We study social and affective processing in humans, with particular emphasis on cognitive, neural, and computational processes. Our group and collaborators are interested in how social and affective processes develop through adolescence and into adulthood, and how problems with these processes can lead to psychopathology and substance abuse.

We use functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), event-related potentials (ERPs), and repetitive transcranial magnetic resonance imaging (rTMS) to measure and perturb neural processes. We use network analyses, reinforcement learning, agent-based modeling, and dynamical systems approaches to develop statistical and computational models of social and affective processes.

Our work is funded by the National Institutes of Health, National Science Foundation, and the Institute for Biohealth Innovation at GMU.