Ali Cohen

Postdoc job ad is now live! faculty-emory.icims.com/jobs/168298/...

Thrilled to share a new paper -- Changing Contributions of Emotion and Reward Information to Learning Through Adolescence -- available now in @pnas.org! doi.org/10.1073/pnas... A brief summary: (1/n)

This week, NIH advisors rebuked RFK for harming #NIH and US science. Sheryl Gay Stolberg reported it. Then RFK posted calling her sources anonymous or corrupt. I'll say this hoping it does good: I'm an NIH scientist, I'm not anonymous, and RFK Jr is destroying NIH. More in attachment:

How do we make good decisions with little experience? Adults can rely on memories of past choices. In our new study in @pnas.org we show kids & teens do something similar–but what they remember turns out to be quite different! www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

Today we're highlighting our amazing Research Associate Nicole Varga! 🧠 Her work investigates how the brain processes overlapping experiences, whether it links them or holds them apart, and how that changes as we grow up. If you're at #APA2026, drop by her talk tomorrow!

New paper alert! Time-Based Cognition and Working Memory Explain Changes in Delay Discounting Through Adolescence ⏳💰📈 It's available online now and will contribute to a Special Issue on Delay of Gratification, expected later this year: doi.org/10.1080/1524... (1/4)

The LUMeN Lab at Emory is hiring ✨ We’re seeking a full-time RA/lab manager and a postdoc to work on new NIH-funded studies! Formal job ads/apps forthcoming. We’re eager to hit the ground running so please share these flyers and/or reach out if interested!

It me (on the unfavorable side of the 2025 coin flip)

Dr. Alexandra Rodman seeks a postdoc (Fall ’26/Spring ’27) for the Social Development & Wellbeing Lab, focused on leading independent research on adolescent social neurodevelopment with a focus on fMRI pipelines, mentorship, & dissemination! Learn more here: www.socialdevlab.com/prospective-...

🚨🚨 The Social Learning and Decisions Lab is hiring! 🚨🚨 We're looking for a postbacc project coordinator/research assistant to join our team this summer. More details about the position and how to apply here: drive.google.com/file/d/1ySeA... Please share widely and reach out with any questions!

The past 15 months have marked a dark chapter in US science; one that will require significant effort to repair. But I'm not interested in duct tape and bandaid solutions. Our system had problems before Jan 20th, 2025. So, @standupforscience.net is doing what we do best: TAKING ACTION. 1/7

The data is in: the NIH goalposts have shifted. What were once almost certain fundable scores have become coin flips and what used to be likely grants have become aspirational, leading to fewer awards. Another manifestation of how HHS policies have led to fewer awards and less science.

The impact is already hitting science agencies hard. The NIH—the world's largest public biomedical research funder—has had to rely on leftover stopgap funds. New grant awards have slowed to a trickle — exacerbating the effects of a record-long shutdown in October. (h/t @jeremymberg.bsky.social)

Changes in our feelings, or "affective surprise," may act as a learning signal that influences what we remember. Large magnitude deviations in experienced valence during encoding relate to better long-term associative memory.

There are approximately 1000 research groups on the #NIH campuses, including Steve Rosenberg's research group, which develops groundbreaking T-cell therapies for cancer. Effectively all of those groups were suddenly prohibited from buying any (!) supplies last year. That is on the leadership.

This is the most astonishing graph of what the Trump regime has done to US science. They have destroyed the federal science workforce across the board. The negative impacts on Americans will be felt for generations, and the US might never be the same again. www.nature.com/immersive/d4...

Check out our Spring 2026 lineup!

A few days left to apply to join my lab as a PhD student! We study how people explore, how new ideas form, and how thinking develops. Learn more at liquinlab.github.io. Application review begins 1/15. #PsychSciSky #CogPsyc #CogSci #DevPsyc

Hey @aaas.org I am a member and Fellow and am appalled by that statement. The devastating impact on trainees and their fellowships, the anxiety all have felt, and the devastating cuts in some fields are just some examples. Perhaps you all could respond directly??

Fresh off the press from all-star post-doc Blake Elliott: www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/... We show that the HPC supports coincidence detection across VTA and lPFC in service of novelty-evoked invigoration. Stay-tuned for how these circuits are altered in psychosis risk.

Goal selection through the lens of subjective functions: arxiv.org/abs/2512.15948 I welcome any feedback on these preliminary ideas.

