Dr. Ivette Colón

Postdoctoral Researcher

yivettecolon@gmail.com ivettecolon.org Montréal, Quebec

Appointments

2026—
Postdoctoral Fellow

McGill University, Montreal QC

2020–2026
Advanced Opportunity Doctoral Research Fellow

University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison WI

Supervisor: Dr. Timothy Rogers

Education

2020–2026
Doctor of Philosophy, Cognition and Cognitive Neuroscience

University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison WI

Dissertation: Finding mental and neural motifs of faces places and objects

Advisor: Dr. Timothy Rogers

2020–2021
Master of Science, Cognition and Cognitive Neuroscience

University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison WI

Thesis: Forgetting a face: attribute amnesia for familiar identities

Advisors: Dr. Timothy Rogers; Dr. Emily Ward

2013–2017
Bachelor of Science, Cognitive Science, minor in Computer Science

University of Texas at Dallas, Dallas TX

Thesis: Facial expression is retained in deep networks trained for face identification

Advisor: Dr. Alice O'Toole

Research Experience

2018–2020
Research Specialist, Face Perception Lab

University of Texas at Dallas

2016–2018
Research Assistant, Face Perception Lab

University of Texas at Dallas

2015–2016
Research Assistant, Lexical Ambiguity Lab

University of Texas at Dallas

Grants, Honors, & Awards

2026
Insight Development Grant, Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council, Canada

Principal Investigator: Whom to trust for what? · $89,960

2026
Canada Impact+ Research Training Award, Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council, Canada

Fellowship

2026
Graduate Student Award, Cognitive Science Society

Prize/Award

2026
Flag Bearer – PhD Graduation, University of Wisconsin-Madison

Distinction

2026
Graduate Student Travel Award, Cognitive Neuroscience Society

Prize/Award

2026
Early Career Scientist Travel Grant, National Eye Institute

Prize/Award

2026
Walsh Travel Award, McPherson Eye Research Institute / UW-Madison

Prize/Award

2025
Kenzi Valentyn Vision Research Award, McPherson Eye Research Institute

Principal Investigator: Decoding the neural organization of visual concepts through controlled computational models · $7500.00

2025
Graduate Student Award, Cognitive Science Society

Prize/Award

2025
Distinguished Service Award, University of Wisconsin-Madison

Prize/Award

2023
Hertz Travel Award, University of Wisconsin-Madison

Prize/Award

2020
Mamie and Kenneth Clark Award, University of Wisconsin-Madison

Prize/Award

2020
LUCID Trainee Fellowship, National Science Foundation

Fellowship

2020
Advanced Opportunity Fellowship, University of Wisconsin-Madison

Fellowship

Publications

Journal Articles

2026
Finding mental and neural motifs for faces places and objectsColón Y. I.; Fulvio J.; Postle B.; Rogers T. T. (2026), in prep..
2024
Uniting theory and data: the promise and challenge of creating an honest model of facial expressionWohltjen S.; Colón Y. I.; Zhu Z.; Miller K.; Huang W.-C.; Mutlu B.; Li Y.; Niedenthal P. M. (2024), Cognition and Emotion.
2021
Facial expression is retained in deep networks trained for face identificationColón Y. I.; Castillo C. D.; O'Toole A. J. (2021), Journal of Vision 21(4).
2021
Seeing through disguise: Getting to know you with a deep convolutional neural networkNoyes E.; Parde C. J.; Colón Y. I.; Hill M. Q.; Castillo C. D.; Jenkins R.; O'Toole A. J. (2021), Cognition 211.
2021
Single unit status in deep convolutional neural network codes for face identification: sparseness redefinedParde C. J.; Colón Y. I.; Hill M. Q.; Castillo C. D.; Dhar P.; O'Toole A. J. (2021), Journal of Vision 21(8).

