Alexandra Cohen - Ali received her B.S. in Neuroscience from Duke University and Ph.D. in Neuroscience from Weill Cornell Graduate School of Medical Sciences. Her dissertation work with BJ Casey focusing on how emotion influences cognitive control across development led her to becoming interested in how emotional learning, memory, and underlying neural circuitry changes from childhood to adulthood. She is particularly interested in how individual differences in learning emerge over the course of development and influence memory processes. Outside the lab, Ali spends most of her time engaging in science outreach and advocacy with the braiNY, NOGN, and ScAAN groups at NYU. She is also a brunch, unicorn, and plant enthusiast.
Amanda Montañez is a graphics editor for Scientific American, where she works in both digital and print media. In addition to producing and art directing information graphics, she writes regularly for SA Visual, a staff blog focusing on visualizing science. Previously, she worked as a freelance medical illustrator, her projects including a patient education website for midwifery clients and illustrations for the edX online cell biology course. Amanda has a graduate degree in biomedical communicatinos from the University of Toronto and a B.A. in studio art from Smith College.
Ingrid Joylyn Parades is a PhD candidate in Chemical Engineering at the New York University Tandon School of Engineering. She received her B.S. and M.S. in Chemical and Biochemical Engineering, from Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey in 2015 and 2016. At NYU, Ingrid is a member of the Hybrid Nanomaterials Laboratory led by Dr. Ayash Sahu where the focus of her work is the colloidal synthesis and characterization of environmentally friendly nanomaterials for optoelectronic devices such as solar cells and LED. Outside of the lab, Ingrid spends her time in science outreach and advocasy as an organizer for the March for Science.
Danica Sapit - Danica received her B.S. in Electrical and Computer Engineering at Rutgers University, where she founded the University’s STEAM section in 2015, and studiend User Experience Design at General Assembly and with Mango Concept in NYC. She currently works for Adobe as a full-stack engineer on the team working on Adobe Portfolio, Behance and started Sensei (Machine Learning). There, she focuses on motivating rapid product adoption, which allows her to own the entireyt of a product lifecycle, from user research to data science to design to code to deployment and finally to statistical analysis with heads of Product. Moreover, she has been working on an individual product at Adobe exploring the intersection of Physical and Digital artistic tools and media. Danica also works on the advisory board as a tech specialist of Global Motherhood Initiative, a non-government organization dedicated to providing recovery solutions for victims of rape and trauma in war-torn countries. She recently moved to Brooklyn and started kickboxing, taking dance classes, and learning how to make bread from scratch.
Rannie Teodora - I lead a research team that supports
improvements to the end-to-end search experience and informs its
product growth strategy all over the world. Findings from my products
informed the new design for Facebook Search, a product supporting both
navigational and keyword searches.
I’m a mixed methods researcher. I find the intersections of
conceptual engagement, behavior change, and technology fascinating. I
strongly believe that each person has a story to share and research is
well-positioned to advocate those stories.
I received my Ph.D. in Communication at Rutgers University, where my
concentration was in health and mediated communication. My
dissertation, “Beyond Exposure: Patient Engagement with health
information in an informatino Ecology Framework”, focuses on trigger
to action and uncertainty reduction strategies.
I’ve conducted work in partnership with Cornell Tech, the Homeland
Security Center of Excellence, and the Partnership for Drug-Free New
Jersey. My work has been published in outlets such as the
Information, Communication and Society journal, the ACM Conference on
Computer Supported Cooperative Work and Social Computing (CSCW) and in
the International AAAI Conference on Web and Social Media (ICWSW).
During my undergrad at Rutgers, I was a Communication and Computer
Science double major. I’ve always had a passion for higher education.
I was a Resident on Busch Campus and later became a Residence Life
Hall Director for Rockoff Hall. As adjuction faculty, taught
persuasive, mediated, and public speaking communications courses as
part of the School of Communications and Information.