Monica Thieu

Postdoctoral scholar

Dept of Psychology, Emory University

About me

In my postdoctoral research, I use behavioral, modeling, and fMRI research methods to characterize how perceptual input contributes to affective experience.

In my PhD research, I used behavioral and fMRI research methods to investigate how people perceive and categorize various social (others’ facial age and gender) and emotional (elicited experiences) stimuli.

In my teaching, I particularly enjoy working with learners in introductory-level courses in content (introductory psychology) and in methods (coding for behavioral sciences).

  • Method competencies:
    • Functional neuroimaging: Intermediate in nipype, SPM, FSL, proficient in fmriprep
    • Behavioral tasks: Advanced in Gorilla and Qualtrics; proficient in PsychoPy
    • Data management tools: Intermediate in REDCap
    • Coding: Advanced in R; proficient in Python, JavaScript, Stan, Matlab, shell

Employment

August 2022 - Emory University Postdoctoral fellow (Atlanta, GA, USA)

  • Project: Subcortical pathways of looming and threat
  • Supervisor: Dr. Philip Kragel

June 2015 - July 2017 Stanford University Lab manager & research coordinator (Palo Alto, CA, USA)

  • Project: Healthy aging and memory
  • Supervisor: Dr. Anthony Wagner

Education

2022 Columbia University PhD in Psychology (New York, NY, USA)

2015 Stanford University BA with honors in Psychology (Palo Alto, CA, USA)

  • Honors thesis: ‘Chronic media multitasking and distraction: Neural substrates and mnemonic consequences’
  • Advisors: Dr. Melina Uncapher, Dr. Anthony Wagner

Awards and honors

Research

2023 Diversity travel award (Social and Affective Neuroscience Society)

2022-26 FIRST NIH IRACDA postdoctoral fellowship (Emory School of Medicine)

2019 Honorable mention (NSF GRFP)

June 2015 Firestone Medal for Excellence in Undergraduate Research (Stanford Vice Provost for Undergraduate Education)

Summer 2014 Undergraduate Summer Research Award grant (Stanford Bio-X)

Summer 2013 Best Presentation (Stanford Psych-Summer)

Summer 2013 Undergraduate research grant (Stanford Psych-Summer)

Teaching

Spring 2022 Teaching Development Program Advanced Track completion (Columbia Center for Teaching and Learning)

Spring 2022 Presidential Graduate Teaching Award finalist (Columbia Office of the Provost)

Spring 2021 Grant to Enhance Remote Learning and Teaching (Columbia Center for the History and Ethics of Public Health)

Spring 2020 Curricular Innovation Fellow (Columbia Libraries)

June 2015 Zimbardo Teaching Prize (Stanford Psych One)

Other

Mar 2024 Quarterfinalist (Jeopardy! Invitational Tournament)

Aug 2023 - present Trivia expert (Master Minds (Game Show Network))

Mar 2019 Second place runner-up (team) (Jeopardy! All-Star Games)

May 2016 Contestant (500 Questions (ABC))

Feb 2013 Quarterfinalist (Jeopardy! Tournament of Champions)

Feb 2012 First place winner (Jeopardy! College Championship)

Winter 2013 Excellence Award (Stanford Introductory Seminars)

