Faculty and Staff
Cognitive Studies
- Phone: (507) 222-4376
- Fax: (507) 222-4223
Naran Bilik received his early education in Inner Mongolia, and his M.A. in ethnology and Ph.D. in linguistics from the Central University of Nationalities in Beijing. After two years as a post-doctoral fellow at Cambridge University, between 1992 and 1994, he conducted fieldwork in Inner Mongolia, Xinjiang, Guangxi and Yunnan. Naran is interested in semiotic approaches to ethnicity and politico-cultural boundaries. He teaches courses on language and culture, theory of race and ethnicity, anthropology of Japan, and race and ethnicity in the U.S. and China. He has worked as a consultant with the World Bank and UNDP, and he has participated in many development projects and training programs in China. He is a fellow of the Salzburg Seminar on Race and Ethnicity. Naran first came to Carleton as Freeman Visiting Professor of Anthropology in 2001. He is the Visiting Bernstein Chair of Anthropology and East Asian Studies for 2003.
Amy's research interests include computer networks and measurement. Specifically, she is interested in how computer applications and computer networks influence and interact with each other, and how user perception of computer application peformance is affected by underlying conditions on the computer network. She teaches courses in introductory computer science, computer networks, peer-to-peer and multimedia computing, and computer architecture.
Grove City College, B.A.; Arizona State University, M.A.; Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Ph.D.
Epistemology, Metaphysics, Philosophy of Language, Metaethics, and any other philosophical issue that wanders by.
Director of Cognitive Science
Kathie teaches courses in introductory psychology, statistics, and her specialties are developmental and cognitive psychology. She helped establish the Cognitive Studies concentration at Carleton. She is the author of Cognitive Psychology In and Out of the Laboratory, a textbook, Making Decisions in Everyday Life, a trade book, and over two dozen journal articles. Her research, focusing on reasoning and decision making and the development of these skills, has been supported by the National Institute of Health, the National Science Foundation, and the Spencer Foundation.
Chair of Psychology
Professor Seth Greenberg received his Ph.D. in experimental psychology from The Ohio State University in 1972. He joined the Carleton Psychology Department as Chair in 2005, and is a Benedict Distinguished Visiting Professor. Professor Greenberg has published chapters in several books and about 30 articles in major research journals, and has received grants from NIH, NSF, Ford Foundation, the Bi National Science Foundation, and Spencer Foundation. His teaching interests focus on cognition and statistics, and seminars in such areas as reading processes, eyewitness testimony and attention. Finally, his research has focused on word recognition in reading, attention, sensory memory, bilingualism, and face processing.
I am interested in how the nervous system acquires, processes, and relays information. This subject can be successfully approached by studying the cellular mechanisms underlying sensory transduction and synaptic transmission in the various sensory systems.
Chair of Sociology and Anthropology
Jay is interested in the ethnography of the Greater Southwest and Mesoamerica. In Mexico, he has conducted research among the Tarahumara (Rarámuri) of Chihuahua, and the Tzotzil of Chiapas. In the U.S., he has worked with indigenous peoples of southern California and on the Hopi-Navaho land dispute. His current research focuses on the politics of identity, symbolism, and interethnic relations in the Sierra Tarahumara of northwest Mexico. Jay teaches courses on the comparative history of native peoples and the state in Mexico, Canada, and the U.S.; ethnicity, gender, and exchange in Latin America; and anthropological approaches to the study of religion, economics, and indigenous rights.
I'm an assistant professor in the Department of Computer Science at Carleton College. My interests are focused on applications of theoretical computer science to problems in a variety of other areas, within and beyond computer science. Currently my research emphasis is on social networks; in the past, I've worked on problems in computational biology, complexity of games, and peer-to-peer systems.
Dave specializes in data mining and machine learning. His current work is on the EDAM project (Exploratory Data Analysis and Monitoring), which is an interdisciplinary project involving computer scientists, chemists, and atmospheric scientists. A fundamental part of his published research has been based on Support Vector Machines, which are used in solving a variety of data mining and machine learning problems. Dave teaches artificial intelligence, data mining, programming languages, database systems, data structures, and introductory computer science.
Chair of Computer Science
Jeff's interests include natural language processing, software development, and computer networks. He is one of the co-authors of Ultralingua, a collection of multi-lingual dictionary products for Windows, Macintosh, and Palm OS
Chair of Biology
Matt, a vertebrate reproductive biologist, studies the hormonal control and function of sexually dimorphic traits. Currently he uses lizards as a model system to understand neural differences that mediate male and female reproductive behavior. He teaches Animal Physiology, Animal Behavior and part of Introductory Biology.
Susan, a plant developmental biologist, is taking a developmental genetics approach to the study of flowering in pea. Floral mutants are being characterized and genetic interactions between mutants are under investigation to elucidate the roles of different genes in the regulation of floral development. She teaches Plant Biology, Plant Development, Developmental Genetics, and part of Introductory Biology.
Mija Van Der Wege (B.A., Cognitive Science, Wellesley College; M.S., Statistics, Ph.D., Psychology, Stanford University). Mija's research interests focus around how people use language in day to day life. Her primary area of research looks at how people make use of information about their conversational partners when they are having a conversation. One line of research investigates how conversational partners frequently and spontaneously create agreements on what words mean. Another area is how the use of new media, like email and instant messaging, is changing the way that we use language and how we communicate both online and offline. She teaches courses on introductory psychology, measurement and data analysis, psychology of language, and a seminar on language and deception.
Larry Wichlinski (Ph.D, Southern Illinois University) teaches courses in behavioral neuroscience, psychopharmacology and sleep and dreaming. His research interests include the pharmacology of memory and anxiety, the behavioral and neurochemical effects of drug abuse, and sleep and dreaming.
Dr. Wolff is a developmental biologist interested in the embryonic development of the nervous system. She is currently using genetic and molecular approaches to investigate how male-specific neurons that control mating arise during development in the model organism C. elegans. She teaches Animal Developmental Biology, Developmental Neurobiology, part of Introductory Biology, and Biotechnology, Health, and Society.