Former Research Assistants
REINA AMAYA
Summer 2018 - Fall 2020
I am currently a junior majoring in Psychology with a minor in Medicine and Society.
While working as a research assistant in the Cognitive Development Lab I hope to gain
practical research experience while expanding my knowledge about cognitive psychology.
My interests include language acquisition in children and how environmental factors
can affect various areas of cognitive development. My future goals is to attend graduate
school and obtain a Ph.D in Clinical Psychology. ZAINAB ARIF
Fall 2017 - Spring 2019
Zainab graduated with a B.S. in Biology in Spring 2019. I joined the UH Cognitive
Development lab to further my understanding of child psychology and brain development.
I want to pursue a career in Pediatric Neurology, and so getting experience working
with children and discovering correlations between their behavior and developmental
process would be valuable experience towards this long-term goal. This experience
will also sharpen my understanding of the research process. I am particularly interested
in how children process words and learn language and how that correlates with their
social environment and interactions.
TALEED ATIEH
VINCE BUI
Spring 2016 - Spring 2019
Spurred by a fascination of the process of word-learning in children, I joined the
Cognitive Development Lab. As a research assistant, I hope to gain practical experience
as I learn more about the language development in children. I am particularly interested
in the means children comprehend and form sentences. In the future, I plan to apply
my experience and understanding of children as I head to medical school, specializing
in pediatrics.
KEVIN DANG
Fall 2017 - Summer 2019
I joined the Cognitive Development Lab because I was fascinated by neuroscience and
language acquisition in children. In this research lab, I hope to apply the scientific
method, obtain invaluable research experience, and learn more about the psychological
and biological processes involved in language acquisition in children. I am interested
in how skills such as attention, visual processing, and gestures affect word learning.
As an aspiring pediatrician, I hope the beneficial experience that I acquire from
this lab will enhance my knowledge of cognitive and language development.
KARINA GEORGE
Summer 2017 - Summer 2019
My passion for education and interest in how early childhood moments impact long term success drove me to join the Cognitive Development Lab. I am excited to learn more about how different factors influence knowledge acquisition. As a research assistant, I hope to gain practical research experience and broaden my skills as well as gain more exposure to the psychology field.
SOFÍ GONZALEZ
Spring 2018 - Spring 2020
I joined the Cognitive Development Lab, eager to gain a greater understanding of the research process. Child development is a topic I am passionate about and having the opportunity to work with children makes research that much more gratifying and fun! The Cognitive Development Lab has given me the privilege to work with a team of enthusiastic, driven individuals who have provided me with tools to further advance in my field. I aspire to use what I have learned here to, someday, work in a psychotherapy center for children with cognitive disabilities.
ALEXA GUEVARA
Spring 2018 - Spring 2019
I joined the Cognitive Development Lab to further understand the process behind conducting studies in behavioral research. I am a psychology major with an interest in learning about the influences of early childhood and parenting on a person's future personality and behavior.My hope is to work as a clinical psychologist in a school setting. My work with the lab will allow me to gain valuable experience interacting with children and learning more about their development.
JUWAYRIYAH (SANA) GUNESHI
Summer 2017 - Fall 2017
KAZI HAQUE
Summer 2017 - Fall 2017
Previous experience as a volunteer at Texas Children's Hospital sparked a love and
interest in working with children and making them smile. Combining this interest with
my interest in neurology and cognitive development, the UH Cognitive Development Lab proved to be an excellent candidate in which I can learn
more about brain development in children. This lab will allow me to gain experience
and apply research methods as well learn more about children so that I may one day
become a caring physician in the field of pediatrics or pediatric neurosurgery.
LAURA LAY
Fall 2016 - Spring 2019
I joined the UH Cognitive Development Lab in hopes of getting hands-on experience
in research. I am interested in the pediatrics side of the medical field, so being
part of the Cognitive Development Lab is not only a way for me to learn more about
cognitive science, but is also an opportunity for me to work with children. My research
interests include learning about how maternal depression affects word learning and
how autistic children learn.
ZAINUB MALLICK
Fall 2017 - Fall 2019 
I joined the Cognitive Development lab under Dr. Yoshida because I plan to pursue
a career in researching ABA therapy in relation to children with ASD. The work done
here in the lab appealed to my interest in languages as well as cognitive development.
Spending time volunteering with kids at the Children's Assessment Center combined
with my desire to research cognitive process in children on the spectrum pushed me
to join this lab and partake in conducting the research it is doing. In the future,
I hope to obtain a PsyD in Clinical Psychology, and conduct further research on learning
styles and therapy types for children on the spectrum.
