News
December 2024: The lab celebrates the end of the semester at Lucky Strike!
July 2024: The lab goes to Rotterdam for CogSci 2024!
June 2024: Laura made it into this Washington Post article! Is that chatbot smarter than a 4-year-old? Experts put it to the test.
March 2024: The Boston Children’s Museum posts a blog about the ECCL conducting research at their museum! Check it out here: A Glimpse into Children’s Minds
February 2024: The lab pulls an all-nighter for CogSci submissions, and we celebrated Laura’s birthday!
October 2023: Congratulations to Melissa Kline Struhl on winning the MIT Prize for Open Data!
September 2023: The lab joins the rest of BCS on a cruise to welcome new students!
July 2023: Summer lab retreat to New Hampshire!
June 2023: Welcome to our new postbac students, Karla Perez and Lia Washington!
June 2023: The lab joins the rest of the departments at the retreat to North Falmouth!
February 2023: Lab Lunch at Shy Bird!
February 2023: A new study called “Let’s Play with Elmo and His Friends!” is posted! Click here to learn more.
February 2023: The Boston Children’s Museum hosted an orientation for the lab! In-person research will begin soon, thank you BCM!
January 2023: A new study, Alien Greenhouse, is posted! Click here to learn more.
December 2022: Principal investigator of the ECCL, Laura Schulz, chats with the Stanford Psychology Podcast about her journey in science. Click here to listen to the episode!
November 2022: Second year graduate student, Nicole Coates, presents at Coglunch: Representations of Abstract Relations in Early Childhood. Excellent job Nicole!
November 2022: Lab Retreat to New Hampshire!
October 2022: Relaunching the ECCL social media!
Twitter: @mit_eccl (https://twitter.com/mit_eccl)
Instagram: @mit_eccl (https://www.instagram.com/mit_eccl/)
Facebook: MIT ECCL (https://www.facebook.com/mit.eccl)
September 2022: Madeline C. Pelz’s study was published in Nature Human Behavior (see Journal Publications page for link to full text).
August 2022: Welcome to the new graduate students joining the lab, Shengyi Wu and Izabele Jonusaite!
July 2022: Welcome to new Lab Manager, Sienna Radifera!
April 2022: ECCL members attend their first in-person conference in a long time! Undergraduate research assistant Sofia Riskin presents a poster at the Cognitive Development Society conference in Madison, WI. We had a great time meeting ECCL alumni and other researchers!
February 2022: Spring semester UROPs gather on Zoom!
April 2022: Lab members attend CDS conference in Madison, WI!
September 2021: Welcome back in person everyone! And a special welcome to all the lab members who have joined us recently: CJ Green, our new Lookit software engineer, Melissa Kline Struhl, Lookit executive director, Jessica Chomik, a postbac student with the Research Scholars Program and Nicole Coates, a first year PhD student in the lab!
August 2021: Maddie Pelz successfully defends her thesis “Bootstrapping new knowledge from abstract representations”. Congratulations Dr. Pelz!
July, 2021: After a decade of amazing work, including building and launching Lookit, Kim Scott leaves to take a position as a software engineer for Form Energy. Congratulations Kim!
August 2020
Here's a video of Meg Rosenburg, from the Museum of Science, describing our Children Helping science site.
June, 2020: Regina Ebo leaves our lab after two years of outstanding work as a lab manager to start the PhD program at UC Berkeley. Congratulations Regina! Karolina Cabrera starts as our new lab manager. Welcome Karolina!
May 2020: We're thrilled to be launching the new Parent Researcher Collaborative platform childrenhelpingscience.com
April 2020: New Research opportunity for high schoolers! Accepting applications from now until June 1st! Application details here
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December 2019
The lab goes candlepin bowling!
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April 2019
Bring Zenna to Work Day!
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July 2018
Lab members meeting old and new friends at annual CogSci conference!
June 2018: Welcome to new Lab Manager, Regina Ebo!
April 2018: Julia Leonard successfully defended her thesis "Social influences on children's learning" Congratulations, Dr. Leonard!
April 2018: Rachel Magid successfully defended her thesis "Young children's reasoning about their own and others' cognition" Congratulations, Dr. Magid!
April 2018: Yang Wu successfully defended her thesis "Emotion as information: Inferring the unobserved causes of others' emotional expressions" Congratulations, Dr. Wu!
November 2017
Our whole lab accidentally wears purple!
September 2017: Kim Scott successfully defended her thesis "Online data collection for developmental research" Congratulations, Dr. Scott!
