People

Falk Lieder
Lab Director

Dr. Lieder’s fascination with psychological science started early. He was fortunate enough to have the opportunity to publish his first scientific article while he was still in high school. To prepare himself for rigorous, quantitative psychological research, he completed two simultaneous bachelor’s degrees in Cognitive Science and in Mathematics/Computer Science at the University of Osnabrück (Germany). Dr. Lieder then obtained his master’s degree in Neural Systems and Computation at ETH Zurich (Switzerland).

After working as a research assistant in Klaas Stephan’s Translational Neuromodeling Unit at the University of Zurich, he completed his Ph.D. in Tom Griffiths’s Computational Cognitive Science Lab at UC Berkeley in May 2018. His dissertation was awarded the Glushko Dissertation Prize in Cognitive Science. He then became a Max Planck Research Group Leader at the MPI for Intelligent Systems in Tübingen, Germany, where he led the Rationality Enhancement Group until June 2023. He moved to the psychology department of UCLA in July 2023.

Dr. Lieder has published 50 peer-reviewed articles that have collectively been cited more than 4500 times. He was the lead organizer of the inaugural Life Improvement Science conference. His most influential contribution to cognitive science thus far has been the development of a new cognitive modeling paradigm known as resource-rational analysis (Lieder & Griffiths, 2020).

Glen William Spiteri
Graduate Student

Glen is a PhD student in Cognitive Psychology at the Rational Altruism Lab, UCLA. He is interested in pro-social behavior and moral decision-making, with particular emphasis on effective altruism topics. Glen received his B.Com.(Hons) degree in Economics and Public Policy from the University of Malta, and his M.Sc. in Behavioral Science from the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE).

Zahra Tahmasebi
Lab Manager

Zahra joined the Rational Altruism Lab in Fall 2023. She is interested in moral behavior and decision-making. Her current research focuses on the role of negligence in moral judgment of accidents. Zahra earned her bachelor’s degree in Counseling & Guidance from the University of Tehran in Iran, and her master’s in Experimental Psychology from California State University, Fullerton.

Evy Nguyen
Undergraduate Research Assistant

Evy is a senior at UCLA pursuing a double major in Cognitive Science and Applied Mathematics with a Computing Specialization. Evy is interested in exploring the mechanisms behind human behavior and decision-making, and how to apply these insights to different realms of the world to contribute to a greater society. Specifically, she hopes to develop a greater understanding of cognitive processes and the various factors that influence and alter one’s perspective.

Eden Alter
Undergraduate Research Assistant

Eden is a senior at UCLA, studying Cognitive Science with Departmental Honors and a Computing Specialization. She is particularly interested in exploring factors that motivate altruistic decision-making and whether certain people have a higher propensity for acting in such ways. On a broader level, Eden hopes to investigate the relationship between altruistic decision-making and other concepts such as emotional perspective-taking, theory of mind, and various mental health conditions.

Charlotte Riedl
Undergraduate Research Assistant

Charlotte is a third year undergraduate student at UCLA majoring in Cognitive Science and Economics. She is interested in delving into the roots of altruism in humanity in an effort to help address stagnant issues in our social structures in a productive way. Through investigating morally complex decision-making, learning, and reflecting, she hopes to bring a new perspective across disciplines, specifically in the field of criminal law, to help better the justice system.

Seamus Kim
Undergraduate Research Assistant

Seamus is a third-year at UCLA majoring in Cognitive Science and minoring in Philosophy and Global Studies. He is currently a research assistant at the Rational Altruism Lab, working on investigating the effects of moral reflection on moral decision-making. He is broadly interested in using scientific approaches to reveal actionable insights about long-standing philosophical issues, both analytic and continental, especially as they relate to governance, conflict, and diplomacy. He is a strong believer in moral realism and that synergies between cognitive science and philosophy can give way to objective truths about justice and freedom that can help ground ethical discussions in the contemporary world.

Tiara Weedagama
Undergraduate Research Assistant

Tiara is a fourth-year undergraduate student at UCLA, majoring in Sociology with a Computing Specialization. She is interested in using technical methods to explore moral behavior and decision-making, with a focus on promoting altruistic behavior. More broadly, she hopes to understand the cognitive mechanisms underlying morality in various religious, cultural, and social contexts.

