About

I am a PhD candidate in the NLP Group at the University of Minnesota, advised by Dr. Dongyeop Kang and Dr. Stephen J Guy.

Research Interests

My research interests fall in the intersection of cognitive science and natural language processing.

Some of my work aims to understand large language model behavior by decomposing it into functional cognitive components using approaches from psychology. (See our project page for more details.) For instance, we have found that LLMs have strong memory but weak attentional control, and we have found that LLMs do not make human-like pragmatic inferences in response to grammatical aspect, nor do they appear to impose coherent structures on narratives.

My other main research interest is in human cognitive dynamics and whether we can better align LLMs to how people plan, decompose complex tasks, and reason. To better understand human cognition in specific tasks, we have explored incorporating cognitive signals into annotations via eye tracking, discrete reading behaviors, and tracking longitudinal legal work across hierarchical subtasks.

Personal

Outside of research, I enjoy bouldering, running (slowly), crossword puzzles, and watching baseball and esports. I also like to hike and play pickleball when I get the chance.

I grew up in Pennsylvania, then moved to California. I currently live in Minneapolis, Minnesota.