Edward A Vessel

Edward Vessel is the Eugene Surowitz Assistant Professor of computational cognitive neuroscience in the Department of Psychology at the City College of New York (CCNY). He also holds appointments in the Psychology and Cognitive Neuroscience programs at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York. His research group, the Visual Neuroaesthetics Lab, uses behavior, brain imaging and computation to study the psychological and neural basis of aesthetic experiences, creative insight and curiosity.

He received his bachelor’s from The Johns Hopkins University and a Ph.D. in neuroscience from the University of Southern California. Before coming to CCNY, Dr. Vessel was a Senior Research Scientist at the Max Planck Institute for Empirical Aesthetics in Frankfurt, Germany, and was formerly co-director of the New York University Artlab. He is Secretary General of the International Association of Empirical Aesthetics (IAEA), an editorial board reviewer for the journal Psychology of Aesthetics, Creativity and the Arts, and the winner of the 2026 IAEA Margaret Floy Washburn Award for outstanding contributions to empirical aesthetics by a mid-career researcher.