MELISSA MONTENEGRO
Spring 2018 - Spring 2019 
While earning my bachelors degree in psychology, I earned experience working at a
research lab aimed toward the understanding of communication disorders in children.
In the interest of expanding my knowledge about child development, I decided to join
Dr. Yoshida’s laboratory as it provides an outstanding opportunity to better understand
cognitive processes in children and also perfectly complements my current experience
with the study of language disorders and bilingualism. I am fascinated by the different
cerebral activities that take place when acquiring language at a young age and I hope
that I can utilize this experience to broaden my knowledge in the topic.
CAROLYN NGUYEN
Spring 2017 - Spring 2019
I joined the Cognitive Development Lab because I was interested in how the visual
search performance of children is connected to their early learning. I hope to gain
valuable research experience and learn more about what contributes to children's word
learning. As an aspiring optometrist, I believe the knowledge I gain will deepen my
understanding of vision and its impact on cognitive development.
EMMANUEL NWAOBI
Spring 2018 - Summer 2018
I joined the Cognitive Development Lab in order to gain research experience in psychology. My goal to go to graduate school for Clinical Psychology or Cognitive Neuroscience. I want to combine computer science and psychology to expand upon the body of knowledge in psychology through research and clinical applications. I look forward to learning about cognitive development and broadening my knowledge within the field of psychology.
MOFE OSANYINTOLU
Fall 2016 - Fall 2017
I joined the Cognitive Development Lab to immerse myself in an environment that would
be relevant to my interest in cognition, specifically as it relates to the development
and use of crucial cognitive processes like perception and attention. I intend on
gaining relevant research experience in the field of cognition and utilizing the resources
within the lab to build a competitive application for a graduate level education in
Human Factors Psychology or Human Machine Interface. In the future, I would like to
use my experience in the lab as a foundation for a career that applies theories of
cognition to the development of technological tools and resources that can be used
to enhance human performance and experiences.
NAOMI PALOMARES
Fall 2018 - Spring 2019 
I am currently a sophomore majoring in Psychology with a minor in Biology at UH.
I joined the Cognitive Development lab under Dr. Hanako Yoshida to gain a further
understanding of children’s cognitive abilities and brain development. I plan on furthering
my studies by pursuing a Ph.D. in Neuropsychology focusing on the relationship between
behavior, cognition and the human brain. Working with the lab, I hope to gain more
hands-on research experience and expand on my knowledge of the relationships between
cognitive development and children’s surrounding environments.
AAKASH PATEL
Summer 2014 - Spring 2020
My primary reason for joining the lab was to work with an active research group and
engage in the practice of cognitive development. My research interests focus on brain
development and attentiveness during learning. I am eager to learn about cognitive
simulations and modeling to help provide insight on early learning.
LILIANA RAMOS
Fall 2017 - Spring 2019 
As an undergraduate student pursuing a degree in Psychology with a minor in Sociology,
research is very important to me. My ultimate goal is to attend graduate school and
obtain a Ph.D in Psychology and I hope to become a professor and researcher at a university.
My research interests revolve around personality psychology, developmental, and cognitive
psychology. More specifically, how our personality develops over our lifespan and
even how language affects our personality. I joined this lab because I am well aware
of how crucial it is to have research experience and because it is a part of my research
interests in the future.
SAIRA SARWAR
FRANCISCA (FRANKIE) TORRES
MEGAN WHELEN
Summer 2015 - Summer 2018
I joined the Cognitive Development Lab in order to further my understanding of what
goes into research in psychology. I hope to go to graduate school for Clinical Psychology,
where I will be trained as both a clinician and researcher, and with the experience,
I gain here I can go into it with extensive experience in the research process. I
also look forward to learning about cognitive development and broadening my knowledge
within the field of psychology.
MELISA WILLIAMS IBORA
Spring 2018 - Present
I joined the Cognitive Development lab under Dr. Hanako Yoshida because I understand
that the first few years of a child's life are crucial. I am currently completing
my undergraduate, majoring in Psychology. In the future, I'm planning on continuing
my education through graduate school to achieve a Ph.D in Psychology. I hope to gain
plenty of research experience and to further my understanding of Developmental Psychology,
especially in how the parent-baby relationship can influence a child's social and
learning abilities. EDGAR ZARAZUA
Summer 2018 - Fall 2020
Technology education, data visuals, and data analysis for projects specially focused
on human impact are my primary interests. It is currently an exciting time to be part
of the Cognitive Development Lab as we upgrade our video tech in order to observe
in greater detail the child's development and collect more data. I primarily write
scripts for analysis our large collection of data and I'm proud to do my part in the
lab in order to yield some insight into the process of human development.