Kate Nussenbaum
@katenuss.bsky.social
assistant professor at Boston University | learning, memory, development | cldlab.org
Reposted by Kate Nussenbaum
📢 Applications are open for the 2026 #JacobsCIFARFellowship!
A new partnership between the Jacobs Foundation and CIFAR supports early- & mid-career researchers advancing how children learn & develop worldwide.
🗓️ Apply by 2 February 2026 → cifarportal.smapply.io/prog/jacobs_...
A new partnership between the Jacobs Foundation and CIFAR supports early- & mid-career researchers advancing how children learn & develop worldwide.
🗓️ Apply by 2 February 2026 → cifarportal.smapply.io/prog/jacobs_...
November 24, 2025 at 4:05 PM
📢 Applications are open for the 2026 #JacobsCIFARFellowship!
A new partnership between the Jacobs Foundation and CIFAR supports early- & mid-career researchers advancing how children learn & develop worldwide.
🗓️ Apply by 2 February 2026 → cifarportal.smapply.io/prog/jacobs_...
A new partnership between the Jacobs Foundation and CIFAR supports early- & mid-career researchers advancing how children learn & develop worldwide.
🗓️ Apply by 2 February 2026 → cifarportal.smapply.io/prog/jacobs_...
Reposted by Kate Nussenbaum
My lab at Boston University has open positions for a postdoc and PhD students. We study visual perception, attention, and decision making with a focus on temporal dynamics. Check out our recent work here sites.bu.edu/denisonlab/ and email me if you're interested in learning more
November 5, 2025 at 2:05 PM
My lab at Boston University has open positions for a postdoc and PhD students. We study visual perception, attention, and decision making with a focus on temporal dynamics. Check out our recent work here sites.bu.edu/denisonlab/ and email me if you're interested in learning more
Excited about Alice's new paper, in which we find evidence that children as young as 8 years old use successor representations for multi-step planning.
short 🧵 (1/4)
short 🧵 (1/4)
New paper out in cognition with @arikahn.bsky.social, @nathanieldaw.bsky.social, Cate Hartley, and @katenuss.bsky.social !!
We show that children 👶 use predictive representations (e.g. SR) to guide their choices, providing an account of how they can make flexible choices in a changing world
We show that children 👶 use predictive representations (e.g. SR) to guide their choices, providing an account of how they can make flexible choices in a changing world
Children leverage predictive representations for flexible, value-guided choice
By harnessing a mental model of how the world works, learners can make flexible choices in changing environments. However, while children and adolesce…
www.sciencedirect.com
October 15, 2025 at 11:13 AM
Excited about Alice's new paper, in which we find evidence that children as young as 8 years old use successor representations for multi-step planning.
short 🧵 (1/4)
short 🧵 (1/4)
Reposted by Kate Nussenbaum
Excited to share that I'm joining WashU in January as an Assistant Prof in Psych & Brain Sciences! 🧠✨!
I'm also recruiting grad students to start next September - come hang out with us! Details about our lab here: www.deckerlab.com
Reposts are very welcome! 🙌 Please help spread the word!
I'm also recruiting grad students to start next September - come hang out with us! Details about our lab here: www.deckerlab.com
Reposts are very welcome! 🙌 Please help spread the word!
DeckerLab
www.deckerlab.com
October 1, 2025 at 6:30 PM
Excited to share that I'm joining WashU in January as an Assistant Prof in Psych & Brain Sciences! 🧠✨!
I'm also recruiting grad students to start next September - come hang out with us! Details about our lab here: www.deckerlab.com
Reposts are very welcome! 🙌 Please help spread the word!
I'm also recruiting grad students to start next September - come hang out with us! Details about our lab here: www.deckerlab.com
Reposts are very welcome! 🙌 Please help spread the word!
Reposted by Kate Nussenbaum
The MAC lab at Drexel is looking for a new post-doc to work on NIH-funded projects investigating the intersection of prior knowledge and long-term memory consolidation. Please pass along to any interested lab members! careers.drexel.edu/cw/en-us/job...
Careers at Drexel - Human Resources
careers.drexel.edu
September 25, 2025 at 3:58 PM
The MAC lab at Drexel is looking for a new post-doc to work on NIH-funded projects investigating the intersection of prior knowledge and long-term memory consolidation. Please pass along to any interested lab members! careers.drexel.edu/cw/en-us/job...
