Meet our research team
Katharine Tillman, PhD
PRINCIPAL INVESTIGATOR
Katharine received her PhD in Psychology from the University of California, San Diego in 2017. The following year, she joined the Department of Psychology at UT-Austin as an Assistant Professor.
Her research interests include conceptual development, psychology of time, numerical and spatial cognition, abstract word learning, causal reasoning, and interactions between language, perception, and culture during child development.
FUN FACTS
Katharine grew up in Statesboro, Georgia, started a blog in 1998, and spent six months hitch-hiking around the US when she was 18.
Download CV, request a letter of recommendation, follow Katharine on Twitter or visit her personal website.
James Daly, MA
GRADUATE STUDENT
Jimmy graduated from Stanford University in 2017. As an honors student in the Social Learning Lab, he completed a thesis on generic language and exploratory play. He became a lab coordinator in the Bauer Memory Development Lab at Emory University, where he researched memory integration, metacognition and conceptual development.
His research interests include language, belief and conceptual development.
FUN FACTS
Jimmy’s hometown is Lima, Peru, and he prides himself on his homemade ketchup. He once ran a half marathon in the snow!
Katie Steele, MA
Graduate Student
Katie graduated from Skidmore College in 2017 with her B.A. in Psychology and a minor in Education Studies. For three years after graduation, she worked as a joint lab coordinator in the Cognitive Development Lab and the Reasoning and Decision Making Lab at Wesleyan University. She is broadly interested in how social, linguistic, and cognitive factors interact to support learning.
FUN FACT
Katie is from Dayton, Ohio. She is a board game fanatic and also loves to go on runs with her dog Kiya!
Nicole Steiner, MA
Graduate Student
Nicole graduated from Emory University in 2020 with degrees in English and Psychology/Linguistics. She is broadly interested in language and thought, including metaphors for pain and illness, and prelinguistic cognition about abstract concepts, such as quantifiers (e.g., “each” and “all.”) Nicole also enjoys writing poetry, trail runs, visiting cat cafes, and seeking new means for creative expression.
FUN FACTS
Nicole is from Parker Colorado. She loves to read and write poetry, and has two poems published with Spanish translations by poet Fernando Valverde on Círculo de Poesía
Jonah Brenner
LAB MANAGER
Jonah graduated from Skidmore College in 2020 with a B.A. in Psychology and a minor in media and film studies. For two years after graduation, he worked as a research associate at the CDSC lab at New York University. Broadly, he is interested social development and hopes to examine the emergence of racial and gender biases in the future.
FUN FACTS
Jonah enjoys playing music and released an album with his twin brother called “Orange Road” under the name Monozygotic.
Research Assistants
Join our team
Interested in becoming a research assistant in our lab?
Are you curious about the mind? Do you like to think about big questions and get lost in thought? Do you enjoy both science and the humanities? If so, Austin Thought may be for you.
We're cognitive scientists at UT-Austin who want to understand abstract, uniquely-human thought. Many of our studies are developmental, meaning we look to children for insights into how adults come to think about things the way we do.
If you are interested in joining the lab as an undergraduate research assistant, fill out the application below. Prospective graduate students or postdocs, please contact ktillman@utexas.edu.
Click the link below to fill out the application.
*we are not taking new RAs for the spring/summer 2024