cogsci phd student at brown
cocosci researcher at mit
nsf graduate research fellow

My name is Laila Johnston (she/her). I am a Cognitive Science PhD Student at Brown University primarily advised by Roman Feiman, as well as a NSF Graduate Research Fellow. I received my B.S. in Mathematics with minors in Computer Science and Philosophy from the University of Central Florida.

Since August 2021, I have been working in the CoCoSci Group at MIT with Max Siegel, Josh Tenenbaum, and Tobi Gerstenberg researching conceptual reasoning within probabilistic programs and large language models. Before that, I worked with David Danks researching individual differences in causal learning and building models of causal inference learning (see our cogsci paper!).

Broadly, I conduct research at the intersection of cognitive science, computer science, mathematics, and philosophy. Currently, I have been very interested in the computational mechanisms of human question asking. How can we create computational models that form questions as flexibly and easily as humans do? And can questions provide insights into how humans change their world models? (see my NSF GRFP research proposal for more details).

On my free time, I enjoy playing pickleball, salsa dancing, hiking/backpacking, film photography, and going to jazz concerts. I also enjoy spending too much money on vinyl and buying more books than I could ever read.