Image
Biography
I direct the Cognitive Tools Lab (https://cogtoolslab.github.io/) at Stanford University. Our lab aims to reverse engineer the human cognitive toolkit — in particular, how people use physical representations of thought to learn, communicate, and solve problems. Towards this end, we use a combination of approaches from cognitive science, computational neuroscience, and artificial intelligence.
Other titles
Assistant Professor, Psychology
Assistant Professor (By courtesy), Graduate School of Education
Assistant Professor (By courtesy), Computer Science
Research interests
Assessment, Testing and Measurement | Brain and Learning Sciences | Data Sciences | Higher Education | Psychology | Technology and Education
Recent publications
Brockbank, E., Verma, A., Lloyd, H., Huey, H., Padilla, L., & Fan, J. E. (2025). Evaluating convergence between two data visualization literacy assessments. Cognitive Research: Principles and Implications, 10(1), 15.
Venkatesh, R., Chen, H., Feigelis, K., Bear, D. M., Jedoui, K., Kotar, K., … Yamins, D. L. K. (2025). Understanding Physical Dynamics with Counterfactual World Modeling. COMPUTER VISION - ECCV 2024, PT XXIV. SPRINGER INTERNATIONAL PUBLISHING AG.
Bainbridge, W. A., Chamberlain, R., Wammes, J., & Fan, J. E. (2024). Drawing as a means to characterize memory and cognition. Memory & Cognition.
