aaron wrightcognitive scientist, artist
Frame It Wright Photography

about

To me, science is mentorship.

I've been privileged to experience several wonderful scholars' investments, and my scientific lens is as much a product of their wisdom and prompting as it is formed around my own desire to mentor future scholars.

  • Beginning in the Fall, I will join the Psychiatry, Embodiment and Computation (PEAC) Lab, within the Department of Cognitive and Psychological Sciences and Carney Institute for Brain Science at Brown. I'm thrilled to work with Frederike Petzschner and her team to study embodied intelligence –– how brain-body interactions shape learning, emotion, and psychiatric vulnerability –– using computational modeling, neuroimagining (EEG, fMRI), and behavioral methods.
  • Currently, I'm "discovering how minds and brains create language" as a post-baccalaureate research assistant in Evelina Fedorenko's language lab at MIT. I've been working with Agata Wolna, using fMRI and other techniques to explore the neural signatures of language processing, including the broader language network and how monolinguals and bilinguals differ in production and comprehension.
    • Simultaneously, I've been in collaboration with Yi Yang Teoh in Oriel FeldmanHall's lab at Brown, thinking about individual differences in emotion semantics and their implications for behavioral wellbeing and decision making.
  • Previously, I received my B.S. from Gordon College, where Dr. Susan Bobb transformed my distinct appreciations for linguistic structure and the human mind into a unified love of language in the bilingual brain. Dr. Peter Iltis also fostered these passions by taking me on as a research assistant working with real-time MRI and acoustic data from brass instrumentalists.