Teshinee (Tinn) Kukamjad
Undergraduate Research Assistant

Tinn is a second-year undergraduate at UCLA, majoring in Cognitive Science and minoring in Data Science Engineering. Her interest lies in exploring decision-making strategies to optimize goal-setting and planning. Specifically, she is interested in designing simulation environments or software to promote personal growth and guide long-term decision-making. Currently, she is working on a gamification project to enhance the learning experience.

Ruiqi He
Graduate Student

Ruiqi is a PhD student in the Rationality Enhancement Group at Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems in Tübingen. Her research focuses on understanding how people learn how to plan. For this, she designs, conducts online experiments to collect human behavior data and apply metacognitive reinforcement learning models to explain the underlying learning mechanism. Ruiqi received her B.Sc. Statistics and Economics as well as M.Sc. Computational Statistics and Machine Learning from University College London (UCL).

Victoria Amo
Graduate Student

Victoria is a PhD student at the Rationality Enhancement Group at Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems in Tübingen. Previously, she completed her bachelor’s and master’s degrees in Cognitive Science at the University of Osnabrück. Her research interests lie in understanding the connection between metacognitive processes, inner autonomy, and self-improvement. As part of her Ph.D. project, she has developed a mobile application called the InsightApp, designed to help individuals train their metacognitive skills, enhance emotional awareness, and foster healthy emotion regulation abilities. Her research and the app are rooted in existing clinical psychology interventions, such as Acceptance and Commitment Therapy and Cognitive Restructuring.

Valkyrie Felso
Graduate Student

Val joined the Rationality Enhancement Group as a doctoral student in September 2019. Val’s doctoral work focuses on developing a Bayesian method to infer people’s subjective planning costs. Since March 2023, Val has been a research software engineer in the Software Workshop at the Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems. She holds a bachelor’s degree in management science from MIT and a master’s degree in computer science from Georgia Tech.

Erola Pons
Research Assistant

Erola is PhD student in the University of Tübingen in Germany. Erola is interested in researching and implementing ways to increase people’s concern for the welfare of others and the common good via two key strategies: systematic reflection and the practice of meditation. Erola earned her bachelor’s degree in Biology from the Autonomous University of Barcelona in Spain and her master’s degree in Neural and Behavioral Sciences from the University of Tübingen in Germany.

Patricia Groß
Research Assistant

Patricia is a Master’s student in Cognitive Science at University of Osnabrück, Germany. Patricia is interested in a variety of facets of wellbeing research, including eudaimonic wellbeing and how wellbeing can be measured and improved. Her current research focuses on uncovering natural tendencies in peoples decision-making in social dilemma situations with the ultimate aim to develop tools which enables people to make decisions which are better for all involved individuals on the long run. Patricia earned her bachelor’s degree in Cognitive Science from the University of Osnabrück in Germany.

Srinidhi Srinivas
Research Assistant

Srinidhi is a Master’s student in Cognitive Science at Universität Osnabrück, Germany. Having obtained a B. Sc. in Computer Science from the Ohio State University, he has worked as a developer and research assistant on projects related to the study of metacognitive improvement of decision making, through the development of technical interventions and implementation of field studies. His current M. Sc. Thesis project involves empirical and computational analysis of metacognitive improvement of planning strategies through trial and error in humans, and the specific factors that render this faculty ineffective. Beyond his research projects, he is broadly interested in philosohpy, psychology, language, and culture, and how these come together to constitute the “human condition” in each individual. He also enjoys playing basketball, hiking, cooking, and practicing mindfulness.

Maximilian Maier
Collaborator

Max is a PhD student in Experimental Psychology at University College London (UCL). His research focuses on the cognitive science of altruism, where he uses both mathematical modeling and experimental research to understand how people make altruistic and moral decisions. In addition, he is interested in applied statistics and developed new statistical techniques to analyze psychological data. At the Rational Altruism Lab, he is working on a research project on a reinforcement learning approach of moral decision-making, which investigates how people learn from the consequences of previous moral decisions (see Max’s personal website for more)

Vanessa Cheung
Collaborator

Vanessa is a PhD student in Experimental Psychology at University College London (UCL) under the supervision of Prof. David Lagnado. Her research focuses on moral judgment and decision-making, exploring how people reason about causal responsibility and blame, and the factors they consider during this process. She received her BSc (Psychology) and MSc (Social Cognition: Research and Application) degrees also at UCL. At the Rational Altruism Lab, she is working on a research project on a reinforcement learning approach of moral decision-making, which investigates how people learn from the consequences of previous moral decisions.