Each spring, the cognitive science faculty members choose a graduating cognitive science major with the strongest combination of academic excellence and outstanding accomplishments in research. This year, senior Ioana Grosu will have the honor of receiving the 2017 Excellence in Cognitive Science Award. Ioana is an exceptional student and tremendous undergraduate research assistant.

Ioana is a Cognitive Science and Philosophy double major. Her cognitive science adviser, Prof. Kyle Rawlins, praised Ioana for for her academic and research achievements, especially for her work in his Semantics Lab on aboutness and on differential case marking. She also worked in the Phonology Lab directed by Prof. Colin Wilson where she worked on the morphology of number in Romanian language, for which she received funding from a Provost’s Undergraduate Award (PURA, 2014-15). Outside of the Department of Cognitive Science, Ioana has served as a research assistant in Prof. Marina Bedny’s lab in the Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences. She’s also writing a philosophy honors thesis on counterfactuals for her Philosophy major.

Ioana was admitted to several top linguistics PhD programs. She accepted an offer from NYU’s PhD linguistics program.

Congratulations, Ioana!