Catrina M. Hacker
Education
University of Pennsylvania, PhD in neuroscience
Present

University of Southern California, Neuroscience B.S. with honors, Summa cum laude

2015 - 2019
Publications
Primary Research Articles

Hacker, C.M., Biederman, I., Zhu, T., Nelken, M. & Meschke, E.X. (2022). The sizable difficulty in matching unfamiliar faces differing only moderately in orientation in depth is a function of image dissimilarity. Vision Research. doi: 10.1016/j.visres.2021.09.005. [link] [PDF]

Hacker, C.M., Meschke, E.X. & Biederman, I. (2019). A Face in a (Temporal) Crowd. Vision Research, doi: 10.1016/j.visres.2018.02.007. [link] [PDF]

Reviews

Biederman, I., Shilowich, B.E., Herald, S.B., Margalit, E., Maarek, R., Meschke, E.X. & Hacker, C.M. (2018). The Cognitive Neuroscience of Person Identification. Neuropsychologia, 116, 205-214. doi: 10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2018.01.036. [link] [PDF]

Preprints

Hacker, C.M. & Biederman, I. (2019). The proficiency for distinguishing faces is independent of the proficiency for remembering them. PsyArXiv, doi: 10.31234/osf.io/9bwct. [link] [PDF]

Hacker, C.M. & Biederman, I. (2019). The invariance of recognition to the stretching of faces is not explained by familiarity or warping to an average face. PsyArXiv, doi: 10.31234/osf.io/e5hgx. [link] [PDF]

Other

Hacker, C.M. & Rust, N.C. (2022). Ritalin as a causal perturbation. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, Research Spotlight. doi: 10.1016/j.tics.2022.04.002. [link]

Posters and Presentations
Talks

Hacker, C.M., Jannuzi, B.G.L., Meyer, T., Hay, M.L. & Rust, N.C. (2024). Identifying the neural correlates of contextual influences on image memorability. Invited talk at the Workshop on Synergizing the Human Brain and Artificial Neural Networks, virtual.

Hacker, C.M., Jannuzi, B.G.L., Meyer, T., Hay, M.L. & Rust, N.C. (2023) Identifying the neural correlates of contextual influences on image memorability. Talk presented at the annual Neuroscience/Vision/Auditory Training Grant Retreat, Philadelphia, PA. May.

Hacker, C.M., Jannuzi, B.G.L., Meyer, T., Hay, M.L. & Rust, N.C. (2022) Worse remembering of a dog when viewed in a sequence of dogs is dominated by changes in memory mechanisms as opposed to sensory adaptation. Talk presented at the Annual Meeting of the Vision Sciences Society, St. Petersburg Beach, Fl. May.

Posters Presented

Hacker, C.M., Bohn, S.E., Jannuzi, B.G.L., Meyer, T., Hay, M.L. & Rust, N.C. (2024) A systematic comparison of the visual memory information in spikes, high gamma, and LFPs in inferotemporal cortex. Poster presented at the annual meeting of the Society for Neuroscience, Chicago, IL. October.

Hacker, C.M., Jannuzi, B.G.L., Meyer, T., Hay, M.L. & Rust, N.C. (2023) A role for cortical pattern separation in enhancing visual memory. Poster presented at 150th Scheie Eye Anniversary Meeting, Philadelphia, PA. May.

Hacker, C.M., Jannuzi, B.G.L., Meyer, T., Hay, M.L. & Rust, N.C. (2023) A role for cortical pattern separation in enhancing visual memory. Poster presented at COSYNE, Montreal, Québec, Canada. March.

Hacker, C.M., Jannuzi, B.G.L., Meyer, T., Hay, M.L. & Rust, N.C. (2022) Evidence that the extrinsic effects on memorability are computed in inferotemporal cortex and inherited by the hippocampus. Poster presented at the annual meeting of the Society for Neuroscience, San Diego, CA. November.

Hacker, C.M. & Biederman, I. (2019). The capacity for face perception is independent of the capacity for face memory. Poster presented at the Annual Meeting of the Vision Sciences Society, St. Petersburg Beach, Fl. May

Hacker, C.M., Meschke, E.X., Biederman, I. (2018). Recognition of Stretched Faces. Poster presented at the Annual Meeting of the Vision Sciences Society, St. Petersburg Beach, Fl. May.

Meschke, E.X.*, Hacker, C.M.*, Juarez, J.J., Maarek, R.S., & Biederman, I. (2017). Detecting Unspecified Familiar Faces. Poster presented at the Annual Meeting of the Vision Sciences Society, St. Petersburg Beach, Fl. May.

Posters Co-Authored

Bohn, S., Hacker, C.M., Jannuzi, B.G.L., Meyer, T., Hay, M.L. & Rust, N.C. (2022) Disambiguating familiarity from visual modulation: A role for the hippocampus in recognition memory. Poster presented at the annual meeting of the Society for Neuroscience, San Diego, CA. November.

