


Meet the Team!
The CCDL is a group of undergraduate students, graduate students, and a lab manager led by Dr. Deon Benton.
Deon T. Benton, Ph.D



Principal Investigator
Assistant Professor
Psychology and Human Development
CV (last updated 07/08/2026)
Email: deon.benton@vanderbilt.edu
Graduate Students and Staff
Veronica Hearne



Lab Manager
B.A., 2025, Wesleyan University (Psychology & English)
Veronica graduated from Wesleyan University in May 2025 where she double majored in Psychology and English. During her time at Wesleyan, she was a research assistant in a Cognitive Development Lab where she first discovered her interest in developmental psychology research. She is excited to gain more research experience in her role as lab manager before applying to PhD programs to continue studying children’s reasoning and decision making. Ultimately, Veronica aims to become a psychology professor to share her love for research with undergraduates. Outside of work she enjoys fiber arts, baking, reading and board games.
Becky Beaton



PhD Student
B.S., 2022, University of California, Davis (Cognitive Science & Statistics)
Rebecca (Becky) graduated from UC Davis in Spring of 2022. As an undergraduate, she was a research assistant for the UC Davis Infant Cognition Lab, which sparked her passion for research in developmental psychology. Becky is interested in understanding how children learn to reason about cause and effect, the role explanation plays in children’s cognitive reasoning, and how this varies between children with and without autism. She uses both behavioral experiments and computational modeling in her research projects!
Tai Liu



PhD Student
B.S., 2025, University of California, San Diego
Tairan (Tai) graduated from UC San Diego in Spring of 2025 with a degree in Cognitive Science Machine Learning. As an undergraduate, she worked in both the Cognitive Development Lab of Gedeon Deák and Entrepreneurial Lab of IGE, where she gained experience engineering infant social interactions tools and developing ER tools with EEG integration for patients with stroke. Her research interests center on statistical learning and how that relates to numerical abilities.
Email: tairan.liu@vanderbilt.edu
Undergraduate Students









Alyssa Valentine
Emma Heitzman
Sena Xiong
Class of 2029
Class of 2029
Class of 2028
Elementary Education & Cognitive Studies Major
Child Development & Cognitive Studies Major
Human and Organizational Development Major









Lilly Cope
Hanamariam Yehuala
David Oh
Class of 2028
Class of 2029
Class of 2029
Child Development & Medicine, Heath and Society Major
Cognitive Studies & Medicine, Health and Society Major
Cognitive Studies & Psychology Major









Anya Orlova
Brady Mitchell
Brianna Mariscal
Class of 2029
Class of 2029
Class of 2029
Chemical Engineering Major
Neuroscience & Psychology Major
Child Development and Neuroscience Major


