People
Meet Our Team
Qiong Zhang
Principal Investigator
Dr. Zhang is an assistant professor in the Psychology Department and the Computer Science Department and directs the Memory Optimization Lab.
| website || qiong.z@rutgers.edu |
Carol (Chuanxiuyue) He
Postdoctoral Associate
Dr. He is a postdoctoral associate at Rutgers Center for Cognitive Science (RuCCS). Carol received her PhD in Psychological and Brain Sciences from University of California, Santa Barbara. Her main research interest lies in understanding how people think spatially (e.g., navigating from one place to another, comprehending 3D objects in virtual environments). In her free time, she enjoys hiking and board games.
| carol.he@rutgers.edu |
Hemali Angne
Graduate Student
Hemali is funded by NSF through the Rutgers Robotics SOCRATES program. Hemali completed their bachelor’s in Computer Engineering from Mumbai University and an M.S. in Computer Science at Rutgers and are interested in interdisciplinary approaches to building AI systems responsibly. Currently, Hemali is super fascinated by computational models that help us understand human cognition better. They also like musical theatre and reading high fantasy.
| hka22@scarletmail.rutgers.edu |
Charlotte Cornell
Graduate Student
Charlie received her B.S. in Mathematics and Psychology from Loyola University Chicago. Her research focuses on how memory cues influence recall. She is interested in computational methods in cognitive and social sciences and how our memories can relate to empathy and decision-making. Outside the lab, Charlie enjoys kayaking and playing her favorite songs on the piano.
| charlotte.cornell@rutgers.edu |
Si Ma
Graduate Student
Si earned her bachelor’s in Geographic Information Systems and then entered NYU’s Psychology M.A. program. She is now interested in understanding memory and learning in a computational way. In her free time, Si enjoys spending time with her friends and playing video games.
| si.ma@rutgers.edu |
Nikolaus Salvatore
Graduate Student
Nikolaus earned a B.S. in Biological Sciences from Cornell University and a M.E. in Computer Engineering from the University of Pittsburgh. He spent 3 years working at the NSF SHREC center for reconfigurable computing, where he developed computer vision applications for space situational awareness. Now he is pursuing a PhD in Computer Science at Rutgers University where his research interest is using models of human memory to improve memory and decision-making in AI/ML architectures. In his free time, Nik enjoys video gaming, reading old sci-fi/fantasy, and tinkering with new AI/ML models.
|nds113@scarletmail.rutgers.edu |
Eric Zeng
Master’s Student
Eric completed his bachelor’s in computer science and mathematics at Rutgers. He is interested in understanding memory to create more robust and intelligent machine learning agents. In his free time, Eric enjoys traveling, playing tennis, and watching soccer.
| elz13@scarletmail.rutgers.edu |
Claudia Santacruz
Undergraduate Student
Claudia Santacruz is a current junior double majoring in Cognitive Science and Information Technology and Informatics. She is cofounder of her own education technology startup, SageTech, based off the cognitive science of multimedia and experiential learning. She has research experience in multi sensory information encoding using Virtual Reality and have worked at Johnson & Johnson at their Extended Reality (XR) lab. My hobbies include horseback riding, car meets, music and going on trips to the city with friends.
| crs276@scarletmail.rutgers.edu |
Tej Shah
Undergraduate Student
Tej is a senior at the Honors College studying Computer Science and Business Analytics majors. He is currently interested in human-machine parallels, mechanistic interpretability, and data-efficient agents. In his free time, Tej enjoys trying new restaurants, playing games (i.e., Catan), and being active (i.e., Swimming).
| tps75@scarletmail.rutgers.edu |