The Scientists

The Postdoctoral Fellow

Xinger Yu, Ph.D.

Xinger’s research interests are focused on how attention is controlled by memory and the nature of the representations that we use to point our selective mechanisms around our visual world. Xinger is learning to record EEG, analyze the event-related potentials, and perform tDCS (transcranial Direct-Current Stimulation) to understand the neural mechanisms underlie these cognitive abilities.

Xinger got a job! She will be starting a faculty position in China this fall!

Click here for her Google Scholar page

The Graduate Student

Seth Marx

Seth is a graduate student with a talent for programming and self-starting. He has been working on projects looking at the relationship between memory and attention.

Current Undergraduate Students

Ella Weeks

Ella is an undergraduate student interested in how memory guides attention. She plans to pursue her passion for cognitive neuroscience in graduate school.

Recent Undergraduate Honors Thesis Students

Gengshi Hu

Gengshi was a research assistant in the Woodman Brain Lab for three years. He completed his honors thesis in the spring of 2025, having already gotten the project accepted for publication the prior year. Gengshi will be joining Ed Vogel’s lab in the fall of 2025. Congratulations Gengshi!

Amy Stevens

Amy was an undergraduate at Vanderbilt, and a critical part of our women’s tennis team that finished the 2025 season ranking in the top 20! Amy came to Vanderbilt from Australia. Meaning that almost everyone in the lab from the other hemisphere! Amy balanced the demands of being a world-class athlete with passion for cognitive neuroscience. Currently, Amy is exploring options as a professional athlete as well as graduate and professional school possibilities.

Christopher Sundby, Assistant Professor, University of Tennessee, Knoxville, Law School

Chong Zhao PhD Student, University of Chicago, Psychology

Emma Megla, & Gengshi Hu PhD Students, University of Chicago, Psychology