May 2022
Cognitive Science; Economics
Spanish; Asian Studies
Lancaster, NY
Honors Ambassador; Volunteer Coordinator for UB’s Public Health Club; UB’s Mock Trial team; Project lead for a start-up club called the Buffalo Free Thought Network (FTN); Interdisciplinary Peer Mentor for HON 101 (a class where UB’s freshman Presidential Scholars tackle an “Impossible Project”; this year they are tackling the problem of Discrimination).
TA for Bio 200; TA for Honors Colloquium; Paid intern for AVOX Systems in Lancaster.
What attracted me to the IDP Cognitive Science concentration was an interest in mind and consciousness, and a disenchantment with how other disciplines go about studying those things. I think Cognitive Scientists leave an appropriate amount of room for uncertainty in studying what is undoubtedly the greatest mystery in academia.
The flexibility it has allowed me; the diverse array of courses that one can take as an IDP major, as well as the myriad ways you can work an IDP major together with other courses of study has allowed me to explore my interests to their fullest extent.
I hope to pursue a PhD in the Philosophy of Cognitive Science. I would like to study the relationship between mind and matter, and I hope to explore the idea that the fabric of consensus reality is, to borrow a phrase from J.B.S. Haldane, “…queerer than we can suppose”. I’d like to do so by contributing to the revival currently taking place in the study of psychedelic drugs, specifically by exploring the cultural and economic effects of their widespread use in various communities throughout history.