Jon Freeman, an assistant professor in NYU’s Department of Psychology, has been named to Forbes magazine’s “30 under 30” in the field of science.
Forbes touts Freeman, who also holds a bachelor’s degree from NYU (’07), and other “game changers” who are “transforming the world” in its Jan. 19 issue.
The magazine cited Freeman, 28, for his pioneering research on the brain mechanisms underlying snap judgments as well as his creation of mouse-tracking software.
This summer, he and his colleagues published a study in the Journal of Neuroscience that revealed our brains’ ability to judge the trustworthiness of a face even when we cannot consciously see it. Another study showed that stereotypes can change how we see a face’s race. Much of this work relied on software he created that can track the brain's decision-making process by analyzing the millimeters of movement of a test subject’s mouse cursor, which can be linked to brain-imaging data.
Under a $525,536 National Science Foundation grant, Freeman is now employing this technology to chart out how split-second perceptions of other people predict real-world behavior, such as political outcomes.
Freeman was previously named to Pacific Standard magazine's "Top 30 Thinkers Under 30" (2014) and has received awards from the National Institutes of Health and American Psychological Association.