September 2017: Julia Leonard's study was featured by the MIT News Office and published in Science Magazine (see Papers page for link to full text).
September 2017: Welcome to a new graduate student joining the lab, Junyi Chu!
October 2016: Welcome to a new furry member of the lab, Kokanee!
September 2016: Welcome to a new graduate student joining the lab, Maddie Pelz!
June 2016: Welcome to new lab manager, Kary Richardson!
March 2016: Julian Jara-Ettinger successfully defended his thesis "The inner life of goals: costs, rewards, and commonsense psychology." Congratulations, Dr. Ettinger!
March 2015
The Early Childhood Cognition lab visits Plum Island for a retreat, stopping at a local animal farm!
June 2015: Click here to watch Laura's TED talk
June 2015: Former postdoc Paul Muentener and his wife Sharon are thrilled to announce the birth of their second daughter Madeleine! Paul is now an Assistant Professor at Tufts University
May 2015: Graduate student Rachel Magid has won an NSF Graduate Research Fellowship to study children's representations of the self. Congratulations, Rachel!
April 2015: Melissa Kline successfully defended her thesis "Who did what to whom: Developmental perspectives on the meaning and communication of transitive events" Congratulations, Dr. Kline!
September 2014: Welcome to a new graduate student joining the lab, Rachel Magid!
June 2014: Hyowon Gweon's Omission study was featured in LA Times: Science Now
May 2014: Graduate student Julia Leonard has won an NSF Graduate Research Fellowship to study the impact of socioeconomic status on neural and cognitive development. Congratulations, Julia!
June 2014: Laura's Distinguished Scientific Award for an Early Career Contribution to Psychology
March 2013: Laura Schulz was chosen as a 2013 MacVicar Fellow. This award recognizes MIT professors who have made outstanding contributions to undergraduate teaching. Read about Laura and the other three recipients in the MIT News and The Tech.
February 2013: Laura's research and path to MIT are discussed in this MIT News article.
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March 2013
Laura Schulz was chosen as a 2013 MacVicar Fellow. This award recognizes MIT professors who have made outstanding contributions to undergraduate teaching. Read about Laura and the other three recipients in the MIT News and The Tech.
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February 2013
Laura's research and path to MIT are discussed in this MIT News article.
December 2012: Laura Schulz and members of the lab visited the Boston Children's Museum for a celebration of the museum's 100th anniversary and the ongoing collaboration with the ECCL lab.
August 2013: Fifteen undergraduates participated in research in the ECCL from June-August. Their three months of hard work culminated in lab meeting presentations and a poster session
December 2012: Students in Laura's Infant & Child Cognition undergraduate course present conference-style posters based on famous papers in cognitive development.
September 2012: Graduate student Melissa Kline (co-advised by Ted Gibson) has won an NSF dissertation grant to study verb learning with causal events.
September 2012: Welcome to three graduate students Pedro Tsividis, Yang Wu, and Hilary Richardson to the lab!
June 2012: Hyowon Gweon successfully defended her thesis "Learning in the Social Context: Inferences, Exploration, and Evaluation." Congratulations, Dr. Hyo!
May 2012: Postdoc Paul Muentener and his wife Sharon are thrilled to announce the birth of their daughter Amelia!
2012
Laura Schulz received a Troland Research Award from the National Academy of Sciences! The Troland Award is given to investigators "to recognize unusual achievement and further empirical research in psychology regarding the relationships of consciousness and the physical world."
September 2011: Welcome to two new graduate students joining the lab, Kim Scott and Julian Jara-Ettinger!
July 2011: Claire Cook's Snapbeads study was covered by Nature News.
June 2011: Liz Bonawitz's NovelToy was featured by the MIT News Office.
June 2011: Hyowon Gweon's study was featured by the MIT News Office and The Boston Globe. Hyo and Laura's paper on the project, 16-month-olds infer the cause of failed actions, is the lab's first publication in Science Magazine (see Publications page for link to full text).
March 2011: Hyo's sampling study featured in a front-page story and online infographic byThe Boston Globe.
March 2011: Laura, Liz Bonawitz, and Noveltoy featured in Alison Gopnik's piece inSlate Magazine.
December 2010
Laura (two to the right of Pres. Obama) honored at the White House as a recipient of the 2010 Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers (PECASE).
Fall 2009: Welcome to a new graduate student joining the lab, Melissa Kline!
Fall 2007: Welcome to a new graduate student joining the lab, Hyowon Gweon!