Meet Our Majors

(profiled in 2020) McKenzie Dominick ‘22 is a Cognitive Science and Computer Science double major. She was attracted to the major by its flexibility; she likes being able to create her own path within the course requirements. She hopes to ultimately go to a doctoral program in Cognitive Neuroscience, so she’s selecting a lot of  Neuroscience courses. First, though, she plans on spending some time in Software Engineering to get work experience and pay off student loans. This... Continue Reading
(profiled in 2020) Meet Emma Stein ‘20, who just graduated with a major in Cognitive Science and minors in both Computer Science and Mass Communication.  Emma somehow managed to do all that and still spend a semester abroad in Barcelona!  Emma chose Cognitive Science because she wanted an interdisciplinary major that could be applied to the real world.  Emma worked on research with Professor Jia aiming to create a dataset search engine that will assist scientists in... Continue Reading
(profiled in 2018) Emily Passalaqua ‘20 is a rising Junior on the Pre-Med Track with a major in Cognitive Science and a minor in Sociology. This summer, she studied at the National University in Galway (NUIG) through Lehigh’s program in Ireland. Emily participated in research at the school’s center for Economic and Social Research on Dementia, where she learned how to create efficient surveys directed towards a specific audience and was involved with research that analyzed the... Continue Reading
(profiled in 2018) Larrisa Miller ’20 is a rising Junior with majors in Cognitive Science and Psychology. This summer, Larrisa is working on the same project as fellow Cognitive Science major Kim Mejia. The study, “Negotiating Privacy Boundaries: The Collective and Social Aspect of Privacy Management,” is based on understanding the permeability of group barriers and how groups manage collective information. According to Larrisa, “having a background in Cognitive Science... Continue Reading
(profiled in 2019) Katie Teitelbaum ’19 is a current senior with an interdisciplinary BA in Cognitive Human-Centered Design-- she has majors in Cognitive Science and Graphic Design and minors in Computer Science and Chinese. She particularly enjoys human- computer interaction, and has done research on memory with Professor Hupbach. Katie loves Cog Sci because it is a mix of many fields that interest her: “Cognitive science is useful for every job. Learning cognitive science can help... Continue Reading
(profiled in 2019) Kim Mejia ’19 chose a senior project looking at the effects of stereotypes on spontaneous speech in bilingual students. Bilingual students’ capacity to use a majority language as well as their heritage language sometimes isolates them from the communities that they see themselves a part of. By examining stereotypes that make bilinguals doubt their heritage language use and ability to belong, she hopes to see how their use and general feelings about language are... Continue Reading
(profiled in 2018) Matt Brown ‘19 is a rising senior with a major in Computer Science and a minor in Cognitive Science. This summer, he interned at IBM in San Jose, CA, as a Data Scientist intern. He has been working on front-end development using React, as well as computational facial recognition models using neural networks. Matt was a part of an intern hackathon team that developed an IBM-Watson powered HR application; his team won the entire hackathon out of over 400 participants (... Continue Reading
(profiled in 2018)  Madison Hoff ’19 is a rising senior majoring in Cognitive Science and Journalism and minoring in Data Science. This summer, Madison interned at Lehigh University Communications as an editorial services intern, where she has been writing articles and helping with the Lehigh Bulletin and Business magazines. She is also a summer tour guide and has enjoyed showing families what the university has to offer. In addition to her two summer jobs, Madison has also been... Continue Reading
(profiled in 2018) Joanna (Joey) Rompallo ’19  is working with Professor Eric P. S. Baumer of the Computer Science and Engineering Department for her senior project. The end goal of this multi-year project is to utilize human centered machine learning methods to promote reflection and help people recovering from eating disorders . Joey's role in this project has been working on interview protocols to gather information which will influence our later design, as well as coming up... Continue Reading
(profiled in 2019) Meet Eric MacDougal ‘19, a senior double majoring in English and Cognitive Science! He is interested most in language, culture, and meaning within Cog Sci, and he has done research on lexical gaps with Professor Malt. This research is focused on questioning why nouns are sometimes able to operate as verbs, and has helped inspire his senior project-- stay tuned to hear more about his lexical mapping thesis in the future! Eric loves Cog Sci due to its interdisciplinary... Continue Reading
(profiled in 2018) Kathy Trinh ’19 is a rising senior on the pre-med track majoring in Cognitive Science. Through the Iacocca Internship, this summer she has been doing research with Dr. Michelle Downes in the psychology department of University College of Dublin located in Belfield, Ireland; this research comprises of a few assessments that measure the role of sleep in the development of attention in infants with high risks of ADHD. “I feel that Cognitive Science as a major has... Continue Reading
(profiled in 2018) Ben Quan ’19 is a rising senior with a major in Cognitive Science and minors in Computer Science and Philosophy. For the past few summers, as well as during the school year, Ben worked with Steppingstone Scholars Inc. teaching Introduction to Java programing and robotics to inner-city high school students in Philadelphia. This summer, he worked with grad student Iiona Scully and Professor Hupbach at Lehigh with research involving implicit attitudes and memory, using... Continue Reading