Meet the Team

Faculty

Uri Maoz

Associate Professor of Computational Neuroscience and Psychology

Aaron Schurger

Associate Professor of Computational Neuroscience and Psychology

Staff

Tomáš Dominik

Senior Research Scientist

Dr. Dominik is a Senior Research Scientist in the LUCID Lab at Chapman University, where he studies the neuroscience of volition, intention, and conscious control of action. His work examines how reliably people can introspect on their own motor intentions and where the brain potentials that precede voluntary movement actually come from. He led the first full-scale replication of Libet’s classic experiment, and his current projects extend these questions to artificial systems, probing whether and how intentions can be attributed to large language models. He received his Ph.D. in 2019 for a dissertation on Libet’s paradigm. His research combines EEG, behavioral methods, and a range of psychophysiological measures including ECG, EDA, EMG, and EOG.

Paulius Rimkevičius

Senior Research Scientist

Graduate Students

Dimitri Bredikhin

PhD Student

Dimitri is a PhD student in Computational and Data Sciences at Chapman University. He holds an MSc degree in Cognitive Neuroscience and a BSc degree in Biology, majoring in Animal Physiology. Currently specializing in the neuronal correlates of movement initiation, he investigates its intricate relationship with the philosophical concept of free will. In his research, Dimitri extensively utilizes EEG/MEG techniques to explore these cognitive phenomena.

Alejandro de Miguel

PhD Student

Alejandro de Miguel is a PhD student in Computational and Data Sciences at Chapman University. He earned his MS in Artificial Intelligence from Munster Technological University in Ireland and worked in industry for five years as a Data Science Manager at Just Eat Takeaway. His current research is focused on using high-frame rate video recordings of human decision-making to predict motion and action through computer vision techniques.

Ben Perry

PhD Student

Ben is a PhD student in the Computational and Data Sciences program. With a background in psychology, Ben is interested in meta-experimental approaches to studying anomalous phenomena, the subjectivity of the human experience, and how it is shaped by top-down processes.

Vermut (Baohua) Gao

Vermut is a PhD student at LUCID with interdisciplinary backgrounds in psychology, law, neuroscience, and computing, as well as multilingual experience. Her interests center on consciousness, volition, and higher cognitive processes, particularly how AI may reshape the understanding of human cognition. Her research experience includes EEG analysis, including connectivity and SSVEP-related data analysis, as well as AI-assisted research tools.

Alina Niftulaeva

Visiting PhD Student

Alina is a PhD student in Communication at Chapman University. She holds an MS degree in Communication and a BS degree in Linguistics. Her research centers on deception, violence, and harm – how they operate, how they are perceived, and how they are attributed across contexts. She is currently leading AI safety research, developing cross-disciplinary definitions of core concepts such as alignment, deception, and intention. Her work extends across IPV/domestic abuse, media framing of political violence and terrorism, deceptive affection and behavior, and emotional labor. 

Postbac Research Assistants

Raniyah Chishti

Raniyah is a postbac research assistant at LUCID, engaged in research involving EEG, fMRI, TMS, and many other methods. She is interested in the neural correlates of human volition.

Maverick Morales

Maverick earned his B.A. in Psychology at Chapman University and conducts research at LUCID exploring free will, AI alignment, and moral behavior. His work focuses on the social utility of belief systems in promoting moral conduct and social stability, the tension between human autonomy and self-defeating behavior, and the ethical implications of human-AI interaction. He plans to pursue a Ph.D. in Social Psychology in the coming years.

Katrina Shirey

Katrina graduated with a BA in Psychology with minors in Neuroscience and Health Science from Chapman University in 2026. She is engaged with research involving EEG, fMRI, TMS, and AI alignment-faking paradigms at LUCID. Her research interests include cognitive neuroscience, mental health, and the neural mechanisms underlying cognition, emotion, and decision making. Katrina plans to pursue a Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology in the coming years.

Nicole Mock

Nicole graduated with a B.S. in Applied Human Physiology with a minor in Neuroscience from Chapman University in 2026. She is a Postbac Research Assistant at LUCID involved in projects related to consciousness and perception using EEG. She plans to pursue a Ph.D. in Clinical Neuroscience in the coming years.

Undergraduate Research Assistants

Sri Pranav Kunda

Sri is a Mathematics major at the University of California, Davis interested in the intersection of mathematics and theoretical computer science. He is working on the LLM Behavior Interpolation Project and is interested in AI interpretability and its applications to AI safety and alignment faking. Sri hopes to construct theoretical frameworks for analyzing LLMs and the precise factors involved in their behavior and decision making. 

Victoria Mena Perez

Victoria is an undergraduate at Chapman University with a Major in Health Sciences and an interest in the Neuroscience minor. She is helping over the summer with the Dynamic Noise Stimulus Study.

Tannor Morgan

Tannor graduated with a B.S. in Philosophy and Psychology with a concentration in Neuroscience from Calvin University in 2026. He is interested in neuroimaging, neuromodulation, and machine learning. As an undergraduate, he utilized EEG to examine aberrant functional connectivity associated with socioemotional deficits in agenesis of the corpus callosum. At LUCID, he is involved in projects exploring conscious access and AI alignment. 

Valerie Noria

Valerie is a sophomore undergraduate student at Chapman University studying Biological Sciences. She is also a student-athlete competing for Chapman’s Cross-Country and Track & Field teams. She is working on the No-Event project and is interested in learning more about the relation between visual perception and conscious detection. She works with EEG and Pupillometry tracking in her research.

Arushi Shelvankar

Arushi is an undergraduate Research Assistant pursuing a B.A. in Psychology and minor in Neuroscience. As a Research Assistant, she contributes to projects examining the subjective validity of consciousness and visual perception with EEG. She plans to pursue a Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology.

Part-Time Staff

Nico Barrett

Animation Artist/Graphic Designer

Nico earned a BFA in Digital Arts from Chapman University in 2020. Since then, he has designed web graphics, promotional art, and video content for research labs at the University for six years and counting. He assists LUCID with anything and everything art-related. In his spare time, he self-publishes StarLight Arcadia, a multimedia creative project.

Victoria Harris

Editorial and Communications Assistant

Victoria Harris (they/them) earned a BA in Creative Writing from Chapman University and and MFA in Fiction Writing from Sarah Lawrence College. They worked in the editorial department of Oxford University Press for 6 years across multiple disciplines, including psychology. Now, in addition to their work at LUCID, they are a literary agent and freelance editor. 

Alumni

Where we come from