About my current job
I research the cognitive neuroscience of social cognition, Theory of Mind, and moral judgment. My research is motivated by big questions: How does the human brain - an electrical and biological machine - construct abstract thoughts? What aspects of our brains and minds are universal, shared by all humans, and how much is specific to a culture or unique to an individual? How do children's brains change as they grow up? How do developmental disorders, like autism, affect brain development? What brain regions are involved and what speifically are they doing?
(Note: Rebecca's 2009 TED talk "How We Read Each Other's Minds" has been viewed over 3.3 million times and has been translated into 33 languages.)
Something important I learned during my time at EP
I was 19 years old when I started on my first research project, and I had no expeirience and no skills. After two years of collecting and analysing the data, the upshot of my effort was nothing. Somehow, at the time, I didn't find this outcome discouraging. It seemed like science working the way it is supposed to - the real world falsifies bad hypotheses, pushing the scentists to try again.