Reposted by Kate Nussenbaum
Huge congrats to Dr. Lucinda Sisk on receiving the Flux Dissertation Award! 🎉 @fluxsociety.bsky.social #Flux2025
September 4, 2025 at 1:24 PM
Huge congrats to Dr. Lucinda Sisk on receiving the Flux Dissertation Award! 🎉 @fluxsociety.bsky.social #Flux2025
Reposted by Kate Nussenbaum
My lab at UCLA is hiring 1-2 PhD students this cycle!
Join us to work at the intersection of cognitive science and AI applied to pressing societal challenges like climate change.
More info about me: rachit-dubey.github.io
My lab: ucla-cocopol.github.io
Please help repost/spread the word!
Join us to work at the intersection of cognitive science and AI applied to pressing societal challenges like climate change.
More info about me: rachit-dubey.github.io
My lab: ucla-cocopol.github.io
Please help repost/spread the word!
September 3, 2025 at 12:19 AM
My lab at UCLA is hiring 1-2 PhD students this cycle!
Join us to work at the intersection of cognitive science and AI applied to pressing societal challenges like climate change.
More info about me: rachit-dubey.github.io
My lab: ucla-cocopol.github.io
Please help repost/spread the word!
Join us to work at the intersection of cognitive science and AI applied to pressing societal challenges like climate change.
More info about me: rachit-dubey.github.io
My lab: ucla-cocopol.github.io
Please help repost/spread the word!
Reposted by Kate Nussenbaum
I'll be reviewing computational/cognitive and clinical psychology applications this year for the Translational Lab at Emory 💭🔬
Please share broadly and send applicants my way! 🔄
docs.google.com/document/d/1...
Please share broadly and send applicants my way! 🔄
docs.google.com/document/d/1...
Information for prospective graduate students
The Translational Lab will be reviewing applications this cycle! Prospective students can apply through Clinical Science or Cognitive and Computational Sciences in the Emory Psychology Department to ...
docs.google.com
August 29, 2025 at 6:59 PM
I'll be reviewing computational/cognitive and clinical psychology applications this year for the Translational Lab at Emory 💭🔬
Please share broadly and send applicants my way! 🔄
docs.google.com/document/d/1...
Please share broadly and send applicants my way! 🔄
docs.google.com/document/d/1...
Reposted by Kate Nussenbaum
Very happy to see this work with Euan Prentis posted! If you’re going to CCN next week, go check out Euan’s poster on this work!
Overcoming distortion in multidimensional predictive representation https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.07.29.667463v1
July 31, 2025 at 9:03 PM
Very happy to see this work with Euan Prentis posted! If you’re going to CCN next week, go check out Euan’s poster on this work!
Reposted by Kate Nussenbaum
Thrilled to share our new @NatureComms
paper: "Exploration is associated with socioeconomic disparities in learning and academic achievement in adolescence." www.nature.com/articles/s41... 🧵1/7
paper: "Exploration is associated with socioeconomic disparities in learning and academic achievement in adolescence." www.nature.com/articles/s41... 🧵1/7
Exploration is associated with socioeconomic disparities in learning and academic achievement in adolescence - Nature Communications
Children from lower socioeconomic backgrounds often show lower academic achievement, commonly linked to limited resources. Here, the authors show that reduced exploration–a behavior tuned for learning...
www.nature.com
July 31, 2025 at 5:11 PM
Thrilled to share our new @NatureComms
paper: "Exploration is associated with socioeconomic disparities in learning and academic achievement in adolescence." www.nature.com/articles/s41... 🧵1/7
paper: "Exploration is associated with socioeconomic disparities in learning and academic achievement in adolescence." www.nature.com/articles/s41... 🧵1/7
Reposted by Kate Nussenbaum
🌵🏜️🌵 New preprint! How do people learn from ambiguous feedback, like whether someone is laughing *with* you 😆 or *at* you 😏? A very fun collab w/ the brilliant @rbhui.bsky.social A brief thread...👇
📖 osf.io/preprints/ps...
📖 osf.io/preprints/ps...
OSF
osf.io
July 30, 2025 at 10:11 PM
🌵🏜️🌵 New preprint! How do people learn from ambiguous feedback, like whether someone is laughing *with* you 😆 or *at* you 😏? A very fun collab w/ the brilliant @rbhui.bsky.social A brief thread...👇
📖 osf.io/preprints/ps...
