I am interested in language as a window to cognition. Working with Nancy and with Ev Fedorenko, I hope to specifically address questions at the intersection of semantics and epistemology: What does it mean "to understand" something? Can we define "meaning" in a cognitively significant way? How is it represented in the brain? How do language mechanisms interact with other cognitive functions to construct meaning? To start addressing such issues, I currently use fMRI to explore the resting-state functional connectivity of language and multiple-demand regions, and also employ MEG to study the processing of abstract object meanings.

Thesis: The functional architecture of language comprehension mechanisms: fundamental principles revealed with fMRI, 1:00pm, July 21, 2016, MIT Brain and Cognitive Sciences, 43 Vassar St., Cambridge MA 02139