Publications

1.
Thieu, M. K., Ayzenberg, V., Lourenco, S. F., & Kragel, P. A. (2023). Visual looming is a primitive for human emotion. Preprint. https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2023.08.29.555380.abstract
2.
Thieu, M. K., Wilkins, L. J., & Aly, M. (2024). Episodic-semantic linkage for $1000: New semantic knowledge is more strongly coupled with episodic memory in trivia experts (2024). Psychonomic Bulletin and Review. https://www.alylab.org/_files/ugd/1d2439_cce8bc7f4626433cb101fc6e9902525f.pdf
3.
Thieu, M. K., & Ochsner, K. N. (n.d.). Categorical perception of facial age and gender (working title, in prep).
4.
Thieu, M. K., & Ochsner, K. N. (n.d.). Psychophysical estimation of emotion reporting thresholds (working title, in prep).
5.
Thieu, M. K., Foo, J. C., & Marvin, C. B. (2022). Addressing the COVID-19 pandemic in introductory psychology using the jigsaw method adapted for remote learning. Journal of College Science Teaching, 51(3). https://www.nsta.org/journal-college-science-teaching/journal-college-science-teaching-januaryfebruary-2022/addressing
6.
Trelle, A. N., Carr, V. A., Wilson, E. N., Swarovski, M. S., Hunt, M. P., Toueg, T. N., Tran, T. T., Channappa, D., Corso, N. K., Thieu, M. K., Jayakumar, M., Nadiadwala, A., Guo, W., Tanner, N. J., Bernstein, J. D., Litovsky, C. P., Guerin, S. A., Khazenzon, A. M., Harrison, M. B., … Mormino, E. C. (2021). Association of CSF biomarkers with hippocampal-dependent memory in preclinical alzheimer disease. Neurology, 96(10), e1470–e1481. https://n.neurology.org/content/96/10/e1470.abstract
7.
Trelle, A. N., Carr, V. A., Guerin, S. A., Thieu, M. K., Jayakumar, M., Guo, W., Nadiadwala, A., Corso, N. K., Hunt, M. P., Litovsky, C. P., Tanner, N. J., Deutsch, G. K., Bernstein, J. D., Harrison, M. B., Khazenzon, A. M., Jiang, J., Sharon, J. S., Fredericks, C. A., Rutt, B. K., … Wagner, A. D. (2020). Hippocampal and cortical mechanisms at retrieval explain variability in episodic remembering in older adults. eLife, 9, e55335. https://elifesciences.org/articles/55335
8.
Ruiz, N. A., Thieu, M. K., & Aly, M. (2020). Cholinergic modulation of hippocampally mediated attention and perception. Behavioral Neuroscience, 135(1), 51–70. https://github.com/alylab/artMuseNicotine
9.
Uncapher, M. R., Thieu, M. K., & Wagner, A. D. (2016). Media multitasking and memory: Differences in working memory and long-term memory. Psychonomic Bulletin and Review, 23(2), 483–490. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4733435/

Talks, workshops, and media

Feb 2024 Radio/podcast guest (science) (Science Friday)

Feb 2024 Radio guest (science) (Weekend Edition Sunday by NPR)

Feb 2024 News interview subject (science) (Scientific American)

April 2023 Shallow neural networks for collision detection predict arousal-related differences in subjective experience (Social and Affective Neuroscience Society Annual Meeting)

June 2022, Jan 2023 Remote brain bingo: Running group games on Zoom (Psych One Conference & TIP Coast-To-Coast Conference)

Nov 2021 Video guest (science) (Wired 5 Levels: Memory)

Sept 2021 Interview subject (teaching) (Explain Everything)

July 2020 Podcast guest (science) (This is Uncomfortable by Marketplace)

July 2020 How to Prepare and Teach an R Lesson (NYC R Conference)

Nov 2020 Exploring the NYPD Civilian Complaint Database (Columbia Foundations for Research Computing workshop)

Apr 2020 Wrangling Multilevel Data in the Tidyverse (Columbia Foundations for Research Computing workshop)

July 2019 Podcast guest (trivia, statistics) (Planet Money by NPR)

