Edward Vessel is a computational cognitive neuroscientist with a focus on visual aesthetic valuation, liking, creativity and curiosity.

I’m an Assistant Professor in the Department of Psychology at the City College of New York (CCNY), a part of the CUNY system. I do research on the psychological and neural basis of aesthetic experiences, such as when a person finds a painting to be moving or a natural landscape to be beautiful. I’m also interested in curiosity, inspiration and creativity.

This semester I’m supervising students, getting new studies started in the Visual Neuroaesthetics (VisNA) Lab at City College, writing grant proposals, and teaching 2 courses: an introductory behavioral neuroscience course called “Minds, Brains and Experience” and a Masters-level course, “Biological Basis of Behavior”. Next semester (Spring 2025) I’ll be teaching a Masters course on the “Psychology of Aesthetics, Creativity and the Arts.”

Previously, I led a research group at the Max Planck Institute for Empirical Aesthetics (MPIEA) in Frankfurt am Main, Germany for 7 years, and before that, I was a research scientist at the NYU Center for Brain Imaging.

Interested in what the lab is up to? Feel free to reach out!