Jessica Cantlon is the Ronald J. and Mary Ann Zdrojkowski Professor of Developmental Neuroscience/Psychology at Carnegie Mellon University's Dietrich College of Humanities and Social Sciences. She leads the Concepts, Actions, and Objects Lab and the Kid Neuro Lab, focusing on the neural and cognitive foundations of quantitative reasoning in humans and non-human primates. Her research employs behavioral and neuroimaging techniques to explore how numerical and spatial concepts develop in children and how these relate to evolutionary processes. Key research themes include cross-species comparisons of numerical processing (e.g., studies on rhesus monkeys and olive baboons), the role of the intraparietal sulcus (IPS) in numerical cognition, and the impact of environmental and gender factors on mathematical development. She has contributed to debates on core knowledge theories, semantic frameworks, and the evolution of human intelligence. Her work bridges developmental psychology, cognitive neuroscience, and comparative psychology, with implications for education and public health policy. Her labs emphasize interdisciplinary approaches, combining fMRI studies with behavioral experiments to understand how abstract concepts emerge from neural systems. Current projects investigate recursive pattern processing, hierarchical reasoning, and the neural basis of mathematical learning from naturalistic environments like educational videos.