Conference posters

1.
Thieu, M. K., & Kragel, P. A. (2024). Shallow neural networks for auditory collision detection predict subjective affect. Social and Affective Neuroscience Society Annual Meeting.
2.
Thieu, M. K., & Kragel, P. A. (2023). The human superior colliculus encodes looming motion. Organization for Human Brain Mapping Annual Meeting.
3.
Thieu, M. K., Wilkins, L. J., & Aly, M. (2023). Episodic-semantic linkage for $1000: Episodic memory bolsters acquisition of new semantic knowledge in trivia experts. Cognitive Neuroscience Society Annual Meeting.
4.
Thieu, M. K., & Ochsner, K. N. (2022). Categorizing affect increases affective represntational distance. Social and Affective Neuroscience Society Annual Meeting. https://youtu.be/MOq7UMjZEUk
5.
Thieu, M. K., & Ochsner, K. N. (2021). Investigating the neural pattern structure of facial age and gender. Social and Affective Neuroscience Society Annual Meeting. https://youtu.be/cv1ejXoJS38
6.
Thieu, M. K., & Ochsner, K. N. (2020). Investigating the neural pattern structure of mixed emotion. Society for Affective Science Annual Meeting. https://society-for-affective-science.org/list-of-sas-virtual-posters-2020/entry/5196/?gvid=7225
7.
Thieu, M. K., & Ochsner, K. N. (2019). Measuring emotion sensitivity and expressivity with psychophysics. Social and Affective Neuroscience Society Annual Meeting.
8.
Thieu, M. K., & Ochsner, K. N. (2019). Psychophysical estimation of emotion labeling thresholds. Society for Affective Science Annual Meeting. https://osf.io/ubxtm/
9.
Thieu, M. K., Uncapher, M. R., & Wagner, A. D. (2015). Chronic media multitasking and distraction: Neural substrates and mnemonic consequences. Psychology Undergraduate Research Conference.
10.
Uncapher, M. R., Thieu, M. K., & Wagner, A. D. (2015). Chronic media multitasking and distraction: Neural substrates and mnemonic consequences. Cognitive Neuroscience Society Annual Meeting.
11.
Thieu, M. K., Uncapher, M. R., & Wagner, A. D. (2014). Reduced working memory predicts impaired long-term memory in chronic media multitaskers. Bio-x Interdisciplinary Initiatives Symposium.
12.
Thieu, M. K., Uncapher, M. R., & Wagner, A. D. (2013). Effects of media multitasking on working and long-term memory. Psych-Summer Poster Session.

Teaching experience

Sp2024 Instructor of record PSY 417: Statistics II in Psychology (Spelman College Dept of Psychology)

Su2023 Instructor Data Science Lab Module (Spelman College WiSTEM)

Su2022 Instructor of record PSYC 1021: Science of Psychology: Explorations & Applications (Columbia Dept of Psychology)

Sp2022 Assistant curriculum developer & TA PSYC 2821: Cognition in Context: Mental Health & Well-being (Columbia Dept of Psychology)

Sp2021 Assistant curriculum developer, TA, & guest lecturer PSYC 1021: Science of Psychology: Explorations & Applications (Columbia Dept of Psychology)

Fa2019 Guest lecturer Intro to Psychology (Outlier.org)

Fa2019-Sp2022 Carpentries-certified instructor Introductory coding bootcamps (Columbia Foundations for Research Computing)

Sp2019, Sp2020, Fa2021 TA & guest lecturer B8144: Intro to Programming in R (Columbia Business School)

Fa2018, Fa2019 TA & section leader PSYC 1490: Research Methods (Columbia Dept of Psychology)

Sp2018-Fa2021 Curriculum developer & instructor Intro to Programming for Social Scientists (Columbia Dept of Psychology)

Fa2017 TA & guest lecturer PSYC 1001: Science of Psychology (Columbia Dept of Psychology)

Fa2014-Sp2015 Teaching fellow Psych One (Stanford Dept of Psychology)

Su2011, Su2012 Instructor 7th and 8th grade physics (Breakthrough Fort Worth)

Mentoring

2020-22 Lauren Wilkins Undergraduate research assistant & honors thesis student (Columbia University)

  • Class of 1939 Summer Research Fellowship, summer 2020

Workshops & summer schools attended

2022 Neurohackademy (University of Washington)

2019 Kavli Summer Institute in Cognitive Neuroscience (University of California, Santa Barbara)

2018 São Paulo School of Advanced Sciences on Social & Affective Neuroscience (Mackenzie Presbyterian University)