Zenna Tavares is an Associate Research Scientist in both the Data Science Institute and the Zuckerman Mind Brain Behavior Institute. He is the first joint hire between two university-level institutes at Columbia University. Zenna’s research aims to understand how humans reason, that is, how they come to derive knowledge from observing and interacting with the world. He also constructs computational and statistical tools that help advance his work on causal reasoning, probabilistic programming and other areas. Prior to Columbia University he was at MIT, where he received a PhD in Cognitive Science and Statistics and was a Postdoctoral Research researcher in the Computer Science Artificial Intelligence Lab (CSAIL). Zenna’s work has received significant recognition including an International Fulbright Science and Technology Award for Outstanding Foreign Students.

Understanding and Mechanizing Human Reasoning