CCSC 2021

Keynote Speaker

Amy Arnsten

Arnsten studies the molecular regulation of higher cortical circuits, identifying changes with stress and age that cause cognitive deficits and increase risk of disorders such as schizophrenia and Alzheimer’s Disease. Much of her research focuses on the prefrontal cortex, a newly evolved region that subserves higher cognition. Arnsten received her BA in Neuroscience from Brown University in 1976, and her PhD in Neuroscience from UCSD in 1981, with postdocs at Cambridge, and then Yale, where she became Assistant Professor in 1986. She is currently the Albert E. Kent Professor of Neuroscience and Psychology at Yale, and a member of the National Academy of Medicine. She received the Goldman-Rakic Prize for Outstanding Research in Cognitive Neuroscience. She is the PI on an international Neuronex funded by the NSF on the neural bases of the persistent firing underlying working memory. Arnsten’s research has led to the development of guanfacine (Intuniv) for the treatment of prefrontal disorders, and prazosin for the treatment of post-traumatic stress disorder.

Focus Talk Speakers

Kathryn Davidson

Kathryn Davidson is an associate professor of Linguistics at Harvard University, where she directs the Meaning and Modality Lab. Her interest in studying language and the mind began as an undergraduate at the University of Pennsylvania, and continued in graduate studies at the University of California, San Diego, where she brought tools from experimental pragmatics to the study of sign languages. She held a postdoctoral position at the University of Connecticut studying the importance of accessible sign language input for Deaf children, and then at Yale University where she taught in the Cognitive Science program.

Selma Šabanović

Selma Šabanović is an Associate Professor of Informatics and Cognitive Science at Indiana University Bloomington. She works at the intersection of the social study of robotics, social robot design, and human-robot interaction. She is particularly interested in understanding how cultural and organizational factors affect people’s perceptions and uses of robots, and in exploring how robots should be designed to assist people in everyday contexts like the home, schools, and in clinical settings. She is currently Editor in Chief of the ACM Transactions on Human-Robot Interaction. She received her PhD in Science and Technology Studies from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in 2007.

William B. Irvine

William B. Irvine is professor of philosophy at Wright State University in Dayton, Ohio. He is the author of eight books that have been translated into twenty languages. Among them are A Guide to the Good Life: The Ancient Art of Stoic Joy (Oxford University Press, 2008) and most recently, The Stoic Challenge: A Philosopher’s Guide to Becoming Tougher, Calmer, and More Resilient (W.W. Norton, 2018).

Matthias Mehl

Matthias Mehl is a social and personality psychologist with interest in the conceptualization and measurement of how social processes affect health and wellbeing. Methodologically, he uses research methods for studying daily life and has helped pioneer novel methods of real-world data collection. He has extensively published and given workshops on real-world psychological research methods and co-edited the Handbook of Research Methods for Studying Daily Life. He currently is a Professor of Psychology at the University of Arizona where he also holds courtesy appointments in the Department of Communication, the Division of Family Studies and Human Development, the Arizona Cancer Center, and the Evelyn F. McKnight Brain Institute.

Tiffany Ho

Dr. Tiffany Ho completed undergraduate training in Cognitive Science from UC Berkeley, doctoral training in Cognitive Neuroscience and Psychology from UC San Diego, and postdoctoral training in clinical neuroscience and affective science at UC San Francisco and Stanford University. Dr. Ho is currently an Assistant Professor in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences and a member of the Weill Institute for Neurosciences at UC San Francisco. Dr. Ho's research program focuses on how stress-related changes in key neural circuits during sensitive periods of development contribute to depression risk and other related conditions. The primary goal of Dr. Ho's research program is to inform the development and refinement of interventions aimed at treating or preventing depression in adolescents, including identifying who may achieve the most gains from existing treatments based on their psychobiological profiles.