
Lab Members
Lab Director
Assistant Professor, Psychological and Brain Sciences
Tara graduated from Duke University with a B.A. in Biological Anthropology, then from the University of Chicago with her Ph.D. in Comparative Human Development. She loves developing research studies to figure out how kids think about the people and places around them.
Dr. Mandalaywala is not accepting applications for graduate students to start in Fall 2026.
Postdoctoral Researcher
Pinar Aldan earned her B.A. and M.A. in Psychology from Boğaziçi University in Turkey and her Ph.D. in Developmental Psychology from Yale University. She joined the CADLab in the summer of 2025. Her research looks at how people understand social and economic inequalities, and what shapes their willingness to rethink long-held beliefs. Right now, she’s studying: (1) how people of different ages pay attention to and learn from examples that either support or challenge stereotypes, (2) how parents talk to their kids about everyday inequality, and (3) how people make sense of unequal pay in the workplace. Outside the lab, Pinar loves to travel, knit, cook, and watch indie horror movies.
Graduate Student
Jordan Legaspi, M.S., is a 6th year PhD Student in the Cognition Across Development Lab, based at UMass Amherst. He is interested in the global development of cognitive heuristics and social bias, with special consideration to how essentialism and stereotyping affect intra- and inter- personal relations.
Graduate Student
Yuchen Tian (she/her/hers), M.A. is a 5th-year PhD student in the CAD lab, based at Boston University. She studies how adults and children think about leadership, social status, and socioeconomic inequalities. In asking these questions, Yuchen pays particular attention to how culture (e.g., macro-level: U.S. vs. China; micro-level: contact to certain social groups) shapes differences in people’s social thinking. In her dissertation, Yuchen is investigating the development of 4- to 12-year-old children’s beliefs about social mobility across different social groups and in a cross-cultural context.
Before joining the CAD lab, Yuchen received her Master's degree in Developmental Psychology from Cornell University. You can learn more about Yuchen by clicking here.
Amirtha Santhosh
Research Assistant
Amirtha is a sophomore at Boston University, majoring in humanphysiology on the premedical track. She is excited to work in the CAD Lab
because of the great people she works with and because she wants to gain
insight into how children think about the world! In the future, she hopes to
attend medical school after graduation and potentially work in pediatrics.Ashleigh Washington
Research Assistant
Ashleigh is a sophomore at Boston University, majoring in psychology and minoring in deaf studies. Her time as a mentor and ABA behavioral therapist fostered her love for working with children and plans to pursue a graduate degree in developmental neuropsychology. She hopes to become a neuropsychologist and conduct research on ASD, specifically in children. She is so excited to be working with the CAD Lab and learning more about children’s perspectives of our world!
Daniel Mandell
Research Assistant
Danny is a senior at Boston University studying Neuroscience and Psychology. He plans to pursue a Ph.D. in Neuropsychology or a related field and is deeply fascinated by cognitive science. He believes that childhood experiences play a significant role in shaping adult life and that all children deserve adequate care and attention, irrespective of neurological differences. Danny is excited to work in the CAD Lab to better understand how children perceive the world and how those perceptions may differ across individuals.
Emily Aron
Research Assistant
Emily is a senior at the University of Rochester where she is pursuing a degree in Psychology and American Sign Language with a minor in Brain and Cognitive Science. Emily is working at the CAD Lab for the summer through a collaboration with the Miso Lab at the UofR. Emily is dedicated to improving the lives of children by pursuing greater understanding of children’s perceptions of themselves, others, and the world around them. After graduation she will pursue a PhD in Counseling Psychology and continue to conduct research.
Samantha Fuchs
Research Assistant
Samantha graduated from Fairfield University in 2024 with a degree in Psychology and a concentration in Behavioral Neuroscience. She is very interested in how children understand the world and themselves, and in the factors that shape their perspectives and personalities. Samantha is excited to be working with the CAD Lab to combine her love for research with her passion for working with children. In the future, she hopes to pursue graduate school to continue exploring human development and social cognition.
