My name is Bryan Medina (he/him) and I’m a Ph.D. candidate in Brain and Cognitive Sciences at MIT, as well as a NSF Graduate Research Fellow and a MIT Dean of Science Fellow. I currently work in the Lab for Computational Audition and the Fiete Lab. Before that, I was an undergrad studying Computer Science, Cognitive Sciences, and Mathematics at the University of Central Florida. I’ve also worked with Dr. Rob Kass at Carnegie Mellon University.

I’m broadly interested in how prior experience and expertise shape perception and memory, and how the two interact. The questions that pull me in: How is information maintained in memory? How do past experiences change what we encode and retrieve? Why are some things effortlessly memorable and others forgettable - and is that consistent across ages and cultures? With Josh McDermott and Ila Fiete, I study auditory recognition memory for environmental sounds, music, and textures — combining behavioral experiments (including cross-cultural work with listeners in non-industrialized societies) with generative models in which an experience-dependent prior interacts with a noisy memory trace to explain both the shape of the forgetting curve and item-level variation in what people remember.

Aside from my research, I also find much joy in giving back to my community. As someone who is a Afro-latino first generation student, I believe that it is important that I share my successes and failures with those who look and talk like I do. I’ve volunteered my time teaching and talking to students not only on campus, but in the community, on how to succeed as a underrepresented minority in STEM. AT MIT, I take on the role of a BCS REF (Resource for Easing Friction and Stress). Undoubtedly, there is no shortage of things — whether recent events or personal issues – that may leave us feeling unsettled, disheartened, or even overwhelmed. In those situations, reaching out can make a big difference. As a member of BCS REFs, I serve as a resource to graduate students in the department, listening to their concerns, aiding in problem solving, and pointing them to resources on campus targeted to their needs. I’m also fairly involved with outreach efforts at MIT, particularly the MIT Summer Research Program in Biology (MSRP) and the Quantitative Methods Workshop, having served as a research mentor, lecturer, and “counselor”. At UCF, I was the Vice President of the Cognitive Sciences Club @ UCF, a club I co-founded, and Vice President of the UCF SACNAS chapter, both organizations that continue to strive to make opportunities available to all. I also served as peer advisor through the Academic Advancement Programs, helping students with the graduate school and fellowship process in a 1-1 capacity. I even was a STEM Ambassador at UCF.

On my off-time I enjoy biking, making photographs, throwing pottery (poorly), and expressing myself through music (typically alto saxophone or electric bass on or off campus). On the music front, I’m part of the fantastic Emerson/Harris Program for Private Study, where I currently study with Mark Zaleski at Berklee and the singular Miguel Zenón at MIT. I also find pleasure spending tons of money on my record collection and on clothes that look like crap. I also had a radioshow called ‘Brain Waves’ that aired twice a month on WMBR, the MIT radio station (message me for more details). My Erdos number is 4.