📖 osf.io/preprints/ps...
Reposted by Kate Nussenbaum
JOB ALERT: Computational Cognitive Neuroscience Postdoc position in Osaka, Japan! Possible start in October 2025 (contact me ASAP), or from April 2026. PLEASE REPOST! #postdocjobs #neuroskyence #neuroscience #psychscisky #compneurosky #neurojobs 1/
July 18, 2025 at 3:34 AM
JOB ALERT: Computational Cognitive Neuroscience Postdoc position in Osaka, Japan! Possible start in October 2025 (contact me ASAP), or from April 2026. PLEASE REPOST! #postdocjobs #neuroskyence #neuroscience #psychscisky #compneurosky #neurojobs 1/
Reposted by Kate Nussenbaum
Thrilled to see our TinyRNN paper in @nature! We show how tiny RNNs predict choices of individual subjects accurately while staying fully interpretable. This approach can transform how we model cognitive processes in both healthy and disordered decisions. doi.org/10.1038/s415...
Discovering cognitive strategies with tiny recurrent neural networks - Nature
Modelling biological decision-making with tiny recurrent neural networks enables more accurate predictions of animal choices than classical cognitive models and offers insights into the underlying cog...
doi.org
July 2, 2025 at 7:03 PM
Thrilled to see our TinyRNN paper in @nature! We show how tiny RNNs predict choices of individual subjects accurately while staying fully interpretable. This approach can transform how we model cognitive processes in both healthy and disordered decisions. doi.org/10.1038/s415...
Reposted by Kate Nussenbaum
Just 4 weeks until the abstract deadline for Curiosity, Information Seeking & Exploration - ciseconf.github.io/CISE_2025/
🗓️ 30th Sept-1st Oct
📍 Brown University
👥 Romy Frömer, @hayleydorfman.bsky.social, Ohad Dan, Matt Nassar, Tali Sharot & Jacqueline Gottlieb
👇 Speakers
Please submit & share!
🗓️ 30th Sept-1st Oct
📍 Brown University
👥 Romy Frömer, @hayleydorfman.bsky.social, Ohad Dan, Matt Nassar, Tali Sharot & Jacqueline Gottlieb
👇 Speakers
Please submit & share!
CISE 2025
ciseconf.github.io
June 9, 2025 at 2:08 PM
Just 4 weeks until the abstract deadline for Curiosity, Information Seeking & Exploration - ciseconf.github.io/CISE_2025/
🗓️ 30th Sept-1st Oct
📍 Brown University
👥 Romy Frömer, @hayleydorfman.bsky.social, Ohad Dan, Matt Nassar, Tali Sharot & Jacqueline Gottlieb
👇 Speakers
Please submit & share!
🗓️ 30th Sept-1st Oct
📍 Brown University
👥 Romy Frömer, @hayleydorfman.bsky.social, Ohad Dan, Matt Nassar, Tali Sharot & Jacqueline Gottlieb
👇 Speakers
Please submit & share!
Reposted by Kate Nussenbaum
I'm thrilled to announce that I will start as an Assistant Professor in Psychology & Cognitive Science at the University of Arizona in Jan 2026! My lab will investigate human planning and decision making through a combination of computational models, behavior, and fMRI (1/2)
June 5, 2025 at 8:15 PM
I'm thrilled to announce that I will start as an Assistant Professor in Psychology & Cognitive Science at the University of Arizona in Jan 2026! My lab will investigate human planning and decision making through a combination of computational models, behavior, and fMRI (1/2)
Reposted by Kate Nussenbaum
New from our lab: your brain doesn’t just remember time - it bends it.
We show that the dopamine system responds to natural breakpoints in experience, and this relates to more stretched memories of time. Blinking also increases, signaling encoding of new memories.
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
We show that the dopamine system responds to natural breakpoints in experience, and this relates to more stretched memories of time. Blinking also increases, signaling encoding of new memories.
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
Dopaminergic processes predict temporal distortions in event memory
Our memories do not simply keep time - they warp it, bending the past to fit the structure of our experiences. For example, people tend to remember items as occurring farther apart in time if they spa...
www.biorxiv.org
May 19, 2025 at 9:56 PM
New from our lab: your brain doesn’t just remember time - it bends it.
