Join us on Friday, May 1 | 12–2 PM | Arjona 339 for food, community, and celebration!
Open to COGS undergrads, grad students, and faculty—come meet, connect, and celebrate our graduating seniors. Stop by for a few minutes or stay the whole time!
Free food + COGS merch (stickers, notebooks, stress balls & more—perfect for finals!)
🎓 Seniors: Can’t go to the 4/24 send-off? You can still decorate your cap, grab a regalia pin, and celebrate with us!
CogSci Seniors,
You made it 🎉 — come celebrate with your fellow seniors!
Join us for a Senior Send-Off to wrap up your CogSci journey:
📅 Friday, April 24
⏰ 6:00–8:00 PM
📍 Arjona 339
Open to all Cognitive Science majors graduating in May or August.
We’ll have:
✨ Snacks & refreshments
🧠 CogSci merch
🎓A cap-decorating station (rhinestones, markers, cardstock, letters, & more!) Feel free to bring your own items!
📌 Senior pins available for pick-up, to be worn on your regalia!
👉 Please fill out this quick RSVP form so we can plan accordingly!
Can’t make it? Join us at the CogSci End-of-Year Luncheon on Friday, May 1 from 12–2pm in Arjona 339 — another chance to decorate your cap, grab a pin, and celebrate.
Cognitive Science Program Colloquium: Matt Daniels
Date/Time: Wednesday, 4/1 from 4:00pm – 5:30pm EST
Location: McHugh Hall 305
Talk Subject: In this talk, Matt will walk through how to start a creative practice (publicly or just yourself!), that uses your scientific expertise as a foundation.
Abstract: Matt Daniels‘ work centers on both art and technology, creating visual, data-driven essays for The Pudding, an online publication. Through his work, he’s collaborated with many people in the sciences, particularly in computer engineering and data science. These collaborators often remarked that they had assumed creative pursuits would take a back seat to their professional path, and how energized they were to combine their technical expertise with an artistic goal. This talk will center on how to start or maintain a creative practice (publicly or just yourself!), that uses your scientific expertise as a foundation. Matt will review different Internet subcultures/communities at the intersection of art and technology, as well as career paths. He will also discuss the importance of project-based learning, and how that translates to ways to both start and maintain creative energy for your own work.
Meetings: If you are interested in meeting with Matt on 4/1 or attending dinner in the evening, please email crystal.mills@uconn.edu.
Talk Co-hosted by IBACS & PSYC BNS: Dr. Dylan Gee
Professor in the Department of Psychology at Yale University
Date/Time: Thursday, 3/26/26 fat 4pm EST
Location: Bousfield 160
Talk Title: The Developing Brain in Context: Translating Neuroscientific Insights to Promote Youth Mental Health
Abstract: Environmental contexts can have a profound influence on brain and behavioral development. From trauma exposure to variation in the predictability of caregiving behaviors, the environments in which children and adolescents develop actively shape their neurodevelopment and mental health. Advances in developmental neuroscience have demonstrated how experiences of safety, predictability, and adversity influence the maturation of corticolimbic circuits in ways that confer risk or resilience for mental health disorders. This talk will illustrate how these insights from developmental neuroscience can inform efforts to optimize clinical interventions for anxiety and stress-related disorders in youth. Together, this work advances understanding of the neurobiological mechanisms that promote favorable mental health outcomes and guides approaches to foster recovery among youth exposed to adversity or living with mental health conditions.
Meetings: If you are interested in meeting with Dr. Gee or attending dinner, please email crystal.mills@uconn.edu.
We are pleased to announce that the registration and submission form for attending and/or presenting research at Language Fest 2026 is now open!
Language Fest is a university-wide research conference that was established in 2009 to bring together the full community of language researchers at UConn for a day of sharing results, ideas, methodologies, and fostering future interdisciplinary collaborations. With the generous support of the Institute for the Brain and Cognitive Sciences, the 2026 installment of Language Fest will take place on Wednesday, April 15th from 3:30pm to 7:00pm.
This year’s festival will include a spoken program (in Konover Auditorium) followed by poster sessions and a reception (in Bousfield Psychology Atrium). We welcome talk submissions for the Graduate Student Symposium and poster submissions (which come with an option to be part of a data blitz). The deadline for all submissions is Wednesday, April 1st, 2026 at 11:59pm.
For those attending but not presenting, we still ask that you complete the registration form above so we have an accurate headcount for catering.
