People
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.
Shirley Qiu
Shirley is a second-year pre-psychological and brain science student at the University of California, Santa Barbara. She previously worked as a voluntary research assistant at the VIU lab at UCSB. She is also currently volunteering as a research assistant in the Spatial Thinking Lab at UCSB.
Fiona Kuhi
Fiona is a recent graduate from the psychological and brain sciences program at the University of California, Santa Barbara. They have previous experience working with children, including as an assistant counselor at a German-language immersion camp.
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.
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.
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.