Freshman Scholars Institute

The focus of my research is on working memory.  I am primarily interested in the relationship between working memory and intelligence.  More recently I have become interested in the role of working memory in second language acquisition and language interpreting.  I am also interested in the neural mechanisms underlying working memory and I investigate these using fMRI.  I use a variety of methods in my research, including classic experimental design, psychometrics, and fMRI.  My lab uses a variety of software programs for experimental design and statistical analysis, including: E-Prime, Psychtoolbox, Matlab, Excel, SPSS, AMOS, R, OpenMx, AFNI, SPM, and BrainVoyager.

For more information about my work in the Department of Psychology, please visit these links: 

http://psych.princeton.edu/psychology/research/conway/index.php

http://www.princeton.edu/~aconway/index.htm

I am an instructor at the Mathematics Department. I try to teach according to the following quote (attributed to a former Princeton resident): "If you can't explain it simply, you don't understand it well enough." Since graduate school, I have enjoyed teaching and running help sessions for courses such as Calculus, Differential Equations and Integration Theory. While mathematics is challenging, it is both a rewarding and beautiful subject of study.

My fields of study are Ergodic Theory and Dynamical Systems. In particular, I am currently working with Interval Exchange Transformations. These functions are very simple to define but require deep mathematics to analyze. My current work involves looking for interesting examples of IETs as well as finding new ways to approach known problems concerning the dynamics of IETs.

I was a graduate student at Rice University in Houston, Texas, and have been in Texas for most of my life. My wife Amy (a Texas native) and I have enjoyed our time in Princeton. We have in particular become enamored with access to local farms. If we could only find a place that sells fresh tortillas, we'd be set!

I came to Princeton (and in fact, to the United States) in 2007, in order to pursue doctoral study in the Department of Mathematics. I will finish my Ph.D. in August. I have been teaching in several different areas of mathematics since my last year of high school. Soon after leaving the Iranian Olympiad in Mathematics, I started traveling all around my country to teach advanced math to students who were preparing for math competitions. The most challenging task I faced was teaching the concept of proof.

I entered university as a double major in Math and Electrical Engineering, and continued my journey in teaching throughout college.

My field of study is geometry (but this does not mean I draw circles and triangles every day!). More specifically, I specialize in Symplectic geometry and Kahler geometry and my research area has close ties to theoretical physics (like string theory and mechanics). I've been also teaching and grading courses in calculus and linear algebra for the past three years at Princeton.

If you are interested in learning more about my teaching and research, please visit my website: http://www.math.princeton.edu/~mfarajza/.

I’m a graduate student in the Department of Psychology, having come to Princeton in 2011 from the majestic peaks of Idaho. My principle interests center around how people use and maintain information when under distraction, as well as computational models of memory. It’s fascinating to see the different strategies people employ to handle information, so they can remember it later. I’m also interested in experimental design, and the use of nonparametric statistics. My advisor is Andrew Conway.

http://www.princeton.edu/~machow/about.html

Stephanie Goldfarb is a graduate student in Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering and the Neuroscience Institute.  She studies human decision-making, and in her work she tries to find ways to help people make sense of information more quickly and more accurately.  She is interested in the design of both mathematical models and experiments, and she runs studies with human subjects on campus and online.  Her work has been supported by NSF, NDSEG, and Wu fellowships.  She is advised at Princeton by Professors Phil Holmes and Naomi Leonard.  Prior to coming to Princeton, Stephanie studied at Cornell, where she earned a BS in Mechanical Engineering.