Club Leadership
President
Laila Johnston is a Senior at UCF, majoring in Mathematics and minoring in Computer Science and Philosophy. Currently she is working on creating probabilistic language of thought models in Dr. Josh Tenenbaum’s CoCoSci Lab at MIT. She is interested in investigating the fundamentals of cognitive science using abstract math. She wishes to pursue a Ph.D. in Computational Cognitive Science.
Vice President
Paulina Kowlessar is a Freshman at UCF, majoring in Psychology on the neuroscience track. Her research interests include human behavior, cognitive development and plasticity, and computational neuroscience. She hopes to pursue a PsyD in Psychology with a specialization in neuropsychology, and one day establish her own practice while continuing to reside in Orlando, Florida.
Secretary
Mari Lopez is a fourth-year at UCF majoring in psychology and minoring in computer science. They currently work with the Socio-Technical Interaction Research lab at UCF under the guidance of Dr. Pamela Wisnewski and her graduate mentors to conduct research. Upon graduation from UCF, they hope to pursue a graduate degree in Human Factors/Human Computer Interactions.
Treasurer
Brian Acosta is a senior at UCF majoring in Interdisciplinary Studies with focuses in Philosophy and Neuropsychology. His academic interests are in chaos theory, philosophy of mind, cognitive neuroscience, music cognition, and phenomenology. His goal is to conduct graduate research in music cognition and earn a PhD in Neuroscience.
Webmaster
Richard Carter is a senior at UCF, majoring in Computer Science with a minor in Cognitive Science. His main academic interests include artificial intelligence, biology, psychology and philosophy of mind. Richard aspires to work in the cybernetics field, with special interest in creating new solutions to existing problems like Alzheimer's, learning disabilities, and physical disabilities.
Club Sponsor
Dr. Luis H. Favela is an Associate Professor of Philosophy and Cognitive Sciences at the University of Central Florida. He has been a Fellow at the University of Pittsburgh's Center for Philosophy of Science and Duke University's Summer Seminars in Neuroscience and Philosophy, as well as Visiting Researcher at Indiana University Bloomington's Computational Cognitive Neuroscience Laboratory in the Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences. He earned his Ph.D. in Philosophy at the University of Cincinnati, where he concurrently earned a Master's in Experimental Psychology. Prior to Cincinnati, he earned a Master's in Philosophy at San Diego State University and a Bachelor's in English and Philosophy at the University of San Diego. His interdisciplinary research at the intersection of philosophy and the mind sciences applies complexity science and dynamical systems theory to investigations of behavior, cognition, and consciousness in diverse systems at various spatial and temporal scales. You can visit his website here.
Past Executive Members
Camila Acevedo-Carrillo
Bryan Medina
Pia Nelson
Samuel Rincon