Casey Nicastri
cn407@scarletmail.rutgers.edu
Casey Nicastri (she/her) is a PhD Candidate in the Psychology department at Rutgers-Newark. Her research explores how both neural and behavioral reinforcement learning mechanisms support the development of meaningful social connections. More specifically, she's interested in how we value shared interpretations of reality, and how this value may bias the decisions we make in social contexts and influence the development of interpersonal closeness. Casey is originally from Westchester, NY and received her Bachelor of Science with honors in Neuroscience from Boston College. Previously, Casey has worked with Dr. Poornima Kumar, where she studied abnormal reinforcement learning in depressed populations (via fMRI) and Dr. Kirk Daffner analyzing changes in cognitive functions in aging populations (via EEG).