A new series of open house events will launch this fall that allows faculty and students to explore the innovative research happening in laboratories and centers across Northeastern’s campus.

The “pop up” open lab and reception, sponsored by the Office of the Provost, will take place once or twice a semester and bring the university community together to learn about colleagues’ work and potentially spark new, interdisciplinary education and research initiatives and collaborations. The settings will be informal and interactive.

The first of these events will be held on Dec. 5 from 4 p.m. to 6 p.m. in the Interdisciplinary Affective Science Laboratory in Nightingale Hall. The lab is codirected by Lisa Feldman Barrett, Distinguished Professor of Psychology in the College of Science, and Karen Quigley, associate research professor in the Department of Psychology.

In the lab, researchers study human emotions — specifically, what they are and how they function in the economy of the mind. The research, which includes areas such as emotion perception and gossip, combines experiential, behavioral, psychophysiological and brain-imaging techniques.

“The mark of a great university is its ability to create opportunities to give science away — to students, colleagues, and members of the general public. In the Interdisciplinary Affective Science Lab, we are both excited and grateful for this chance to show what the science of emotion looks like from an insider’s view,” Barrett said.

The Dec. 5 event will include lab tours, research posters and participatory student-led experiments that highlight the lab’s work: one involving eye-tracking to explore the role of emotion in visual attention entitled “What are You Looking At?”; and another using continuous flash suppression to explore the relationship between vision, feelings and attraction in an online dating context.

Visit northeastern.edu/research/popup for more information.