Kathy Garcia

I am a 1st year Ph.D. candidate in Computational Cognitive Science at Johns Hopkins University, advised by Professor Leyla Işik. My research focuses on understanding human perception of dynamic social interactions and developing human-aligned computational models for social cognition.

I extensively benchmark deep neural networks (DNNs) against human behavioral and neural data, using methods like fMRI and behavioral similarity judgments to evaluate how closely DNN representations align with human perception in naturalistic, multi-agent and multimodal social contexts.

Before pursuing my Ph.D., I worked as a data scientist in fintech for Fortune 500 companies, where I learned complementary technical and analytical skills that translated to real-world applications. I hold a B.S. in Science, Technology, and Society from Stanford University, and my doctoral research is supported by the National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship Program and the Kelly Miller Foundation Fellowship.

Outside of research, I’m passionate about science communication, technology, mentorship, and supporting first-generation and underrepresented minority students in STEM.