About
I'm a third-year PhD student in the
Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences
at MIT, advised by Rebecca Saxe. I
use behavioral and computational methods to study how people think about
the meaning of actions in social contexts.
Previously, I graduated from Harvard College in 2022 with an AB in
Chemistry & Physics and a language citation (minor) in Modern Standard
Arabic. Outside of research, I like being outdoors 🏃🏻♀️🚴🏻♀️😍, reading
fiction, and thinking about internet culture and open science.
I'm open to taking UROPs! If you are an undergraduate student at MIT
interested in working with me, please reach out. If you are a non-MIT
undergraduate, it might be a bit harder logistically, but please also
reach out and consider applying to the
MSRP program.
Working papers
-
Alicia M Chen*, Matthias Hofer*, Moshe Poliak, Roger Levy, and Noga
Zaslavsky.
Discrete and systematic communication in a continuous signal-meaning space. (submitted)
Hurford prize for best student oral presentation, Evolang XV
-
Alicia M Chen and Rebecca Saxe.
Generous acts have contrasting meanings in equal versus hierarchical
social relationships. (under review)
Papers
-
Alicia M Chen, Andrew Palacci, Natalia Vélez, Robert D Hawkins*, and
Samuel J Gershman*.
A hierarchical Bayesian model of adaptive teaching. Cognitive Science, 2024.
-
Alicia M Chen and Rebecca Saxe.
How turn taking communicates desired equality in social
relationships. Proceedings of the 46th Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science
Society, 2024.
-
Alicia M Chen and Rebecca Saxe.
People have systematic expectations linking social relationships to
patterns of reciprocal altruism. Proceedings of the 45th Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science
Society, 2023.
-
Natalia Vélez, Alicia M Chen, Taylor Burke, Fiery A Cushman*, and Samuel
J Gershman*.
Teachers recruit mentalizing regions to represent learners'
beliefs. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 2023.
-
Luis Hernandez-Nunez, Alicia Chen, Gonzalo Budelli, Matthew E Berck,
Vincent Richter, Anna Rist, Andreas S Thum, Albert Cardona, Mason Klein,
Paul Garrity, and Aravinthan DT Samuel.
Synchronous and opponent thermosensors use flexible cross-inhibition
to orchestrate thermal homeostasis. Science Advances, 2021.
