
Max is a master’s candidate in Computational Social Science at the University of Chicago. He is an active member of the BrainBridge Lab led by Dr. Wilma Bainbridge. His research is centered around analyzing multidimensional object representations to answer the question of why some things are more memorable than others. His work uses a mixture of behavioral, computational, and neuroimaging based methods. He presented his poster “Revealing the Relative Contributions of Conceptual and Perceptual Information to Visual Memorability” at V-VSS 2021.
He graduated with high honors from Oberlin College and Conservatory in Oberlin in May of 2020 with a major in psychology, a minor in computer science, and concentrations in statistical modeling and cognitive science. He was awarded the R.H Stetson prize for his honors thesis and the Stetson-Heiser Prize in Empirical Research for his work during his time at Oberlin. He has received multiple research grants for his undergraduate work in computational psychology.
He has worked previously with Dr. Nancy Darling’s lab in adolescent psycho-development as well as Dr. Kenneth JD Allen’s Cognition, Affect, Self regulation, and Health (CASH) lab. Outside of Oberlin, he has worked as a research assistant at Carnegie Mellon University’s Tarrlab and Harvard University’s The Music Lab. In addition to psychological research, Max has designed interfaces for creative audiovisual applications for Oberlin Conservatory’s TIMARA department.
Outside of research, he has worked for Oberlin Conservatory’s audio department. In his free time, Max enjoys playing electric bass with 1976 and The Kelson Twins, participating in fencing tournaments as a USFA rated tri-weapon referee, and taking naps with his dog, Penny Lane.