April 14, 2025
Polyphony J. Bruba, Cognitive and Information Sciences
Rising Star: How Life's Journey Shaped a Cognitive Scientist's Path to Discovery
In the diverse landscape of cognitive science research, Polyphony J. Bruna stands out as an emerging scholar whose unique background and interdisciplinary approach are helping reshape our understanding of human communication and meaning making.
Born in California, raised in Iowa, and educated in New York, Bruna's journey across America's varied cultural landscapes helped forge a perspective that would later prove invaluable in their academic career. This geographic diversity fostered a natural ability to navigate different socio-cultural contexts, setting them apart from peers with more homogeneous backgrounds. "This heterogeneous upbringing instilled a critical attitude that enabled me to question the perspectives handed down to us by our histories, societies and traditions," Bruna reflected.
This foundation led them to UC Merced's Cognitive and Information Sciences Ph.D. program, where they found echoes of the intellectual culture that first sparked their research interests at Vassar College. Under the mentorship of Professor Chris Kello, Bruna has flourished in an environment that encourages radical interdisciplinarity while maintaining scientific rigor.
Bruna's research focuses on a fundamental aspect of human experience: how we create and share meaning through language. Their work examines how meaning isn't static but actively negotiated between people during communication. Using mathematical and computational modeling, they study how effective communication systems are co-constructed in real-time interaction to facilitate joint action and problem solving.
One of their key findings suggests that local alignment in human interaction is driven by pressure to minimize communicative effort between participants. This discovery has significant implications for developing human-AI systems, potentially offering insights into both improving human-AI alignment and addressing the AI energy crisis.
Recently, Bruna's ability to bridge disciplinary divides was highlighted during a presentation at UCLA's Institute for Pure and Applied Mathematics. After their talk, a colleague from a distant academic field perfectly summarized their complex arguments, demonstrating Bruna's exceptional skill in making sophisticated concepts accessible across disciplinary boundaries.
"As a cognitive scientist, I often find myself in highly multidisciplinary research spaces," Bruna noteed. "Developing the skill to communicate across disciplinary boundaries is critical." This commitment to clear communication across fields reflects their broader mission to understand how humans create shared meaning — a quest that began with their journey across America's diverse landscapes and continues in their groundbreaking research today.
For Bruna, each step in their academic journey — from their varied upbringing to their current research — has contributed to a deeper understanding of how humans communicate and create meaning together. Their work not only advances our scientific understanding but also holds promise for improving human-AI interaction in an increasingly technology-driven world.
