Headshot of Prof. Alex White

Alex White

Assistant Professor of Neuroscience

Department

Neuroscience & Behavior

Office

415H Milbank Hall

Contact

Alex White joined the Barnard faculty in 2021. He leads the Barnard Vision Lab  where a team of scientists (mostly Barnard students) study visual perception. Many of their experiments are investigating how the human brain recognizes written words. They use behavioral assessments, eye-tracking, and functional MRI to record brain activity. 

The Vision Lab occasionally has openings for student research assistants. Computer programming skills are highly valued. See the lab webpage for more information. 

- BA, Yale University 

- MS, University of Sydney

- PhD, New York University

- NSBV BC1001 Introduction to Neuroscience 

- NSBV BC 2009 Cognitive Neuroscience: Mapping the Mind onto the Brain

- NSBV BC3381 Visual Neuroscience: From the Eyeball to the Mind’s Eye

- NSBV BC3099 Independent Study

- NSBV BC 3593+3594, Senior Thesis Research Seminar 

 

 

- Visual perception & Attention 

- Visual word recognition 

- Eye-tracking & fMRI 

- Anupindi, A., Eisler, L. R., Latif, M., Chauhan, V. S., & White, A. L. (2026). Serial processing of two words becomes parallel when they combine to form a known compound word. Cognition, 269, 106387. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cognition.2025.106387


- White, A. L., Palmer, J., Sanders, G., Hossain, J., & Zabinsky, Z. B. (2026). Negative effects of redundant targets. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, 52, 289–327https://doi.org/10.1037/xhp0001390


- Chauhan, V. S., McCook, K. C., & White, A. L. (2024). Reading reshapes stimulus selectivity in the visual word form area. eNeuro, 11, 1–20. https://doi.org/10.1523/ENEURO.0228-24.2024


- White, A. L., Kay, K. N., Tang, K. A., & Yeatman, J. D. (2023). Engaging in word recognition elicits highly specific modulations in visual cortex. Current Biology, 33, 1308–1320. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cub.2023.02.042


- Hossain, J., & White, A. L. (2023). The transposed word effect is consistent with serial word recognition and varies with reading speed. Cognition, 238, 105512. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cognition.2023.105512