Moira Dillon

Moira Dillon is an Assistant Professor of Psychology at New York University (NYU), affiliated with the Department of Psychology within the College of Arts and Science. She holds a B.A. from Yale University (2008) and a Ph.D. from Harvard University (2017). Her research focuses on understanding how infants and children develop knowledge of objects, places, and social agents, exploring the interplay between evolutionary foundations and cultural learning. Her work bridges cognitive science, developmental psychology, and artificial intelligence to advance machine commonsense systems.

Dillon’s lab employs cognitive, developmental, and computational methods, collaborating with economists, neuroscientists, educators, and institutions like The National Museum of Mathematics (MoMath) and J-PAL. Key themes include geometric intuition, spatial cognition, and the application of infant cognition principles to AI. She has received prestigious recognition, including the NSF CAREER Award (2019) for investigating geometric intuitions in mathematics learning.

Her research emphasizes translating foundational insights into practical interventions, such as games that enhance children’s math skills through symbolic and intuitive integration. Partnerships with museums and online platforms like Lookit facilitate large-scale data collection, ensuring her work impacts both academic and public domains.