People

Lab director
John Paul Minda

John Paul Minda, PhD

Professor & Associate Chair, Department of Psychology
Western University, London, Ontario, Canada

Dr. Minda directs the Minda Lab and studies how people learn about categories and concepts, and how conceptual structure influences thinking and decision making. He uses behavioral and computational methods, and is the author of two textbooks on the psychology of thinking.

Current graduate students
Anthony Cruz

Anthony Cruz, MSc

PhD Candidate

Anthony studies how people learn best, with a focus on inferential learning and metacognition. His dissertation explores how metacognitive monitoring during learning impacts memory and transfer. He uses behavioral, computational, and smartphone-based methods to make his research ecologically valid and accessible. Anthony is set to defend his dissertation in Fall 2026 and is currently exploring next steps.

Chelsea McKenzie, MSc

Chelsea McKenzie

PhD Candidate

Chelsea studies the conceptual structure of cities to better understand how people think and reason about where they live. She is also examining the effects of culture on category learning and categorization.

Isaac Withers

Isaac Withers

MSc Student

Isaac is interested in a broad range of topics in cognitive psychology. His current areas of focus include behavioural cognitive processes underlying categorization and ethical uses for local AI in qualitative research.

Current undergraduate students
Lavine Amin-Zadeh

Lavine Amin-Zadeh

Honours Thesis Student

Lavine is an undergraduate student completing her honours thesis in the lab. She is passionate in how people organize and represent knowledge, and how these processes shape the way we think, learn, and make decisions.

Benny Zucchet

Benny Zucchet

Honours Thesis Student

Benny is an undergraduate psychology student completing his honours thesis in the lab. He’s interested in research involving rule-based and non-rule-based learning as well as its applications.

Deandre Williams

Deandre Williams

Independent Study Student

Deandre is an undergraduate independent study student in the lab. He is interested in how the dual memory systems interact to guide cognitive processes, including selective attention and category learning, as well as the brain regions that are involved.

Collaborators
Casey Roark, PhDUniversity of New Hampshire
Debra Jared, PhDWestern University
Marc Joanisse, PhDWestern University
Yiming Xiao, PhDConcordia University
Lab alumni
Name Years Thesis
Priya Kalra2021–2026Postdoctoral Scholar
Paula Barea-Arroyo2025–2026Visiting PhD Student
Madeline Bloomberg2023–2025MSc thesis
Bailey Brashears2017–2024PhD dissertation
Julia Ignaszewski2021–2023MSc thesis
Tim Qiu2021–2023MSc thesis
Neha Khemani2020–2022MSc thesis
Madeline Slack2020–2022MSc thesis
Tianshu (Toka) Zhu2018–2022PhD dissertation
Ana Ruiz Pardo2017–2022PhD dissertation
Emily G. Nielsen2015–2020PhD dissertation
Joshua Hatherley2015–2017MSc thesis
Karen Zhang2013–2017PhD dissertation
Rachel Rabi2012–2016PhD dissertation
Sarah J. Miles2009–2013PhD dissertation
Ruby T. D. Nadler2008–2013Thesis
Sarah L. Devantier2006–2008MSc