About Wilma Bainbridge
Wilma Bainbridge is an Assistant Professor at the
University of Chicago Department of Psychology. She leads the
Brain Bridge Lab, which focuses on examining the bridge between perception and memory, through the lens of psychophysical experiments, neuroimaging, and drawing studies. One key branch of her research focuses on the concept of
memorability, in which items have an intrisic ability to affect our memory for them.
Before coming to the University of Chicago, Dr. Bainbridge was a postdoc at the
National Institute of Mental Health, working with
Chris Baker at the
Laboratory of Brain and Cognition. She graduated with her PhD from the
Massachusetts Institute of Technology, studying
Brain and Cognitive Sciences with
Aude Oliva, in MIT's
Computer Science Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL). She began her neuroscience research with Marvin Chun's
Visual Neuroscience Laboratory, as a cognitive science student at Yale University. She also pursued a related interest in robotics (specifically human-robot interaction) and spent 4 years at Brian Scassellati's
Social Robotics Laboratory at Yale, followed by a year-long internship at Masayuki Inaba's
JSK Humanoid Robotics Laboratory at the University of Tokyo.
Wilma also has a great love of travel. She has lived in Japan for two years, and has made her way around to several countries since then. She also loves learning languages, and enjoys taking on fun translation projects for popular Japanese TV (
Reset,
Terrace House). Her recent hobbies also include beta testing for board game companies.
Note: The photograph used in this header was taken by Wilma spring 2009 during cherry blossom season in Kenrokuen, Kanazawa; heralded as one of the three most beautiful gardens in Japan.
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Recent Updates
December 16, 2020 Various new papers and have uploaded a database of drawings by aphantasics.
January 30, 2020 Updated the site to reflect my new position as an Assistant Professor at the University of Chicago.
July 3, 2019 Updated publications. Also starting to recruit for my new lab to start at University of Chicago in January!!
November 1, 2018 Added press section and memory drawing dataset, updated publications
May 14, 2018 Added classes section with a tutorial on Big Data.
February 2, 2018 Updated publications and CV.
May 16, 2017 Added example psychophysical scripts for free use
January 31, 2017 Updated publication and added new tools: 40+ ROI maps and a Memorability Experiment Maker!
September 9, 2016 Updated my site to reflect my institute change!
May 11, 2016 I finished my Ph.D! Updated CV and publications.
August 6, 2015 Uploaded the Interaction Envelope Dataset and the MATLAB Image Statistics Toolbox!
July 23, 2015 Added annotations and participant information to the 10k US Adult Faces database! Also added previews of upcoming databases and updated publications.
May 29, 2015 Updated publications and CV.
October 6, 2014 Updated publications, CV, and bio. Got some poster awards!
April 18, 2014 Updated publications and added a program for easily making image sets from the Face Database
January 14, 2014 Updated publications and the 10k US Adults Face database! Get it while it's fresh!
September 23, 2013 Updated publications
June 11, 2013 Uploaded public datasets and edited publications
April 26, 2013 Updated publications and CV - got a teaching award!
August 28, 2012 Updated publications and CV.
March 12, 2012 Updated bio, school, and papers.
March 31, 2011 Updated bio and publications list (decided on a grad school and got three more papers in!)
May 24, 2010 All graduated! Updated profile and CV information
November 9, 2009 Uploaded the Japanese version of this site, and made minor edits.
November 4, 2009 Little tweaks made to the site. The Japanese version will be uploaded in the next couple of days!
November 2, 2009 This site was first created!