We show that the dopamine system responds to natural breakpoints in experience, and this relates to more stretched memories of time. Blinking also increases, signaling encoding of new memories.
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
We show that the dopamine system responds to natural breakpoints in experience, and this relates to more stretched memories of time. Blinking also increases, signaling encoding of new memories.
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
Reposted by Kate Nussenbaum
🚨 New preprint alert! 🚨
Thrilled to share new research on teaching!
Work supervised by
@cocoscilab.bsky.social, @yaelniv.bsky.social, and @markkho.bsky.social.
This project asks:
When do people teach by mentalizing vs with heuristics? 1/3
osf.io/preprints/os...
Thrilled to share new research on teaching!
Work supervised by
@cocoscilab.bsky.social, @yaelniv.bsky.social, and @markkho.bsky.social.
This project asks:
When do people teach by mentalizing vs with heuristics? 1/3
osf.io/preprints/os...
May 19, 2025 at 6:44 PM
🚨 New preprint alert! 🚨
Thrilled to share new research on teaching!
Work supervised by
@cocoscilab.bsky.social, @yaelniv.bsky.social, and @markkho.bsky.social.
This project asks:
When do people teach by mentalizing vs with heuristics? 1/3
osf.io/preprints/os...
Thrilled to share new research on teaching!
Work supervised by
@cocoscilab.bsky.social, @yaelniv.bsky.social, and @markkho.bsky.social.
This project asks:
When do people teach by mentalizing vs with heuristics? 1/3
osf.io/preprints/os...
New paper with @catehartley.bsky.social
How does the reward structure of the environment influence the specificity with which children, adolescents, and adults learn and remember information?
See preprint 🧵 and paper for our efforts to answer to this!
#PsychSciSky
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
How does the reward structure of the environment influence the specificity with which children, adolescents, and adults learn and remember information?
See preprint 🧵 and paper for our efforts to answer to this!
#PsychSciSky
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
May 1, 2025 at 12:28 PM
New paper with @catehartley.bsky.social
How does the reward structure of the environment influence the specificity with which children, adolescents, and adults learn and remember information?
See preprint 🧵 and paper for our efforts to answer to this!
#PsychSciSky
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
How does the reward structure of the environment influence the specificity with which children, adolescents, and adults learn and remember information?
See preprint 🧵 and paper for our efforts to answer to this!
#PsychSciSky
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
Reposted by Kate Nussenbaum
Why do we not remember being a baby? One idea is that the hippocampus, which is essential for episodic memory in adults, is too immature to form individual memories in infancy. We tested this using awake infant fMRI, new in @science.org #ScienceResearch www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
Hippocampal encoding of memories in human infants
Humans lack memories for specific events from the first few years of life. We investigated the mechanistic basis of this infantile amnesia by scanning the brains of awake infants with functional magne...
www.science.org
March 20, 2025 at 6:37 PM
Why do we not remember being a baby? One idea is that the hippocampus, which is essential for episodic memory in adults, is too immature to form individual memories in infancy. We tested this using awake infant fMRI, new in @science.org #ScienceResearch www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
Reposted by Kate Nussenbaum
Why do we remember so many details of our experiences even when it is unclear if we will actually ever need them?
In a new preprint, @marcelomattar.bsky.social and I asked whether this property is adaptive, because what will be relevant in the future often (usually?!) isn’t apparent.
In a new preprint, @marcelomattar.bsky.social and I asked whether this property is adaptive, because what will be relevant in the future often (usually?!) isn’t apparent.
Episodic memory facilitates flexible decision making via access to detailed events
Our experiences contain countless details that may be important in the future, yet we rarely know which will matter and which won't. This uncertainty poses a difficult challenge for adaptive decision ...
www.biorxiv.org
March 14, 2025 at 4:00 PM
Why do we remember so many details of our experiences even when it is unclear if we will actually ever need them?
In a new preprint, @marcelomattar.bsky.social and I asked whether this property is adaptive, because what will be relevant in the future often (usually?!) isn’t apparent.
In a new preprint, @marcelomattar.bsky.social and I asked whether this property is adaptive, because what will be relevant in the future often (usually?!) isn’t apparent.