Submissions for the Poster Sessions. Poster presentations by students of all stages, research staff, and faculty are welcome! If your research explores any questions related to language, your poster would be a great fit. You are more than welcome to present work that you have recently submitted or presented at a different conference. This is a wonderful opportunity to share your work with our multidisciplinary community and to receive enthusiasm and feedback for your work! Poster presenters will have the option to give an oral preview of their poster as part of the Data Blitz in the spoken program. Limited funds are available to help those in need of financial assistance to cover the cost of poster printing. For inquiries, please reach out to us at langfest@uconn.edu. Finally, we recognize that this year’s festival will take place on the same day as the 2026 Frontiers exhibition. Please know that we have been in touch with the Frontiers organizers and both of us are happy to accommodate those interested in presenting at both events. If you intend to present at both LangFest and Frontiers, please leave us a comment at the end of the submission form, and we will schedule your presentation accordingly.
For any questions about Language Fest, please email: langfest@uconn.edu and visit our website https://languagefest.uconn.edu/.
We look forward to your attendance and participation!
Join us on Friday, 2/6 from 9-10am in Arjona 339.
The Cognitive Science Program is hosting a casual “Meet the Directors” drop-in event. Feel free to stop by and meet Dr. Dimitris Xygalatas, the Director of the COGS Program, Dr. Adrian Garcia-Sierra, our COGS Director of Undergraduate Studies, and Crystal Mills, the program coordinator for COGS. Whether you have questions to ask or you just want to introduce yourself, please come by!
You can’t make it, but you have questions? Email us at cogsci@uconn.edu.
Talk Sponsored by The Institute for the Brain & Cognitive Sciences (IBACS): Dr. Matthew Sacchet from Harvard Medical School and Mass General
Date/Time: February 2, 2026, at 12:20pm (during TalkShop)
Location: SHH 101
Bio: Dr. Matthew D. Sacchet, Ph.D., is an Associate Professor and the Director of the Meditation Research Program at Harvard Medical School and Massachusetts General Hospital (Mass General). Dr. Sacchet and his team study advanced meditation: states, stages, and endpoints of meditative development and mastery. He has authored more than 150 publications that have been cited more than 10,000 times, and his work has been presented more than 170 times at international, national, regional and local venues including at Cambridge, Harvard, Oxford, Princeton, Stanford, and Yale Universities, and the United Nations. His research has appeared in leading scientific journals in the mind and brain sciences and psychiatry, including American Journal of Psychiatry, Biological Psychiatry, Cerebral Cortex, JAMA Psychiatry, Journal of Neuroscience, Molecular Psychiatry, Nature Mental Health, Neuropsychopharmacology, Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, and World Psychiatry. He has received generous support from numerous foundations and repeat awards from federal funding bodies in the United States, including the National Institutes of Health and National Science Foundation. His work has appeared in many major media outlets where it has been viewed many millions of times, including in 10% Happier, CBC, CBS, Forbes, Men’s/Women’s Health, NBC, New Scientist, NPR, Scientific American, TIME, Vox, and Wall Street Journal, and Forbes named him one of its “30 Under 30.” Dr. Sacchet is an Associate Editor of the leading meditation academic journal Mindfulness, and a Research Fellow of the Mind & Life Institute. He has been nominated for mentorship awards five times in the last five years.
Talk Abstract: Mindfulness has gained considerable momentum globally as an intervention for improving health and wellbeing. Beyond mindfulness, advanced meditation includes states, stages, and endpoints that result from mastery of meditation. Matthew D. Sacchet Ph.D. (Harvard/Mass General) will provide an overview of current directions in advanced meditation research that characterize the third wave of meditation research. The study and practice of advanced meditation promise incredible new opportunities for elevating human potential in diverse clinical and non-clinical contexts. See the Meditation Research Program’s website for more information: https://meditation.mgh.harvard.edu/
Talk Co-hosted by COGS & ECOM: Dr. Cat Hobaiter from the University of St Andrews
Date/Time: Friday, 11/14/25 from 4:00pm – 5:30pm EST
Location: McHugh Hall 205
Bio: Cat is a field primatologist who has spent the past 20 years studying wild primates across Africa. She is a Professor in Origins of Mind at the University of St Andrews where she leads the Wild Minds Lab. The main focus of her research is the communication and cognition of wild apes. Through long-term field studies she explores what the behaviour of modern apes living in their natural environment tells us about their minds, as well as about the evolutionary origins of our own behaviour. She is the director of three long-term chimpanzee field-sites in Uganda and Guinea.
