Timothy Brady

Dr. Timothy Brady is a Professor at the University of California, San Diego (UCSD) and the director of the Vision and Memory Lab. He is affiliated with the Department of Psychology and focuses on visual cognition and memory, using behavioral experiments, computational models, and neuroimaging techniques like EEG.

• Research Interests: Visual Memory, Working Memory, Scene Perception, Ensemble Perception, Statistical Learning, Cognitive Neuroscience
• Awards: APA Distinguished Scientific Early Career Contribution (2020), Vision Sciences Society Young Investigator Award (2020), Society of Experimental Psychologists Early Investigator Award (2020)

His research explores how visual information transitions from perception to memory, emphasizing the role of prior knowledge and structured representations. Recent work highlights the capacity of visual memory for real-world objects and the hierarchical encoding of scenes.

Key trends across his articles include understanding memory fidelity, the interaction between gist and item-level information, and the neural mechanisms underlying visual working memory. His lab has produced influential publications in journals like Nature Human Behaviour, Psychological Science, and PNAS.

• Scientific Awards
  • APA Distinguished Scientific Award for Early Career Contributions to Psychology (2020)
  • Vision Sciences Society Young Investigator Award (2020)
  • Society of Experimental Psychologists Early Investigator Award (2020)
  • Cermak/Corkin Postdoctoral Award (2025)

Dr. Brady has mentored numerous graduate students and postdocs, including Hayden Schill (now Assistant Professor at UC Riverside), Anna Shafer-Skelton (FoVea Travel Award), Maria Robinson (University of Warwick faculty), and Malinda McPherson (Purdue faculty). His lab is funded by grants from the NSF and other institutions.

He has contributed to tools like the MemToolbox for visual working memory analysis and resources for stimuli sets. His work is accessible via Google Scholar and collaborations with institutions like Harvard/MIT and Princeton University.