital          Link to website

Tatiana Sitnikova, Ph.D., Dept. Psychology, Tufts University and Martinos Center, Mass. General Hospital          Link to website

Ray Jackendoff, Ph.D., Dept. Philosophy and Center for Cognitive Studies, Tufts University          Link to website

Ted Gibson, Ph.D., Dept. of Brain and Cognitive Sciences, Massachusetts Institute of Technology          Link to lab website

Jesse Snedeker, Ph.D, Dept of Psychology, Harvard University          Link to website

Josh Hartshorne, B.A., Dept of Psychology, Harvard University

Alumni

Ellen Lau, PhD (Postdoctoral Fellow, 2009-2012)

Martin Paczynski, PhD (Graduate Student, 2005-2012)

Neil Cohn, PhD (Graduate Student, 2006-2012)

Trevor Blackford, B.A. (Graduate Student, 2008-2011)

Scott Burns, M.S. (Research Assistant, 2010-2011)

Mante S. Nieuwland, PhD (Postdoctoral Fellow, 2007 - 2009)

Suiping Wang, Ph.D (Visiting Scholar, 2008 - 2009)

Arim Choi (Research Assistant, 2007 - 2009)

Abigail Swain (Research Assistant, 2007 - 2009)

Sophie De Grauwe (Visiting Scholar, 2006 - 2007)

Balaji Lakshmanan (Research Technologist, 2005 - 2007)

Donna Kreher (Graduate Student, 2003 - 2006)

Kaila Norman (Clinical Research Assistant, 2005 - 2006)

Karin Blais (Research Assistant, 2003 - 2005)

Daya Gulabani (Research Assistant, 2004 - 2005)

Spencer Lynn (Postdoctoral Fellow, 2004 - 2005)

Christine Portal (Clinical Research Assistant, 2003 - 2005)

Jordana Cotton (Research Assistant, 2002 - 2004)

Marianna Eddy (Research Assistant, 2001 - 2003)

Jiro Ozawa (Postdoctoral Fellow, 2001 - 2003)

Undergraduate Alumni

Gianna Wilkie (2008-2012)

Dan Kim (2010-2011)

Liam Clegg (2008-2011)

Wonja Fairbrother (2009-2011)

Vivian Haime (2009-2011)

Sorabh Kothari (2010-2011)

Sarah Cleary (2007-2010)

Alexandra Rodman (2008-2010)

Alexis Cook (2009-2010)