Peer-Reviewed Conference Papers & Proceedings

2026
Idiosyncratic codes in distributed mindsColón Y. I.; Rogers T. T. (2026), Proceedings of the Cognitive Science Society 2026.
2025
Development of the NBT-53 Texture Library for the Study of Texture SemanticsChinni A.; Colón Y. I.; Mukherjee K.; Gleicher M. L.; Schloss K. B. (2025), Vision Sciences Society (pp. 2545-2545).
2025
Finding motifs in mental representations of faces, places and, objectsColón Y. I.; Rogers T. T. (2025), Proceedings of the Cognitive Science Society (pp. 5491-5497).Graduate Student Award
2025
Iterated LASSO reveals highly distributed and variable representations of faces places and objectsLi Z.; Colón Y. I.; Mukherjee K.; Rogers T. T. (2025), Cognitive Science Society (pp. 6647-6647).
2024
Semantic distance organizes social knowledge: Insights from semantic dementia and cross-modal conceptual spaceColón Y. I.; Rouse, M.; Lambon Ralph, M.; Rogers, T. T. (2024), Cognitive Science Society (pp. 2840-2846).
2023
Yours and Ours: Individual and Group Differences in Semantic Organization from Triplet Judgements of FacesColón Y. I.; Rogers T. T. (2023), Cognitive Science Society (pp. 3997-3997).
2022
Forgetting a face: Attribute amnesia for familiar identitiesColón Y. I. (2022), Vision Sciences Society (pp. 4446-4446).
2021
To Each Their Own: Measuring Familiarity for Face ImagesColón Y. I.; Ward, E. J. (2021), Vision Sciences Society (pp. 2229-2229).
2020
Facial Expression Information in Humans and DCNNsColón Y. I.; Castillo C. D.; O'Toole A. J. (2020), Vision Sciences Society (pp. 600-600).
2020
Integrating Single-Unit and Pattern Codes in DCNNs Trained for Face IdentificationParde C. J.; Colón Y. I.; Hill M. Q.; Castillo C. D.; O'Toole A. J. (2020), Vision Sciences Society (pp. 1462-1462).

Invited Talks & Seminars

2026
Idiosyncratic mental and neural motifs for faces places and objectsColón Y. I., BLRB Research Group – University of Chicago, Chicago IL.
2026
Neural representations of faces are widely distributed and highly individualizedColón Y. I.; Rogers T. T., Cognitive Neuroscience Society, Vancouver BC.
2025
Neural representations of faces are widely distributed and highly individualizedColón Y. I., Different Minds Collaborative, Victoria BC.
2025
Finding mental and neural motifs for facesColón Y. I., Social Cognitive and Neural Sciences Lab – Columbia University, New York NY.
2024
Computational models for developmental cognitionColón Y. I., Cognition & Cognitive Neuroscience Proseminar – UW-Madison, Madison WI.
2023
Social roles in the mind: a word-picture matching studyColón Y. I., MRC Cognition and Brain Sciences Unit – University of Cambridge, Cambridge UK.
2023
Social roles in the mind: a word-picture matching studyColón Y. I., Niedenthal Emotions Lab – UW-Madison, Madison WI.
2022
Forgetting a face: attribute amnesia for familiar identitiesColón Y. I., Niedenthal Emotions Lab – UW-Madison, Madison WI.
2021
Measuring familiarity for face images (and why we don't align)Colón Y. I., O'Toole Perception Lab – UT Dallas, Dallas TX.
2020
Who is more familiar?Colón Y. I.; Ward, E. J., O'Toole Perception Lab – UT Dallas, Dallas TX.
2019
Guest lecture in Introduction to Cognitive Science: Deep Convolutional Neural NetworksUniversity of Texas at Dallas, Dallas TX.