Samuel Kraus
Research Assistant
Sam is a junior at Boston University, where he blends his love for language, literature, and science by majoring in Japanese Language & Literature and minoring in Chemistry. On a pre-medical track, he’s driven by a passion for research and knowledge, with plans to go to medical school. Sam is especially fascinated by how children from diverse backgrounds perceive and navigate the world, and he's eager to explore these insights further in the CAD
Lab.Lab Alumni
It takes a (very cheerful!) army to do developmental science! Thanks to all of the previous members of the CAD Lab who made this work possible. Graduate Students and Lab ManagersDr. Gorana Gonzalez | Alix Alto Undergraduate Research Assistants *indicates Honors Thesis or Independent Study studentMia Baskey | Seham Albalawi | Oluchi Ukairo* | Delaney Sherman | Jingyi Yuan | Jayla Sanchez | Shivaangi Salhotra | Rishabh Nair | Carine Mansour | Waverly Leonard | Kailin Huang | Advika Kamath | Lydia Flagg | Lada Filippov | Ziqi Ding | Sarah Berliner | Katrina Chang | Chen Zou | Saliha Bayrak* | Laya Bharath | Elizabeth Cho | Alex Dhima | Kerleene Dorceus | Madeline Kennedy | Emily Kitsock | Seda Korroch* | Genesis Medina* | Dagney Overbey | Henry Pareto* | Prachi Patel | Jenna Rubin | Kaitylyn Rybicki | Naomi Small | Riley Zimmerman | Naimid Abelenda | Emily Adams | Emmy Fulcidor | Amber Nyugen | Edye Benedict* | Jess Guertin* | Andrew Delgao | Claire Ladd* | Natasha Dimitruk | Tayla Bent | Alyssa Mielke | Hailey Pensky | Maddy Lin | Cheryl Shen | Lewen Wang | Mila Splawska | Xiao Ping (Eric) Yu High School Summer Research Assistants Julia O'Donoghue | Isabel Lytton | Stella Liu | Aurora Schefferli | Jodie Yan | Madeline Zhang | Nandini Sharma | Amulya Jonnalagadda | Aarti Jeslani | Benjamin Heim | Ashwin Srinivasan
2023 - 2024 in the CAD Lab
Year 6 brings lots of joy and lots of changes to the lab!
2023 - 2024 was oh so amazing. We graduated our very first, very awesome Ph.D. student. Let's here it for Dr. Gorana Gonzalez! We graduated yet another batch of spectacular students going on to do great things, including the one and only Oluchi Ukairo who wrote an A+ honors thesis. Dr. Mandalaywala gave public talks at Abandoned Building Brewery and at Amherst Cinema! And the lab took a cross-country trip (with baby Miles!) to Pasadena for the 2024 Cognitive Development Society Meeting.
But 2024 was also oh so bittersweet. We said goodbye to our friends at UMass Amherst and moved the lab to Boston University! We're so excited for this new chapter and can't wait to see what 24 - 25 brings!
2022 - 2023 in the CAD Lab
Three cheers for the CAD Lab! (We're 5 years old now!)
2022- 2023 was another stellar year for the CAD Lab. Baby Miles was born, we went to the Society for Research in Child Development meeting in Salt Lake City, Utah, watched undergraduate RA's share their awesome research at the Undergraduate Research Conference, read amazing theses from Saliha and Genesis, celebrated Naomi's Outstanding RA award, and say a tearful and happy goodbye to all of our graduates! Here's to another great year!
2021 - 2022 in the CAD Lab
The CAD Lab turns 4!
2021- 2022 was an amazing year for the CAD Lab. Our honors thesis students presented their research projects at the PBS poster session, our graduate students shared their science at the 2022 Cognitive Development Society meeting, and Gorana Gonzalez was awarded the UMass Commitment to Diversity Award! Let's hear it for all of the awesome things these awesome students accomplished!

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