Lab Manager
Luka Jijieshvili »[email protected] | 121 Preston Hall
Luka is a second-year student at Bard. He intends to moderate in Psychology this year, while also planning to follow a pre-health track. He wants to go to medical school after graduation, aspiring to become a neurologist. Luka has always been fascinated with sleep, and more specifically dreams: he records every dream he has and remembers, and he has been doing so since age 13! Continuing his study of memory and cognition, Luka wants to learn more about how dreams are formed and forgotten, and if there is a way to conjure them up voluntarily. In his free time, when he is not sleeping, Luka enjoys hiking and discovering rural upstate New York.
Assistant Lab Managers
Ayesha Salman »[email protected]
Hello and assalamu-alaikum (hello in Urdu, my native language)! I am a second year student from Lahore, Pakistan. I am currently considering both a biology and psychology major but I love learning about both, especially since there is so much overlap. I am also on the pre-health track. I have been part of the lab since Spring ’22 and researched in the lab over summer ’22 for BSRI. I also have a background in research and wrote a research paper about childhood psychological trauma on female criminals. I’m excited to expand my knowledge about memory encoding in the brain and something in particular that I hope to gain out of the lab is to find out how much of an impact past experiences have on adulthood and the role memory plays in this. When I have some free time, you can find me at the gym, cuddling with my beloved Lenin (pictured but unfortunately not my dog), out on the field with my lacrosse stick, or listening to Anything Goes, my favorite podcast.
Olivia Weeks »[email protected]
Olivia is a second-year student at Bard College with intentions to continue their studies of the psychological field in the next academic year. Though she is still exploring different career paths, working with children and young adults as a therapist or school counselor has always interested them. The Memory Dynamics Lab is the first lab Olivia is a part of, and she is excited to learn more about research psychology and how behavior relates to neuroscience in regards to memory. Aside from psychology, Olivia is an avid plant lover, an artist and craftsperson, and enjoys spending time outdoors in their home state of Maine, as well as in upstate New York, save for the cold and snowy days!
Nitya Goyal »[email protected]
Hello, I am currently a first year student at Bard from Delhi, India. I am interested in majoring in psychology and a minor in sociology or biology. I want to pursue a masters in clinical or counseling psychology. I am very interested in studying psychological disorders and studying mental health. I am also part of Brave and multiple clubs on campus. I’m excited to be a part of the Memory Dynamics lab and learn more about the brain and memory and run experiments. You would find me playing basketball, at the gym, listening to music or watching Netflix in my free time.
Lab Managers Emeriti
Mandy Derrell
Hey there! My name is Amanda, but my friends call me Mandy. I am a recent graduate major with interests in decision-making, childhood trauma, and overall clinical psychology. More specifically I am intrigued by the possible impact childhood trauma has on the human brain! Oh yeah, before I forget, I also love to sing, paint, and draw! After Bard, I will be starting as a Lab manager for the Social & Affective Neuroscience Lab at Rutgers-Newark.
Avery Freund
Hi! My name is Avery Freund. I am a psychology major graduating from Williams College in 2025. I hope to one day become a clinical practitioner, and to work with children and families. I intend on focusing my studies toward clinical and developmental psychology. I love to bake, play board/video games, and spend time outside. I also enjoy archery, and worked as an archery counselor over the summer of 2021.
Nora Grace-Flood
Nora Grace-Flood graduated Bard with a degree in Psychology in 2021 after serving as the lab’s Operations Manager. She is interested in exploring cognition, whether from the perspective of neuroscience, language, biology, or anthropology. Outside of the lab, Nora was also the director of the Teaching Kitchen, which facilitates professional and student-lead cooking classes around campus, and a writing fellow at the Bard Learning Commons. You could also find her making mediocre coffees at Sawkill on Thursday nights. Unlike the rest of the lab assistants, and to the dismay of her pet cat, she is strictly a dog person.
Mike Greenberg
Mike graduated Bard in 2020. He is interested in education and motivation, in particular the mental health impacts of academics-centered education on children. His senior project investigated into the evolutionary basis of learning and how psychological well-being underpins the human ability to learn. He is working toward developing an alternative, well-being based model of public education. He is working toward a Master’s degree in Educational Psychology at Texas A&M.
Zall Hirschstein
Zall graduated from Bard to become laboratory manager for Sr. Patricia Grasso and research technical for Dr. Damian Shin at Albany Medical College. After finishing his stint as lab manager in Mariam Aly’s lab, he is getting ready to begin his PhD at Columbia University. While Zall’s senior thesis at Bard focused on building a machine-learning based neurofeedback paradigm to improve learning, his interests are eclectic: How are features of cognition bound together in the brain? How does stress bias the nervous system? What are the limits of augmenting cognition? What distinguishes the human memory system from non-human animals’? How will new computational techniques and big neuroscience reveal the inner working of the brain? When outside the lab, Zall is often found traveling the world in search of profoundly uncomfortable experiences, playing ultimate frisbee, building his furniture, designing graphics, and critiquing movies for not being realistic enough.
Noah Libby
Noah graduated with a Psychology degree in 2019. His senior thesis fell within the realm of computational cognitive neuroscience, aiming to isolate oscillatory signatures of memory competition at the time of encoding and refine a machine-learning classifier that will use this information to make better informed predictions concerning the long-term fate of learned material. Outside of the lab, Noah could be found captaining Bard’s Ultimate Frisbee team, repurposing unwanted technology, writing music, learning how to capture moments through photography, and drinking a gallon of water every day. He is now a Junior Data Scientist at RubiconMD.
Chandler O’Reardon
Chandler O’Reardon graduated Bard in 2021 with a degree in Psychology after serving as the lab’s Personnel Manager. She is interested in the cognitive/neuroscience and developmental branches of psychology, in particular how bilingualism impacts cognition. Her senior thesis investigated how learning a second language through a bilingual education affects the executive functioning skills of children with autism. Outside of the lab, she also worked as a box office ticketing agent at the Fisher Center for Performing Arts and is a gymnastics coach back in her hometown. She is starting as a graduate student in speech-language pathology at Southern Connecticut State University.
Jess Rylander
Jess graduated Bard with a degree in Psychology in the spring of 2022, having served as the lab’s Assistant Manager. She is interested in exploring humanbehavior, memory and cognition, whether it is through studies in the lab or by wayof everyday observations of people in the real world. Her senior project investigated the relationship between emotion and memory. Outside of the lab, Jess served as a BRAVE Counselor on-call, as well as a member of the Women’s Basketball team. You will likely find Jess with her air pods in, listening to music any free moment she has, while simultaneously fueling her pretty severe coffee addiction (always iced, of course!). After Bard, Jess is joining the Human Intelligence Team at Edelman DXI, a global, multidisciplinary research, analytics consulting firm.
Zongheng Zhang 
Zongheng completed his degree in the Bard College Conservatory of Music. He double majored in music performance and Psychology, concentrating in Mind, Brain, and Behavior. He is interested in cognitive psychology, neuroscience and the relationship between memory reactivation and the body’s stress response. He wants to work more on coding and programming in psychology studies. He also served as assistant for the International Students Office and publishing editor for Bard College Chinese Channel. For his next step, Zongheng will be attending the University of Texas at Austin to continue his graduate studies in music. There, he also intends to work in the Human Brain Stimulation and Electrophysiology Lab with Dr. Buchanan.
