معرفی
Dr. Cindy Bukach is Professor of Psychology and the MacEldin Trawick Professor of Psychology at the University of Richmond, where she also serves as Chair of the Department of Psychology. She leads the Beyond Categories cognitive neuroscience lab, focusing on perceptual expertise, face and object recognition, and the other-race effect.
Research Interests: Her work investigates the cognitive and neural mechanisms underlying perceptual expertise for faces, objects, and language. She explores how expertise develops and transfers across domains, and how social and perceptual factors interact to produce biases such as the other-race effect and angry Black bias. Her lab employs behavioral experiments and electrophysiology (EEG) to uncover neural responses not evident in behavior alone.
Recent Research Trends: Recent publications and presentations highlight her focus on individual differences in social perception, empathy, trauma (PTSD), and neural processing (e.g., P300). She also integrates STEM education through the PURSUE project, developing tools for teaching neuroscience concepts. Her work bridges cognitive neuroscience with social and educational psychology.
- Scientific Awards and Honors:
- MacEldin Trawick Professor of Psychology (Endowed Chair)
- $2 Million NSF Grant for PURSUE Project
Advising and Grants: Dr. Bukach actively mentors undergraduate researchers, many of whom have presented at symposia and conferences. She has secured significant external funding, including a $2 million NSF grant for the PURSUE initiative, which prepares undergraduates for STEM research through electrophysiology training.
Labs and Teams: She directs the Beyond Categories Lab at the University of Richmond, a collaborative environment involving students and postdocs. The lab uses EEG and behavioral methods, maintains a stimuli database, and has conducted workshops (e.g., MATLAB data processing) and attended major conferences such as the Vision Sciences Society.
