Principal Investigator
Can Serif Mekik, PhD
Assistant Professor
Department of Psychology
Cognitive Science Program
University of Toronto
Current Members
Undergraduate
Mengxi (Rachel) Liu, B.Sc. ’26
University of Toronto
Hi! I’m Rachel — I am a 2026 graduate of the University of Toronto, specializing in psychology and majoring in cognitive science in the Brain and Cognition stream. My research interest focus on how our emotions come from, and how it helps to shape our cognition, decision making and behavior. More broadly, I am interested in the neural mechanisms behind emotions and their interaction with cognitive processes, especially how people decide to behave differently under different emotions. My research with Prof. Mekik explores persistence in problem solving, with the goal of better understanding how effort, motivation, and individual differences shape performance in real time.
Defne Tuncer, B.Sc. ’26
University of Toronto
Defne is an undergraduate student completing her degree as a psychology specialist and a cognitive science major (Cognition and the Brain stream). Her interests include cognitive development, influences of emotion, and perceptual phenomena. Defne’s research at the Mekik Lab involves investigating the relationship between emotional arousal and time perception.
Mani Setayesh, B.Sc. ’26
University of Toronto
Hi! I’m Mani – I am a (soon to be) graduate of the University of Toronto, majoring in computer science and cognitive science. I have a variety of research interests in different avenues of cognitive science, but mainly they involve joining artificial intelligence methods with ideas in psychology/neuroscience to make it more biologically plausible. My research with Prof. Mekik specifically focuses on improving the alignment between symbolic and connectionist representations in the ACS of the Clarion architecture. Outside of research, I often play chess and am an avid pianist!
Dominic Le, B.Sc. ’26
University of Toronto
Dominic is an undergraduate researcher finishing up his B.Sc. this year with a double major in psychology and cognitive science (computational cognition stream). He has interests in causal cognition, cognitive development, and counterfactual reasoning.
