08/04/2026
Ever wonder how your brain decides what's "worth the risk"?
Every choice you make, big or small, involves your brain quietly weighing risk against reward.
Jae Hyung Woo, a PhD candidate in cognitive neuroscience, is studying exactly how that happens. His research combines two major theories of decision-making to understand why some people adapt well to uncertainty, while others get stuck in patterns that don't serve them.
An Alumni Research Award funded the experiment โ covering the participant recruitment his existing grants couldn't. That's alumni support turning into real neuroscience.
Down the line, this kind of work could help build gentler, more accessible treatments for conditions where decision-making goes off track.
Link in bio to read more about Jae's path from Seoul to Dartmouth