Curriculum Vitae

Education

• Ph.D in Cognitive Sciences with a Concentration in Cognitive Neuroscience, University of California Irvine, 2022
• M.S. in Cognitive Neuroscience, University of California Irvine, 2020
• M.A. in Geography, University of California Santa Barbara, 2019
• B.S. in Psychology, South China Normal University, 2014

Work experience

• Data Science Instructor for Guided Projects, Coursera Inc. Aug. 2020 – Feb. 2022

• Machine Learning Research Intern, Max Planck Institute for Software System. Aug. 2021 – Oct. 2021

• Instructor of Record, Psychology Fundamentals, University of California Irvine. June 2021 – July 2021

• Teaching Assistant, Neuromatch Academy Inc. June 2020 – July 2020

• Data Science Intern, National Center for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis (NCEAS). June 2019 – Sept. 2019

Publications

• Cheng, Y.., & Chrastil, L. (2021, November 30). From Individual Cognitive Maps to a Collective Cognitive Map: Prescriptive Guidelines and Measurement of Factors that Could Distort the Mapping Process. https://doi.org/10.31234/osf.io/7ygk2 [pdf]

• Chrastil, E. R., Cheng, Y.. Central Coordination and Integration of Diverse Information to Form a Single Map. In R. D. Montello & K. M. Curtin (Eds.), Collective Spatial Cognition: A Research Agenda. Routledge (Taylor and Francis). (in press)

• ‘t Hart, B. M., Achakulvisut, T., Blohm, G., Kording, K., Peters, M. A. K., Akrami, A., … Cheng, Y., … Hyafil, A. (2021, February 15). Neuromatch Academy: a 3-week, online summer school in computational neuroscience. https://doi.org/10.31219/osf.io/9fp4v [pdf]

• Cheng, Y., Hegarty, M., & Chrastil, E. R. (2020). Telling right from right: the influence of handedness in the mental rotation of hands. Cognitive Research: Principles and Implications, 5, 1-18. [pdf]

• Sun, L., Tan, P. *, Cheng, Y. *, Chen, J., & Qu, C. (2015). The effect of altruistic tendency on fairness in third-party punishment. Frontiers in Psychology, 6, 820. *denotes equal authorship [pdf]

• Qu, L., Dou, W., Cheng, Y., & Qu, C. (2014). The processing course of conflicts in third‐party punishment: An event‐related potential study. PsyCh Journal, 3(3), 214-221. [pdf]

Select Conference Presentations

Oral Presentations

• Cheng, Y., Chrastil, E.R.. Sex Differences in Head Direction Signals When Learning a Complex Environment. Neuromatch Conference 4.0 Flash Talk, Virtual, Dec., 2021. [news] [video]

• Cheng, Y. . Head Direction Signals in the Human Brain When Exploring in a Complex Environment, UCI Cognitive Sciences Colloquium Flash Talk. Dec., 2021.

• Cheng, Y. . Head Direction Signals in the Human Brain When Exploring in a Complex Environment, UCI Cognitive Sciences Colloquium Flash Talk. Nov., 2021.

• Cheng, Y. . Head Direction Signals in the Human Brain When Exploring in a Complex Environment: A Machine Learning Approach, UCI Cognitive Sciences Colloquium Flash Talk. Oct., 2021.

• Cheng, Y. . Travel Direction as a Fundamental Component of Human Navigation, UCI Cognitive Sciences Colloquium Flash Talk. Oct., 2021.

• Cheng, Y. , Chrastil, E.R.. Head Direction Signals During Navigation. Virtual Spring CNLM Conference - Memory: It’s About Time, Virtual. May, 2021. [news]

• Cheng, Y. . Finding the Compass: Head Direction Signals in the Human Brain. UCI CNLM Awards Ceremony, Virtual. May, 2021. [news]

• Cheng, Y. , Chrastil, E.R.. The Emergence of Head Direction Signals in Human Navigation, The Emergence of Head Direction Signals in Human Navigation. UCI Associated Graduate Students (AGS) Symposium, Virtual. April, 2021. Audience Choice Award [news]

• Cheng, Y. , Ling, S., Stern, C. E., Huang, A., Chrastil, E.R.. Travel Direction as a Fundamental Component of Human Navigation, Neuromatch Conference 3.0, Virtual. Oct., 2020. [news] [video]

• Cheng, Y. , Ling, S., Stern, C. E., Huang, A., Chrastil, E.R.. Travel Direction as a Fundamental Component of Human Navigation, Interdisciplinary Navigation Symposium (iNAV), Virtual. Oct., 2020. [news]

• Cheng, Y. . Travel Direction as a Fundamental Component of Human Navigation, UCI Cognitive Sciences Department Graduate Student Presentation Bonanza, Irvine. Jan., 2020.

• Cheng, Y. . What Are the Sex Differences in Navigation Training? Using Sea Hero Quest Dataset, UCSB Crossroads Symposium, Santa Barbara. Nov., 2019.

• Downs, M., Davis, F., Brun, J., Huang, T., Cheng, Y. . Greater Than the Sum of the Parts: Collaboration in the U.S. LTER Network, International Long-Term Ecosystem Research Open Science Meeting (ILTER OSM), Leipzig, Germany. Sept., 2019.

• Cheng, Y. . Domain-General Distance Representation, Spring Quarter UCSB Geography Department Colloquium, Santa Barbara. May, 2019.

