Stanford Psychology Podcast 180 - Andrew Lampinen: Translating Cognitive Psychology to AI
Jul 24, 2026
Andrew Lampinen, a researcher now at Anthropic who studied rapid learning at Stanford, talks about moving between academia and industry. He discusses how cognitive science frameworks inform AI, why industry teams and priorities differ from academic labs, and what skills and career paths look like for research scientists. The conversation covers transfer learning, in‑context learning, and how commercial AI reshaped research priorities.
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Why He Chose Stanford Psych
- Andrew Lampinen chose Stanford Psych after emailing Jay McClelland about math cognition and being invited to apply to the psych department.
- He had taught undergrads math and wanted to model why people learn concepts differently, which drew him to Jay's lab.
A Year In Industry Before Grad School
- Andrew delayed grad school a year to work in an applied physics lab doing sensor system modeling and testing.
- That applied job helped him decide research was right but not the only possible path; peers joined startups or industry after undergrad.
Internships That Shaped His Path
- Andrew did internships at Google Brain and DeepMind and found DeepMind's interdisciplinary culture particularly appealing.
- He valued working with people from linguistics, physics, and ML on fundamental cognitive problems like compositionality and embodiment.