Nancy Nersessian

Regents' Professor of Cognitive Science
College of Computing and School of Public Policy
Phone: 404-894-1234
Email: nancyn@cc.gatech.edu
Web sites: www.cc.gatech.edu/~nersessian

Ph.D., Case Western Reserve University
Field: Philosophy

Research:

Currently, with funding from NSF, I am investigating reasoning and representational procedures in interdisciplinary research laboratories in the engineering sciences, particularly in biomedical engineering and robotics. My focus is on physical and computational simulation models. Using a combination of ethnography, cognitive-historical analysis and theoretical frameworks from cognitive science, this research examines: 1) How researchers construct and experiment with physical and computational models to reverse engineer biological phenomena, 2) How learning proceeds in such labs, and 3) How work practices and culture support research and innovation.

Publications:

Nersessian, N.J. Creating Scientific Concepts (MIT Press, 2008).

Nersessian, N.J. & Chandrasekharan, S. (in press). Hybrid Analogies in Conceptual Innovation in Science, To appear in Cognitive Systems Research Journal, Special Issue: Integrative Analogy.

Nersessian, N.J. & Patton, C. (in press). Model-based reasoning in interdisciplinary engineering: Cases from biomedical engineering research laboratories, To appear in The Handbook of the Philosophy of Technology & Engineering Sciences, A. W. M. Meijers, ed., Springer.

Harmon, E. & Nersessian, N.J. (2008). Cognitive partnerships on the bench top: Designing to support scientific researchers. In Proceedings of DIS'08, ACM.

Nersessian, N. J. (2008). "Mental Modeling in Conceptual Change" in The Handbook of Conceptual Change, S. Vosniadou, ed. (London: Routledge, pp.391-41.

N.J. Nersessian. “Interpreting scientific and engineering practices: Integrating the cognitive, social, and  cultural dimensions.” In Scientific and Technological Thinking. Edited by M. Gorman, R. Tweney, & D. Gooding. Hillsdale, N.J.: Lawrence Erlbaum, 2005.

Nersessian, N. J. (2006). The Cognitive-Cultural Systems of the Research Laboratory. Organization Studies, 27(1), pp. 125-145.

K. Malone, N.J. Nersessian, and W. Newstetter. “Gender writ small: Gender enactments in organization and knowledge transmission in a biomedical engineering laboratory.” Journal of Women and Minorities in Science and Engineering, in press.

N.J. Nersessian, E. Kurz-Milcke, and J. Davies. “Ubiquitous computing in science and engineering research laboratories: A case study from biomedical engineering.” In In-Use Knowledge. Edited by G. Kouzelis, M. Pournari, M. Stšppler, and V. Tselfes.G. Kuzoulis. Berlin: Peter Lang Publishers, 2005.

E. Kurz-Milcke, N.J. Nersessian, and W. Newstetter. “What has history to do with cognition? Interactive methods for studying research laboratories.” Cognition and Culture, special issue: Cognitive Anthropology of Science 4 (2004): 663-700.

W. Newstetter, E. Kurz-Milcke, and N.J. Nersessian. “Agentive learning in engineering research labs.” Proceedings 34th ASEE/IEEE Frontiers in Education Conference, 2004.

W. Newstetter, E. Kurz-Milcke, and N.J. Nersessian. “Cognitive partnerships on the bench tops.” Proceedings of the International Conference on Learning Sciences. Hillsdale, N.J.: Lawrence Erlbaum, 2004.

N.J. Nersessian, E. Kurz-Milcke, W. Newstetter, and J. Davies. “Research laboratories as evolving distributed cognitive systems.” Proceedings of the Cognitive Science Society 25. Hillsdale, N.J.: Lawrence Erlbaum (2003): 857-862.