I am a fourth-year graduate student in Brain and Cognitive Sciences at MIT, advised by Laura Schulz in the Early Childhood Cognition Lab. I received my BS degree from UC Davis in Cognitive Neuroscience. At UC Davis, I worked with Andy Yonelinas as a research assistant in the Human Memory Lab. After I graduated, I worked with Lisa Oakes in the Infant Cognition Lab as a lab manager.

Broadly, I am interested in how children build models of the world, and how to build models of that task. My current research focuses on the whether children are sensitive to abstract correlations. This work is in collaboration with Josh Tenenbaum and Max Siegel. Outside of research I like photography, cooking, catching sunsets, discovering new music, dancing and mentoring students (especially those from traditionally underreprested groups).

You can email me at nhcoates [at] mit.edu.