Ruskin Hunt
Ruskin Hunt is the senior staff scientist in the Cognitive Development and Neuroimaging Lab. He received his doctorate in 2001 from the Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences at the University of Rochester, where he focused on statistical learning phenomena in adult humans. He then moved to Minneapolis to undertake post-doctoral training at the University of Minnesota’s Institute of Child Development, expanding his training into the areas of human development and the brain bases of cognition. Following the completion of his post-doc, he began working as a staff scientist under Dr. Thomas. He’s been hanging around, causing trouble, ever since. His current role is to support the lab’s various research projects by applying his expertise in experimental design, statistical analysis, data management, programming, and event-related potential (ERP) and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) data collection and analysis. He also provides technical guidance and emotional/moral support to graduate students as they pursue their own individual research projects. Known for his generally sunny, if curmudgeonly, disposition, he has a fondness for clean data, stray cats, well-formulated hypotheses, and freediving. He is also the father of two early adolescents, whom he finds utterly baffling despite having spent the past 17 years in the field of child development.