Jannuzi, B.G.L., Hacker, C.M., Meyer, T., Hay, M.L. & Rust, N.C. (2022) Neural analogs of memory sharpening behavior emerge earlier in inferotemporal cortex than the hippocampus. Poster presented at the Annual Meeting of the Vision Sciences Society, St. Petersburg Beach, Fl. May.

Jannuzi, B.G.L., Meyer, T., Hay, M.L., Hacker, C.M. & Rust, N.C. (2021) The remarkable visual specificity of visual recognition memory behavior is shaped by representational sharpening, reflected in inferotemporal cortex. Poster presented at the meeting of the Society for Neuroscience. November.

Biederman, I., Zhu, T., Nelken, M., Meschke, E.X. & Hacker, C.M. (2019). The cost of matching depth-rotated faces: A simple, additive function of image similarity. Poster presented at the Annual Meeting of the Vision Sciences Society, St. Petersburg Beach, Fl. May.

Meschke, E.X., Hacker, C.M., Biederman, I. (2018). How Many Faces Can We Recognize? Poster presented at the Annual Meeting of the Vision Sciences Society, St. Petersburg Beach, Fl. May.

Zhu, T., Nelken, M., Hacker, C.M., Meschke, E.X., Biederman, I. (2018). Matching Depth-Rotated Faces at Varying Degrees of Physical Similarity. Poster presented at the Annual Meeting of the Vision Sciences Society, St. Petersburg Beach, Fl. May.

Biederman, I., Margalit, E., Maarek, R.S., Meschke, E.X., Shilowich, B.S., Hacker, C. M., Juarez, J.J., Seamans, T. J., & Herald, S.B. (2017). What is the Nature of the Perceptual Deficit in Congenital Prosopagnosia? Poster presented at the Annual Meeting of the Vision Sciences Society, St. Petersburg Beach, Fl. May.

Honors and Awards

Jameson-Hurvich Travel Award, Recipient

2022

NSF Graduate Research Fellowship, Honorable Mention

2020

USC Discovery Scholar, Distinction recipient, Prize finalist

Graduation distinction awarded to students who excel in the classroom while demonstrating the ability to create exceptional new scholarship.

2019

USC Neuroscience Outstanding Student of the Year Award, Recipient

Award given to USC’s best neuroscience student with senior standing.

2019

Brian Phillip Rakusin Neuroscience Scholarship Award, Recipient

$10,000 Scholarship awarded each year to the most outstanding sophomore or junior demonstrating exceptional achievements and aspirations in the field of Neuroscience.

2018

USC Provost's Undergraduate Research Fellowship, Six-time Recipient

Fellowship awarded to select undergraduates demonstrating excellent academic standing and engaged in research, total value of $7,000 over five semesters.

2017 - 2019

USC Dean's Scholar

Quarter tuition scholarship to the University of Southern California

2015 - 2019
Teaching and Service

Penn Neuro Know, Writer (2021-Present), Co-Editor (2022-Present)

Student-curated blog with posts about neuroscientific research written for the public.

2021 - Present

GLIA, Member (2019-Present), Co-Director (2022-2023)

Coalition of neuroscience graduate students organizing outreach and professional development events. As co-director I oversaw the eight-member executive board and allocation of $36,500 budget.

2019 - Present

"Computational Neuroscience: Vision" CSHL Summer Course, Teaching Assistant

2024

Computational and Theoretical Neuroscience, Recitation Leader

Taught a weekly computational tutorial reviewing mathematical concepts from the course for students with a neuroscience background.

2023

CNI +/-, Organizer

Seminar for students and post docs of the Computational Neuroscience Initiative to informally present and get feedback about ongoing research.

2021 - 2023

CORE II: The Electrical Language of Cells, Recitation Leader

Taught weekly recitations for first year graduate students to supplement lectures.

2021 - 2022

Cognitive Neuroscience, Teaching assistant

Presented a lecture about object recognition, held office hours, and assisted in grading for an introductory undergraduate course.

2021
Research Experience

Visual Memory Lab, Graduate Student, Advisor: Nicole C. Rust

Perform electrophysiological recordings and execute computational analyses to study neural mechanisms of visual recognition memory.

2019 - Present

Bottjer Songbird Lab, Research Assistant, Advisor: Sarah W. Bottjer

Assist in electrophysiological and optogenetic experiments in cortico-basal ganglia circuits of male zebra finches to explicate the neural circuitry involved in song learning and production.

2018 - 2019

USC Image Understanding Lab, Research Assistant, Advisor: Irving Biederman

Design, execute and analyze psychophysical studies investigating nature and limits of human face recognition to develop neurocomputational accounts of face processing.

2016 - 2019
Skills

Programming Languages: Matlab (advanced), Python (intermediate), HTML/CSS (intermediate), C++ (basic), R (basic)

Proficient in basic supervised and unsupervised machine learning methods implemented in Matlab or Python.
Proficient in manipulating and implementing deep neural networks using PyTorch.

Languages: French (advanced), Spanish (intermediate)