Panel - Understanding Human Behaviour: Neurons to Algorithms

Samet Bağçe received both his M.Sc. and Ph.D. degrees in Logic and Scientific Method from the Philosophy Department, London School of Economics, University of London. Currently, he is an associate professor of philosophy of science at Middle East Technical University. He was at the Department of Philosophy, the University of Texas at Austin several times as a visiting researcher and professor. His areas of specialization include history and philosophy of science, especially, geometry. He has published articles in the philosophy and methodology of science and geometry in various journal and collections.

Zahide Pamir is an Assistant Professor in the Departments of Psychology and Neuroscience at Bilkent University. She completed her doctoral studies in Neuroscience at Bilkent University. Dr. Pamir obtained her bachelor's degree from the Psychology Department of Bilkent University and her master's degree in Cognitive Science from Middle East Technical University. Her graduate research focused on the impact of context on the processing of low-level visual features such as contrast and motion. From 2017 to 2022, Dr. Pamir worked as a postdoctoral researcher at the Schepens Eye Research Institute of Mass Eye and Ear, affiliated with Harvard Medical School, where she conducted research on visual neuroplasticity and visual rehabilitation. Dr. Pamir received TÜBİTAK’s international fellowship award to establish her own laboratory in Turkey, and she recently founded the Functional Plasticity Laboratory at the Aysel Sabuncu Brain Research Center of Bilkent University. Her research investigates the behavioral and functional correlates of neuroplasticity in both neurotypical and clinical populations.

Buse Merve Ürgen is an Assistant Professor at the Department of Psychology, TED University. She received her PhD in Neuroscience from Bilkent University, Turkey in 2021. She did her BA in Psychology at Bilkent University (2011), and MS in Cognitive Neuroscience at University College London, UK (2012). Following her PhD, she worked as a postdoctoral researcher at Aysel Sabuncu Brain Research Center and National Magnetic Resonance Research Center (UMRAM). Her primary research interest is to understand how top-down mechanisms such as expectation and attention affect visual perception and decision-making processes using psychophysics, computational modeling and functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI).

Barbaros Yet is an associate professor at the Department of Cognitive Science, Middle East Technical University. He holds a PhD in computer science from Queen Mary University of London. His research focuses on the use of causal and Bayesian models for decision making, causal abstraction and preference learning. He has applied his research to medical, legal and agricultural decision-making problems.