Welcome to the first (happy) faces of #Emory2030 and thanks for giving us our favorite video of the year 💙 💛 Meet the Class of 3030 (so far) ➡️ https://bit.ly/48wlyxQ

I will be recruiting 🌟PhD students🌟 for my newish lab! If you're interested in learning & memory mechanisms applied to individual, interactive & collective behavior using computational modeling, real-world experiments and fMRI, email me! RTs much appreciated 🙏 rouhanilab.com

We are hiring at Emory Psychology in Developmental! Come join a wonderful department in a great city ☀️ apply.interfolio.com/173594

My new op-ed with @lkfazio.bsky.social: Trump sent a 'compact' to our universities. They should reject this devil's bargain. Any institution that yields to these broad and intrusive demands would forever be subservient to the whims of the government. www.msnbc.com/opinion/msnb...

#Neuro4Pros 4ever 🧠🤓 Grateful for a week of learning from & being in community with fellow early career profs & amazing facilitators @gunnarblohm.bsky.social @kordinglab.bsky.social @meganakpeters.bsky.social @yaelniv.bsky.social @patrickmineault.bsky.social Hannah Bayer 📸: @mohebial.bsky.social

Run don’t walk to the #Neuro4Pros summer school if it happens again and you’re an early career prof Thanks again for the absolute best time ⭐️ @gunnarblohm.bsky.social @kordinglab.bsky.social @yaelniv.bsky.social @meganakpeters.bsky.social @patrickmineault.bsky.social, and Hannah Bayer

🐤Promise you this is one you'll want to say you were a part of... Help us get our 'ducks in a row' and IMPEACH AND REMOVE THAT DANG QUACK!!!! 📣🦆📣🦆📣🦆📣🦆 Link here: tinyurl.com/sufsci

Sound Science Saves Lives. Following the attack on our neighbors at the CDC and the lockdown here at Emory, this message feels more important than ever. Will you join the GA scientific community @ossoff.senate.gov @warnock.senate.gov @repnikema.bsky.social www.mobilize.us/mobilize/eve...

I have an incentive for rich people like you @mcuban.bsky.social Federally funded R&D has fueled the innovation that drives American prosperity. Scores of billionaires owe their fortunes to advancements made in labs across the nation. An investment in @standupforscience.bsky.social to help save…

There is nothing normal about this. We refuse to allow this to be the norm. We will not stick our heads in the sand because it’s comfortable. Today we need to rest and recover, but we will never stop fighting for what is right.

I've been trying to really gently move folks I know into understanding that we will not be going back to Before™. The amount of fundamental damage that has been done to our institutions can't simply be spackled up and painted over—the cracks are in the foundation and must be repaired.

📣 New preprint from the SCIMaP team! Across three studies, we show that communicating the economic impact of NIH funding cuts—especially with interactive quizzes and maps—decreases approval and motivates action to oppose the cuts, across the political spectrum. 🧵 1/8 osf.io/preprints/ps...

📣 ANNOUNCEMENT: 31 Days of Action – All August! Funding cuts. Banned words. Fired public servants. Trump & his cronies are dismantling America’s greatest experiment - our democracy - & with it, science. Between now & Sept 30th we decide: Are we a democracy… or an oligarchy? (1/4)

WSJ story about OMB blocking NIH spending and grant making www.wsj.com/politics/pol... 1/n

Nobody wants this.

New press on our study linking the locus coeruleus to memory formation 🔵: newsroom.ucla.edu/releases/bra... . “…at a time when legislation promises ‘big and beautiful change,’ it turns out one of the brain’s smallest players may have the biggest impact on how we understand and remember our lives.”

A science fair of cancelled grants. The research that will be represented at this event (Tuesday) ranges from neuroscience, to astrophysics, to STEM education. The awarding agencies of the now-canceled grants include the EPA, DHS, NIH, NSF, USAID, and DOD. Open to the public.

Resistance is hard. It is likely better for my mental health to dissociate from the constant threats to my identity as a researcher and queer man. But dissociating also undermines my authenticity as a person. Maybe the solution is continued resistance but fostering joy and silliness along the way.

Excited to share our new review on how neuroimaging and computational models can help uncover how people see what they want to see, now out at @cp-trendscognsci.bsky.social! It was a blast writing this with Haena Kim and @iancballard.bsky.social www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

In the discussion, we explore what kinds of developmental principles may need to be implemented for models to better align with humans. More generally, we argue that that insights from child development will be crucial for developing more advanced #AI over the long term.

My paper with @stellalourenco.bsky.social ‬is now out in Science Advances! We found that children have robust object recognition abilities that surpass many ANNs. Models only outperformed kids when their training far exceeded what a child could experience in their lifetime doi.org/10.1126/scia...