Reposted by Kate Nussenbaum
Excited to share this brief review where @katieinsel.bsky.social & I discuss studying adolescence to understand how brains work! We highlight avenues for future collaborative work at the intersection of cognitive, computational, & developmental neuroscience 🧠
journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/...
journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/...
March 10, 2025 at 6:31 PM
Excited to share this brief review where @katieinsel.bsky.social & I discuss studying adolescence to understand how brains work! We highlight avenues for future collaborative work at the intersection of cognitive, computational, & developmental neuroscience 🧠
journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/...
journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/...
New preprint 📝 - another fun collaboration with @arikahn.bsky.social, @licezhang.bsky.social, @nathanieldaw.bsky.social, @hartleylabnyu.bsky.social
We ask: Why do children and adults often derive different representations of their environments from the same experiences? 🧠👶🔎
osf.io/preprints/ps...
We ask: Why do children and adults often derive different representations of their environments from the same experiences? 🧠👶🔎
osf.io/preprints/ps...
OSF
osf.io
March 6, 2025 at 12:54 PM
New preprint 📝 - another fun collaboration with @arikahn.bsky.social, @licezhang.bsky.social, @nathanieldaw.bsky.social, @hartleylabnyu.bsky.social
We ask: Why do children and adults often derive different representations of their environments from the same experiences? 🧠👶🔎
osf.io/preprints/ps...
We ask: Why do children and adults often derive different representations of their environments from the same experiences? 🧠👶🔎
osf.io/preprints/ps...
Reposted by Kate Nussenbaum
🚨New pre-print out from our lab!!🚨 "Developmental differences in exploration reveal underlying differences in structure inference" by @noraharhen.bsky.social, Rheza Budiono, @catehartley.bsky.social, and
@aaronbornstein.bsky.social. Read here: osf.io/preprints/ps...
@aaronbornstein.bsky.social. Read here: osf.io/preprints/ps...
OSF
osf.io
March 4, 2025 at 4:17 PM
🚨New pre-print out from our lab!!🚨 "Developmental differences in exploration reveal underlying differences in structure inference" by @noraharhen.bsky.social, Rheza Budiono, @catehartley.bsky.social, and
@aaronbornstein.bsky.social. Read here: osf.io/preprints/ps...
@aaronbornstein.bsky.social. Read here: osf.io/preprints/ps...
Reposted by Kate Nussenbaum
So excited to announce Curiosity, Information Seeking & Exploration conference: 30th Sept-1st Oct @Brown University. Amazing speakers sites.google.com/view/informa... and free!
Abstract submissions open until 7th July
w/ Romy Frömer, Ohad Dan, @hayleydorfman.bsky.social, Matt Nassar. Please share!
Abstract submissions open until 7th July
w/ Romy Frömer, Ohad Dan, @hayleydorfman.bsky.social, Matt Nassar. Please share!
CISE 2025
30th September - 1st October 2025
Brown University, Rhode Island
sites.google.com
February 25, 2025 at 2:26 PM
So excited to announce Curiosity, Information Seeking & Exploration conference: 30th Sept-1st Oct @Brown University. Amazing speakers sites.google.com/view/informa... and free!
Abstract submissions open until 7th July
w/ Romy Frömer, Ohad Dan, @hayleydorfman.bsky.social, Matt Nassar. Please share!
Abstract submissions open until 7th July
w/ Romy Frömer, Ohad Dan, @hayleydorfman.bsky.social, Matt Nassar. Please share!
Reposted by Kate Nussenbaum
Out today in Nature Machine Intelligence!
From childhood on, people can create novel, playful, and creative goals. Models have yet to capture this ability. We propose a new way to represent goals and report a model that can generate human-like goals in a playful setting... 1/N
From childhood on, people can create novel, playful, and creative goals. Models have yet to capture this ability. We propose a new way to represent goals and report a model that can generate human-like goals in a playful setting... 1/N
February 21, 2025 at 4:29 PM
Out today in Nature Machine Intelligence!
From childhood on, people can create novel, playful, and creative goals. Models have yet to capture this ability. We propose a new way to represent goals and report a model that can generate human-like goals in a playful setting... 1/N
From childhood on, people can create novel, playful, and creative goals. Models have yet to capture this ability. We propose a new way to represent goals and report a model that can generate human-like goals in a playful setting... 1/N