People-BednyLab

People

Principal Investigator

Marina Bedny
Marina Bedny CV
410-516-2841
marina.bedny at jhu dot edu
225 Ames Hall

Post-Doctoral Research Fellows

Emily Silvano
esilva8 at jhu dot edu
Research interests: I am interested in understanding how different life experiences can affect sentence processing and the neural basis of language. Currently, my research investigates how congenitally blind people and sighted people process complex sentences during reading and listening.

Yun-Fei Liu
yliu291 at jhu dot edu
Research Interests: I study how the brain learns brand-new skills like computer programming. Coding is a very recent invention, and our brains don’t grow new parts for it; instead, they cleverly "recycle" systems for logical reasoning and recruit help from language systems. By combining brain imaging and behavioral research, I seek to understand not just how we program computers, but how our minds program themselves to learn.

PhD Students & Candidates

Abby Clements
acleme18 at jh dot edu
Research Interests: I study how different modalities and experiences shape language in the brain. I specifically work with braille and ASL.

Miriam Hauptman
mhauptm1 at jhu dot edu
PhD candidate
Research Interests: I use neural and behavioral measures to study how human concepts change with experience.

Akshi
alnu1 at jhu dot edu
PhD candidate
Research Interests: I use functional neuroimaging to study the neural basis of American Sign Language in Deaf signers and to investigate how diverse early life language experiences shape the neural systems that support language.

Ziwen Wang
zwang252 at jhu dot edu
PhD candidate
Research Interests: I am interested in how diverse experiences - sensory, linguistic, cultural, and developmental - shape the way humans form concepts and acquire knowledge. My current research uses behavioral and fMRI methods to examine the roles of language and first-person experience in intuitive theories of perception, as well as the neural basis of braille literacy.

Research Program Coordinator

Elizabeth Droubi
edroubi1 at jh dot edu
Research Interests: Brain plasticity and concepts in d/Deaf individuals and sign language users, with a focus on how language deprivaton impacts their development.

Lab Manager

Daria Yatsunova

Research Assistants

Charlotte Buswell
cbuswel1 at jh dot edu

Sophia Keil
skeil4 at jhu dot edu

Lana Milman
lmilman1 at jhu dot edu
Master's student
Research Interests: I am interested in the brain’s functional plasticity and its intersection with mental actions, including counting, reasoning, and language-based thinking, and how these processes are shaped by individual experience.

Sherria Young-Smith
syoungs4 at jh dot edu

Quinton Covington
qcoving2 at jhu dot edu
Research Interests: I am studying how different interpretations of a single event can shape neural responses.

Matthew Sampson
msampso7 at jhu dot edu

Undergraduate Research Assistants

Yanni Larsen
elarse12 at jhu dot edu
Research Interests: My research interests are about neuroplasticity and how the brain adapts to change, as well as how conception varies based on lived experience.

Wes Schantz-Aviles
wschant2 at jh dot edu
Research Interests: How language is processed and represented physically in the brain.

Riya Karnik
rkarnik2 at jh dot edu
Research Interests: My research interests are in cognitive and developmental neuroscience as well as neurological disorders.

Yein Han
yhan90 at jh dot edu
Research Interests: I am interested in how blind individuals utilize neural circuits while reading Braille, and more broadly, in how neuroplasticity allows different life experiences to shape human cognition and thought processes.