Associate Professor, Associate Head, Behavioral and Brain Sciences Program Drew H. Abney is an Assistant Professor whose research explores how behaviors and social interactions shape developmental trajectories throughout infancy and early childhood. His work investigates the dynamic processes underlying early development, using a variety of approaches to capture the richness of real-world behavior. Studies in his lab range from controlled laboratory experiments to naturalistic, free-flowing toy play sessions and daylong recordings of multimodal behavioral data, including vocalizations and body movements. Dr. Abney applies and advances techniques from applied computational social science and dynamical systems theory to better understand how infants and toddlers develop through social interaction. His work combines methodological rigor with innovative data collection and analysis, aiming to uncover the complex, interdependent factors that drive early developmental change. He earned his Ph.D. in Cognitive and Information Sciences from the University of California, Merced, and completed a postdoctoral fellowship in Developmental Psychology at Indiana University. Education: Postdoctoral Scholar in Developmental Psychology at Indiana University (2016-2019) Ph.D. in Cognitive and Information Sciences at the University of California, Merced (2016) Research Research Interests: Behavioral and social dynamics in infancy and early childhood Developmental trajectories of learning and interaction Applied computational social science Dynamical systems theory Multimodal behavioral data analysis