• Cheng, Y. , Chrastil, E.R.. From Individual Cognitive Maps to a Collective Cognitive Map: Prescriptive Guidelines, Collective Spatial Cognition Specialist Meeting, Santa Barbara. April, 2019.

• Cheng, Y. . Left Hand, Right Hand. 2018 Spatial Lightening Talks, UCSB Center for Spatial Studies, Santa Barbara. Feb., 2018. [video]

• Cheng, Y. , Liang, Y., Tang, Z.. Mixed Time-Based and Event-Based Prospective Memory: A Behavioral Study, the 16th National Academic Congress of Psychology, Nanjing, China. Nov., 2013.

Poster Presentations

• Cheng, Y. , Chrastil, E.R., Krichmar, J.. A Recurrent Neural Network Model of Travel Direction in Humans, Interdisciplinary Navigation Symposium (iNAV), Virtual. June, 2022. [news]

• Cheng, Y. , Ling, S., Stern, C. E., Huang, A., Chrastil, E.R.. Travel Direction as a Fundamental Component of Human Navigation, Harvard Women in Psychology’s Annual Trends in Psychology Summit (TiPS), Virtual. Nov., 2021. [news]

• Cheng, Y., Chrastil, E.R.. Sex Differences in Head Direction Signals When Learning a Complex Environment. Society for Neuroscience, Virtual. Nov., 2021. [news]

• Cheng, Y.* , He C. *, Spiers H., Coutrot A., Hornberger M., Hegarty M., Chrastil, E.R.. Self-Evaluations of Navigation Ability: A Big Data Approach. Psychonomic Society Annual Meeting, Virtual. Nov., 2021. *denotes equal authorship [news]

• Cheng, Y., Chrastil, E.R.. Head Direction Signals During Navigation: Comparing Movement And Stationary Periods. Spatial Cognition, Virtual. Aug., 2021. [news]

• Cheng, Y. , Chrastil, E.R.. The Emergence of Head Direction Signals in a Complex Environment. Annual Meeting of the Organization for Human Brain Mapping (OHBM), Virtual. June, 2021. [news]

• Cheng, Y. , Chrastil, E.R.. The Emergence of Head Direction Signals in Human Navigation. spatial@ucsb.global2021: Spatial Data Science for a Sustainable Future, Virtual. June, 2021. [news]

• Cheng, Y. , Chrastil, E.R.. The Emergence of Head Direction Signals in Human Navigation, Cognitive Neuroscience Society (CNS) Annual Meeting, Virtual. March, 2021. [news]

• Cheng, Y. , Chrastil, E.R.. The Emergence of Head Direction Signals in Human Navigation, Interdepartmental Neuroscience Program (INP) recruitment session, Virtual. Jan., 2021. [news]

• Cheng, Y. , Chrastil, E.R.. The Emergence of Head Direction Signals in Human Navigation, Society for Neuroscience Global Connectome, Virtual. Jan., 2021. [news]

• Cheng, Y. , Chrastil, E.R.. The Emergence of Head Direction Signals in Human Navigation, Psychonomic Society Annual Meeting, Virtual. Nov., 2020. [news]

• Downs, M., Brun, J., Huang, T., Cheng, Y. . Greater Than the Sum of the Parts: Collaboration in and Beyond the U.S. LTER Network, Ecological Society of America Annual Meeting, Virtual. Aug., 2020.

• Cheng, Y. , Ling, S., Stern, C. E., Huang, A., Chrastil, E.R.. Travel Direction as a Fundamental Component of Human Navigation, Interdepartmental Neuroscience Program (INP) recruitment session, Irvine. Jan., 2020.

• Cheng, Y. , Ling, S., Stern, C. E., Huang, A., Chrastil, E.R.. Travel Direction as a Fundamental Component of Human Navigation, Psychonomic Society Annual Meeting, Montreal, Canada. Nov., 2019.

• Cheng, Y. , Hegarty, M., Chrastil, E.R.. Embodied Experience of the ‘Wrong’ Hand, Not World Knowledge, Supports the Mental Rotation of Hands, Psychonomic Society Annual Meeting, New Orleans, USA. Nov., 2018.

• Cheng, Y. , Hegarty, M., Chrastil, E.R.. Performance Discrepancy Between Left-handers and Right-handers Reveals Multisensory Integration in the Mental Rotation of Hands, Spatial Cognition, Tübingen, Germany. Aug., 2018.

• Cheng, Y. , Ling, S., Stern, C. E., Huang, A., Chrastil, E.R.. Travel Direction as a Fundamental Component of Human Navigation, Interdisciplinary Navigation Symposium (iNAV), Quebec, Canada. June, 2018.

• Cheng, Y. , Ling, S., Stern, C. E., Huang, A., Chrastil, E.R.. Are You Getting Closer to the Sun or to the Moon? An Unusual Motion Adaptation Effect of Travel Direction. spatial@ucsb.local2018, UCSB Center for Spatial Studies. University of California, Santa Barbara. June, 2018.

• Chrastil, E.R., Nicora, G., Davis, R., Smith, J., Cheng, Y. . The Influence of Decision-Making on Spatial Learning and Memory: An Individual Differences Approach, Society for Neuroscience Annual Meeting, Washington DC, USA. Nov., 2017.

• Cheng, Y. , Qu, C.. Cost Consideration Driven by Prosociality in Third-party Punishment: Using Feedback Related Negativity, Society for Neuroscience Annual Meeting, Chicago, USA. Oct., 2015.