Talk Title: Storytelling apes: ape gesture and the evolution of human language
Abstract: Are you sitting comfortably? Then I’ll begin. Three years ago, I was on a remote expedition with a small group of people with whom I had essentially no language in common. Over the weeks we found built huts, mapped the area, cooked, ate, and laughed together. We started to swap a few phrases, but most of our daily life was managed without language. A long list of human behaviours has been proposed as the reason we have language. But decades of research with other apes have shown us that 1) they have rich systems of flexible, intentional, meaningful, communication, and also that 2) apes and other species do not need language to learn from each other, to organize where and when to forage, to learn cultural knowledge about tools and songs, to co-ordinate hunting, or navigate social politics. It starts to look like human language didn’t evolve for anything useful. But could we simply have been looking in the wrong place? Ten years ago, anthropologist Polly Wiessner made the provocative suggestion that fire was the fundamental driver of human social behaviour. While the day-to-day conversations of the forager peoples she worked with were about mundane practicalities and gossip, fireside conversations are different: they are used for telling stories. I will review what we have learned about other apes’ rich systems of communication so far, and ask—at the end of the day—are we the storytelling ape?
Meetings: Dr. Hobaiter will be available for meetings at UConn from 11/12 – 11/14. If you are interested in meeting with her on any of these days or attending dinner in the evening on Friday, please email crystal.mills@uconn.edu.
Attached is the talk flyer for posting. Please email Crystal if you have questions.
Dear Members of the UConn Neuro Community,
On behalf of the Neuroscience Steering Committee, you are cordially invited to the 28th ANNUAL NEUROSCIENCE AT STORRS SYMPOSIUM on Thursday, November 6th, 2025, from 3:30pm – 8:30pm in The Dodd Center / Bousfield Building on the Storrs campus.
This annual event is sponsored by IBACS and brings together the brain science community at UConn/UConn HEALTH from across diverse departments, schools, and colleges. The event is supported by the BME department (this year’s host), and the departments of PNB, Psychological Sciences, and Pharmaceutical Sciences. The 28th Annual NEUROSCIENCE AT STORRS is packed with an inspiring keynote lecture, exciting short-format research talks, and poster presentations. All events are open to interested undergraduates, graduate students, postdocs, staff, and faculty from across UConn departments and schools.
This year’s Keynote Speaker is Dr. Nima Mesgarani, PhD, Associate Professor at the Zuckerman Mind, Brain, and Behavior Institute at Columbia University. Dr. Mesgarani is an internationally recognized scholar and leader in neural engineering and auditory neuroscience. He is a pioneer in the study of neural circuits underlying speech processing and made several key contributions to the development of AI models for automatic speech processing and brain computer interfaces for speech recognition. For information, please visit: https://naplab.ee.columbia.edu/
This is a GENERAL CALL for:
• POSTERS: Poster presentations from trainees (graduate students and postdocs) from UConn, UConn HEALTH or other local institutions (DEADLINE for submission: Tuesday, Nov. 4th)
• DATA BLITZ TALKS: Each talk is 3 mins and 3-4 PPT slides, 2 mins for questions, and limited to trainees (graduate students or postdocs) from UConn or UConn HEALTH (DEADLINE for submission: Monday, Nov. 3rd)
• REGISTRATION: Everyone is welcome, please register as soon as possible!
Please submit your applications for giving a poster presentation or Data blitz talk, as well as registration, at the bottom of the website: https://neuroscience.uconn.edu/28th-annual-neuroscience-at-storrs-2/
Neuroscience at Storrs has always been a fun and interactive showcase for our vibrant brain science community here at UConn, please spread the word and participate!
For general questions, please contact Sabato Santaniello (sabato.santaniello@uconn.edu) in the Biomedical Engineering Department.
Thanks!
The Neuroscience Steering Committee:
Alexander Jackson (PNB)
John Salamone and Heather Read (Psych)
Gregory Sartor (Pharm)
Sabato Santaniello (BME)
Date/Time: Friday, 10/3/25 from 4:00pm – 5:30pm EST
Location: McHugh Hall 302
Meetings: If you are interested in meeting with Dr. Tamis-LeMonda during the day or attending dinner in the evening on Friday, please email crystal.mills@uconn.edu.
Talk Title: Word learning in context: Disambiguating the ambiguous
Abstract: The pace and breadth of early vocabulary development is impressive to say the least. Infants grow from producing their first words around 12 months to using over 500 words by 2 ½ years. How do infants crack the code to acquire so many words in a relatively short period of time? Our theoretical framework emphasizes the embodied and embedded nature of learning: Infants actively engage with their environments in the presence of socially responsive partners who provide semantically relevant input within a tight time window during highly specific activity contexts. The tight temporal connection between infant action, caregiver speech, and activity context cuts across word classes—nouns, verbs, adjectives, prepositions—thereby functioning to ‘disambiguate the ambiguous’.