native of Indonesia, Stella received her B.A. from Harvard University in 2004, and Ph.D. from Northwestern University in 2010. Prior to moving to Tsinghua, she was a tenured associate professor at Swarthmore College.

Stella researches the Relational Mind: how cognitive systems learn relations and structures of the world. Using behavioral data from young human children and great apes, Stella’s work has discovered tantalizing similarities and differences between humans’ and other animals’ relational cognition. Eventually, her aim is to chart the precise learning algorithms that any mind uses to abstract relations. Having lived in six countries on all hemispheres, Stella holds a special interests in how relational reasoning is influenced by and influences language, culture, and social interactions.

In her spare time, Stella loves to scale mountains and languages—she currently speaks 5 languages

Lab Manager