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Principal Investigator
Photo by Gesine Born
Annie E. Wertz, PhD
Annie received her B.A. in Psychology from Boston University (2003) and her Ph.D. in Psychology from the University of California, Santa Barbara (2009). She then worked as postdoctoral researcher in the Infant Cognition Center at Yale University, where she began developing a novel research area exploring the cognitive systems infants use to learn about plants. In 2014, she was awarded funding from the Max Planck Society to pursue this novel research program as an independent Research Group Leader (equivalent to Assistant Professor) at the Max Planck Institute for Human Development in Berlin, Germany. In 2024, she joined the faculty of the Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences at UC Santa Barbara and started the Lab for Infant Learning and Cognition (LILAC). She is also a faculty member in the Center for Evolutionary Psychology at UC Santa Barbara. Dr. Wertz’s work has won several awards, including the Human Behavior and Evolution Society’s Margo Wilson Award for the best paper published in the journal Evolution and Human Behavior in 2021 and an inaugural Don Symons Adaptationism Award in 2023.
Lab Manager
Julia Wolf, MSc
Julia received her B.S. in Psychology from Florida State University (2019) and her MSc in Social, Cognitive, and Affective Neuroscience from the Freie Universität Berlin in Berlin, Germany (2023). She previously worked as a graduate research assistant in Dr. Wertz’s lab at the Max Planck Institute for Human Development in Berlin before joining the LILAC as lab manager. Her prior research has focused on various topics in clinical, cognitive, and developmental psychology. More specifically, she is interested in the ways in which social and environmental factors influence brain function and behavior in children.
Undergraduate Research Assistants
Onkar Sandhu
Onkar is a fourth-year biopsychology student at the University of California, Santa Barbara. He previously worked as a teacher's assistant for Dr. Allision Slade and as a research assistant for Researcher Anh Duong at the Translational Pulmonary and Immunology Research Center in Long Beach, CA.
Akanksha Akku
Akanksha is a fourth-year psychological and brain sciences student at the University of California, Santa Barbara. She has previous experience working with children by being a registered behavioral technician.
Alycia Paradise
Alycia is a third-year UCSB student double majoring in psychological and brain sciences and communication. She also works with children with autism and other developmental disabilities as a registered behavior technician.
Patrick Jun
Patrick is a third-year student in the psychological and brain sciences program at UCSB. Outside of the lab, he works with children at Isla Vista Elementary doing behavioral assessment.
Kelsey Burns
Kelsey is a third-year transfer student studying Psychological & Brain Sciences. As an RA, she is able to further psychological research being done in her hometown and has the opportunity to interact with children in the local community.
Jazmin Vazquez
Jazmin is a third-year student majoring in psychological and brain sciences. She is also currently volunteering as a research assistant in the Child Studies Lab and in the Social Perception Lab at UC Santa Barbara.
Cassandra Goodis
Cassandra is a third-year student double majoring in psychological and brain sciences and pharmacology at UCSB. She previously mentored elementary school students in scientific inquiry investigations around the Santa Barbara area. She is also currently working as a research intern at a biopharmaceutical company in Goleta.
Anya Moraru
Anya is a third-year transfer student majoring in Psychological & Brain Sciences at UCSB. She is contributing to developmental psychology research as a volunteer research assistant.
Eleri Williams
Eleri is a third-year Psychological & Brain Sciences student at UCSB. She has previous experience in wet lab work in microbiology and immunology and working with kids.
Aristides Salmeron
Aristides is a third-year UCSB student pursuing a triple major in Psychological & Brain Sciences, Communication, and Dance. He has worked with kids (ages 7-13) since high school as part of the leadership team that would teach kids how to dance as an outreach program called first steps and no limit rhythm.
Siri Kandi
Siri is a third-year student majoring in Psychological & Brain Sciences at UCSB. She has previous experience working with kids with autism through volunteering with ACEing Autism where she teaches tennis.
Bella Gragnani
Bella is a third-year student majoring in Psychological and Brain Sciences at UCSB. She has previous experience working with children throughout high school and college in classrooms and in sports.
Zoe Friedman
Zoe is a third-year Psychological & Brain Sciences major with a minor in Philosophy at UC Santa Barbara. She brings prior research experience from her role as a lab assistant to Dr. Uche Udeochu at the University of the District of Columbia and currently contributes to research at UCSB’s VIU Lab. Zoe is passionate about developmental psychology and is excited to continue gaining hands-on experience in child development research.
Tiana Tran
Tiana is a second-year student majoring in Psychological and Brain Sciences and Biological Anthropology at UCSB. She has experience working with children as a teaching asisstant at the University's Children Center.
Sruthi Sudarsan
Sruthi is a second year biology and data science & statistics double major at UCSB. She has previous experience working with children through being a teacher's assistant at an infant and toddler center in high school. She is interested in learning more about infant and child cognition and behavior through participating in hands on research. After graduating from UCSB she hopes to attend medical school with the goal of becoming a pediatric surgeon.
RA Alumni
Savanna Goodpaster
Savanna is a fourth-year Anthropology student at Cal Poly in San Luis Obispo. She interned at the LILAC during summer 2024.
Shirley Qiu
Shirley is a second-year pre-psychological and brain science student at the University of California, Santa Barbara. She was an RA in LILAC between April 2024 - March 2025.
Fiona Kuhi
Fiona is a recent graduate from the psychological and brain sciences program at the University of California, Santa Barbara. They were an RA in LILAC between April 2024 - March 2025.
Lab Graduates (Max Planck Institute for Human Development)
Former Postdocs
Karola Schlegelmilch was a postdoc from 2022-2023. She is currently a Postdoctoral Fellow in the Institute of Biology, Department of Human Biology and Primate Cognition, Leipzig University, Leipzig, Germany.
Linda S. Oña was a postdoc from 2018-2023. She is currently a Postdoctoral Fellow in the Institute of Biology, Department of Human Biology and Primate Cognition, Leipzig University, Leipzig, Germany.
Camille Rioux was a postdoc from 2018-2022. She is currently a Postdoctoral Researcher in the Integrative Neuroscience and Cognition Center, CNRS/Université Paris Descartes, Paris, France.
Claudia Elsner was a postdoc from 2015-2018. She is currently a Clinical Psychologist in Ludwigslust, Germany.
Valentina Fantasia was a postdoc from 2015-2017. She is currently an Associate Senior Lecturer in the Department of Philosophy, Lund University, Lund, Sweden.
Former PhD Students
Connair J. S. Russell was a PhD student from 2017-2022. He is currently a Postdoctoral Research Fellow in the School of History, Anthropology, Philosophy and Politics, Queens University Belfast, Northern Ireland, UK.
Karola Schlegelmilch was a PhD student from 2016-2021 and then a postdoc until 2023. She is currently a Postdoctoral Fellow in the Institute of Biology, Department of Human Biology and Primate Cognition, Leipzig University, Leipzig, Germany.
Aleksandra Włodarczyk was a PhD student from 2015-2019. She is currently a Clinical Psychologist in Berlin, Germany.
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