Nadja Ging-Jehli

Nadja R. Ging-Jehli, PhD, is a computational neuroscientist and economist whose research investigates the mechanisms of adaptive intelligence and agency across biological and artificial systems. Her work examines how humans learn what they can control, regulate when to persist or change course, and adapt their learning and decision-making under uncertainty, threat, and changing demands. She further studies how disruptions in these mechanisms contribute to rigidity, avoidance, and diminished agency across psychiatric conditions.

Her interdisciplinary research integrates computational modeling (including reinforcement learning, sequential sampling, and hierarchical Bayesian approaches) with behavioral experiments, EEG, eye-tracking, clinical assessment, and longitudinal measurement. She also develops dynamic game-based environments and artificial agents to test mechanistic theories of learning, meta-control, and human-AI co-adaptation.

She is the founding director of the NAIADEL Lab and founder of the Gearshift Fellowship, an interdisciplinary community connecting researchers, clinicians, engineers, students, and partners around the integrative study of adaptation across cognitive, affective, and social contexts. Her broader goal is to build a mechanistic science of adaptive intelligence that connects brain and behavior with computational psychiatry and the design of artificial systems that support human learning and agency. Her work has received awards and recognition from organizations including the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology and the Society of Biological Psychiatry.

Research Interests:

Selected Publications:

Neurocomputational Mechanisms & Adaptability:

• Ging-Jehli, N.R., Rac-Lubashevsky, R., Bera, K., Roberts, A., Loder, A., Boudewyn, M.A., Carter, C.S., Erickson, M., Gold, J., Luck, S.J., Ragland, J.D., Yonelinas, A.P, MacDonald III, A.W., Barch, D.M., Frank, M.J. (2026). Model-based EEG phenotyping uncovers distinct neurocomputational mechanisms underlying learning impairments across psychopathologies. Biological Psychiatry: Global Open Science. DOI
• Ging-Jehli, N.R., Cavanagh, J.F., Ahn, M., Segar, D.J., Asaad, W.F., Frank, M.J. (2025). Basal ganglia components have distinct computational roles in decision-making dynamics under conflict and uncertainty. PLOS Biology. DOI

Computational Psychiatry & Agency:

• Ging-Jehli, N.R., Childers, R.K. (submitted). Sustaining Control and Agency Under Threat: Computational Pathways to Persistence and Escape. Preprint
• Ging-Jehli, N.R., Pine, D.S. (2026). From Symptom-Based Heterogeneity to Mechanism-Based Profiling in Youth ADHD: The Promise of Computational Psychiatry. Neuropsychopharmacology. DOI

Adaptive Intelligence & Human-AI Systems

• Ging-Jehli, N.R., Childers, R.K., Lu, J., Gemma, R., Zhu, R. (2025). Gearshift Fellowship: A Next-Generation Neurocomputational Game Platform to Model and Train Human-AI Adaptability. In: Thomas, A., Meyer, M., Zank, M. (eds) Serious Games. JCSG 2025. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 16243. Springer, Cham. DOI

Updated: 08/27/26