Carleton University
Research Assistant
Joel is a 3d year undergraduate student in the department of Cognitive Science at Carleton University. He is a member of the Cognitive Modeling Lab as a research assistant.
Research Interests:
Metacognition
Cognitive development
Artificial intelligence
Big thank you to Ruth, for her invaluable support in my course this term. Her dedication and insight made a real difference for both the students and myself!
Our lab’s latest paper, Metacognition in HCI: Designing Systems for Planning and Flexibility (Conway-Smith & West, 2025), explores how human-computer interfaces can be improved by modeling metacognitive processes like task switching, monitoring, and strategic adjustment. This paper offers a framework for designing adaptive systems that better support expert decision-making in dynamic environments.
We are deeply saddened that Steve, a brilliant Ph.D. student in our lab, unexpectedly passed away on March 10th.
Steve was not only a brilliant scholar — with deep interests in ethics, cognitive modeling, and philosophy — he was also a kind person who cared deeply about ideas. He was well liked by everyone in the lab, and his presence brought warmth, curiosity, and thoughtfulness to every conversation.
He will be deeply missed.
Our thoughts are with his family, friends, and all who had the privilege of knowing him.
AAAI 2024
New publication:
Toward Autonomy: Metacognitive Learning for Enhanced AI Performance. PDF
See our new publication at this years fall symposium of the Association for the Advancement of Artificial intelligence
West, R., Eckler, S., Conway-Smith, B., Turcas, N., Kelly, M. (2023). Bridging generative networks with the common model of cognition. In AAAI Fall Symposium. Link
Brendan presents his paper at ICCM 2023 in Amsterdam: Metacognitive threshold (click on thumbnail to watch!).
Nico talks with Christian Lebiere after his presentation at the 30th ACT-R workshop in Amsterdam. Later that day day he presents his new paper published in the proceedings.