Conference Presentations

2026
Neural representations of faces are widely distributed and highly individualizedColón Y. I.; Rogers T. T., Cognitive Neuroscience Society, Vancouver CA. [Poster]Graduate Student Award
2025
Iterated LASSO reveals highly distributed and variable representations of faces, places, and objectsLi Z.; Colón Y. I.; Mukherjee K.; Rogers T. T., Cognitive Science Society, San Francisco CA. [Proceedings]
2025
Semantic distance organizes social knowledgeColón Y. I., UW-Madison Psychology Research Fair, Madison WI. [Poster]
2024
A bottom-up approach to finding individual differences in mental representationColón Y. I., Cognitive Neuroscience Society, Toronto ON. [Poster]
2024
Patterns of social-knowledge impairment in semantic dementiaPeplinski C. (mentored), Cognitive Neuroscience Society, Toronto ON. [Mentored student presenter]
2024
Semantic distance organizes social knowledgeColón Y. I.; Rouse, M.; Lambon Ralph, M.; Rogers, T. T., Cognitive Science Society, Rotterdam NL. [Proceedings]
2023
Vibe check: identifying misinformation through sentiment analysesColón Y. I.; Cunningham E.; Chuang S., AI + Society Research Symposium, Madison WI. [Talk]
2023
Yours and Ours: Individual and Group Differences in Semantic Organization from Triplet Judgements of FacesColón Y. I.; Rogers T. T., Cognitive Science Society, Sydney AU. [Poster]
2023
Faces in the Wild: Clustering Facial Expressions Using Face Movement TrajectoriesColón Y. I.; Wohltjen, S., Niedenthal, P., Society for Personality and Social Psychology, Atlanta GA. [Poster]
2023
Yours and Ours: Individual and group differences in conceptual organizationColón Y. I.; Rogers T. T., Wisconsin Institute for Discovery Symposium, Madison WI. [Poster]
2022
Forgetting a face: attribute amnesia for familiar identitiesColón Y. I., Different Minds Collaborative, Victoria BC. [Poster]
2022
Forgetting a face: attribute amnesia for familiar identitiesColón Y. I.; Ward, E. J., Vision Sciences Society, St. Pete Beach FL. [Poster]
2021
To each their own: measuring familiarity for face imagesColón Y. I., Vision Sciences Society, St. Petersburg FL. [Poster]
2020
Facial expression information in humans and DCNNsColón Y. I., Vision Sciences Society. [Poster]
2020
Integrating single-unit and pattern codes in DCNNs trained for face identificationParde C. J.; Colón Y. I. et al., Vision Sciences Society. [Poster]

Teaching

University of Wisconsin–Madison

2022–2023
Psych 610 & Psych 710: Graduate Statistics for Psychology

Teaching Assistant and Lab Instructor

Advising

Bachelor's Honors Students

completed
Michelle Ren, Yulin Tong, Claire Peplinski, Erin McQuillan, Lina Park, Jack Esser

Workshops & Outreach

2024
Introduction to JsPsych and DataPipe: Hosting your experiments for free

Developer and Instructor, University of Wisconsin-Madison

2024
Triadic Comparison Methods Workshop

Developer and Instructor, University of Wisconsin-Madison

2022
Introduction to JsPsych for Psychology Research Experience Program

Developer and Instructor, University of Wisconsin-Madison

2021–2024
Queery: LGBTQ+ News and Information Talk Show

Producer and host, WORT 89.9 FM

Professional Service

Ad Hoc Reviewing
Scientific Reports, Cognitive Computation, Cognitive Sciences Society Conference, Computational Brain and Behavior, Journal of Vision, i-Perception, Nature Machine Intelligence
Departmental Service

Graduate Student Representative (2023–2024)

Graduate Handbook Consultant (2023)

Visiting Speaker Student Host (2023)

Prospective Student Visiting Day Host (2022–2024)

DEI Visiting Day Panelist (2022–2024)

Incoming Student Buddy (2022)

Communications Committee Member (2021–2022)

Psychology Colloquium Committee Member (2020–2023)

Diversity Equity and Inclusion Committee Member (2020–2022)

Delta Research Mentorship Training Curriculum Contributor

Other

Cognitive Neuroscience Society Conference Volunteer (2026)

COMAP Competition Judge (2023–2026)