Hello, I’m Jake
I'm a first year doctoral student in cognitive systems neuroscience at the University of Oregon, advised by Dr. Margaret Sereno. I study visual perception, neuroaesthetics, and altered states of consciousness. Previously, I worked as a clinical research coordinator in the CHAOS Lab housed within the Department of Psychiatry at the University of Colorado Anschutz. There, I managed several clinical trials on substance use and cognitive impairment, with a focus on cannabis, and helped expand research into the emerging field of psychedelics.
Research Interests
My work seeks to integrate neuroscience, psychology, complexity, and aesthetics. I am interested in how the brain interprets specific perceptual information as meaningful and why certain encounters with art, nature, or altered states can feel transformative. A major focus of my research concentrates on the study of aesthetic experience. I approach this phenomenon by looking at the mind and brain through the lens of hierarchical predictive coding theory, a framework that connects several interrelated disciplines.
A central thread of my work concerns fractal complexity as a bridge between natural patterns, visual art, and psychedelic visual phenomenology. Fractals provide a scalable and quantifiable way to study how the brain balances stability and uncertainty and allow us to probe how perceptual fluency and emotional context interact to shape aesthetic experience. Correspondingly, I am interested in the effects of psychedelics on cognition and consciousness. In the future, I plan to leverage altered states of consciousness to describe mechanisms for constructing aesthetic experience and its numerous scientific and therapeutic implications.