Lab Members

Principal Investigator
Emily S. Finn (she/her)
Emily is an assistant professor in the Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences at Dartmouth College. She completed her Ph.D. in neuroscience at Yale, and her postdoctoral training at the National Institute of Mental Health. Before that, she received a B.A. in linguistics, also from Yale. Emily’s work is focused on individual variability in brain activity and behavior, especially as it relates to appraisal of ambiguous information under naturalistic conditions. When not science-ing, she can often be found doing something outdoors, playing guitar (poorly), or summoning the motivation to exercise.
[CV] - [Google Scholar] - [Email]
Postdoctoral Fellows
Qi (Kay) Liang (she/her)
Kay is a postdoctoral fellow in the FINN lab. Before Dartmouth, she received her B.S. in Psychology and Ph.D. in Cognitive Neuroscience from East China Normal University. Kay has always been fascinated by the social nature of humans. In the FINN lab, she would like to learn how individuals perceive and represent social information under their own biases.
[Google Scholar] - [Email]
Gabriel Braun (he/him)
Gabriel is a postdoctoral fellow in the Finn Lab. Before joining the lab, he completed his PhD in neuroscience at Tel Aviv University. His research examines how people process and represent truth, trust, and commitment in communication, with a particular interest in how these representations shift as people encounter new information and revise their interpretations. In his free time, he enjoys studying film as if it were his main doctoral research.
[Email]
Graduate Students
Kathryn O'Nell (she/her)
Katie is a graduate student in the FINN Lab. She holds an undergraduate degree in Brain and Cognitive Sciences from MIT and a master's degree from Oxford in Experimental Psychology. Her main interests center on social cognition, particularly how we represent others' minds in terms of social concepts and categories -- and how traditional narrative forms drive the creation of these concepts. Outside of the lab, Katie enjoys hiking, puzzle hunts, and proselytizing about the wonders of public libraries to anyone who will listen.
[Google Scholar] - [Email]
Zachary Paris (he/him)
Zach is a graduate student in the FINN lab. He got his undergraduate degree in Computer Science from Princeton in 2022. Since then he worked as a software engineer at Google for two years before finding himself back in research working with Uri Hasson’s lab at Princeton prior to starting at Dartmouth. His primary interests lie in social cognition and how we can utilize modern ML techniques to build better models and understanding of naturalistic conversation behavior in humans, and whether they can aid in understanding emergent social phenomena. Outside of the lab, Zach enjoys running, climbing, and pestering people to let him play music with them.
[Email]
Jiun Choi (she/her)
Jiun is a visiting student from Sungkyunkwan University, South Korea, where she works with Dr. Won Mok Shim. Her research interests focus on how the brain represents memories of real-world social experiences, such as everyday interactions with friends. Outside of research, she enjoys music, desserts, and exploring art from diverse cultures.
[Email]
Undergraduate RAs
Tiffany Koome (she/hers)
Tiffany is an Undergraduate research assistant in the FINN Lab. She plans on Majoring in Neuroscience and Minoring in either studio art or earth sciences. On campus, she is involved in the ASL Club as well as the child care centre where she spends her time doing arts & crafts and taking care of 2 Year Olds. In her free time, Tiffany enjoys reading, going to cafes to curate optimum study vibes and sleeping. She hopes to pursue a career in the medical field, working in countries that have limited access to healthcare.
Kalina Duncheva (she/hers)
Kalina is an undergraduate research assistant at the FINN Lab. She is a ’27 majoring in Neuroscience and Computer Science. On campus, she spends her weekends going on trips with the Dartmouth Outing Club; she records those and other adventures on her Admissions blog “People Places Pines,” and she begins her days nerding about anything French with her adorable French drillees. Outside of class, Kalina loves talking to imaginary people (she writes fantasy novels), and she loves talking to very real people about her baby sister, her dog and cats, and all the cool things she’s read in books.
Lab Mascot
Crosby
Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young (who goes by Crosby) is a full-time Bernedoodle and alternates between two alter egos, "Muppet" and "Monster". Crosby recently graduated from the White Mountain College for Pets as vale-dog-torian (class size: 2). He is responsible for making sure Emily gets her daily dose of fresh air, no matter the weather, and can often be found chewing rugs or terrorizing plants.


Lab Alumni
Postdoctoral Fellows
Rekha Varrier, postdoc 2020-2024
next step: postdoc at the University of Bonn
Peng Liu, postdoc 2022-2023
next step: postdoc at the University of Florida
Clare Grall, postdoc 2020-2022
next step: Behavioral Researcher at StoryFit
PhD Students
Clara Sava-Segal, PhD student 2020-2026
now postdoc at the Wu Tsai Institute, Yale University
Tommy Botch, PhD student 2021-2026
now postdoc at Sungkyunkwan University, South Korea
Visiting Scholars
Hongji Kim, visiting PhD student 2021-2022
current postdoc in the Columbia Social Neuroscience Lab
Eneko Uruñuela, visiting PhD student 2022
current medical AI scientist
Lab Managers and Full-Time RAs
Dallas Brodersen, lab manager 2024-2025

Zishan Su, full-time RA 2023-2025

Tory Benson, lab manager/full-time RA 2022-2024
current PhD student at Rutgers
Jordan Selesnick, full-time RA 2022-2023
Josie Equita, lab manager 2020-2022
Undergraduate RAs
Eli Bailit, undergraduate RA 2024-2026
next step: Annenberg Fellow at Eton College
Ash Chinta, undergraduate RA 2022-2025
next step: research assistant in the Turk-Browne Lab at Yale
Ellie Oyebode, undergraduate RA 2025
Sofia Yawand-Wossen, undergraduate RA 2022-2025
next step: analyst at Morgan Stanley
Brooke Moore, undergraduate RA 2024-2025
David Igbalajobi, undergraduate RA 2024-2025
Georgia Nieh, undergraduate RA 2024-2025
Anna Katherine Ray, undergraduate RA 2022-2024
next step: UCL’s MSc in Social Cognition program
Caroline Balick, undergraduate RA 2021-2024
Lenny Perez, undergraduate RA 2024
Walker Ball, undergraduate RA 2024
Megan Leung, undergraduate RA 2021-2024
next step: Digital Electronics Design Engineer at The Charles Stark Draper Laboratory
Evan Bloch, undergraduate RA 2023-2024
Eliana Stanford, undergraduate RA 2023-2024
Evan Lai, undergraduate RA 2023
Robin Sandell, part-time RA 2023
next step: research assistant in the Brain Networks Lab at UCSF
Alison Sasaki, undergraduate RA 2022-2023
Ella Russ, undergraduate RA 2021-2023
Hannah Nicolson, undergraduate RA 2022-2023
Shannon Zeilman, undergraduate RA 2022-2023
Jonathan Pazen, undergraduate RA 2022
Ashna Kumar, undergraduate RA 2021-2022
Katherine Bartolino, undergraduate RA 2021-2022
Payton Weiner, undergraduate RA 2021