Lauren Aulet

Ph.D. student, Psychology: Cognition and Development, Emory University

Emory Spatial Cognition Laboratory

Advisor: Dr. Stella Lourenco

E-mail: lauren.s.aulet@emory.edu

I am a fourth year graduate student at Emory University in Stella Lourenco's Spatial Cognition Lab. At Emory, I also collaborate with the labs of Daniel Dilks and Gregory Berns. As an undergraduate, I studied psychology, philosophy, and cognitive science at SUNY Geneseo where I conducted research with Jeffrey Mounts and Ganie Dehart. My current research examines the link(s) between number and space, incorporating multiple techniques (behavioral and functional imaging), developmental populations (infancy, childhood, and adulthood) and now species (human and canine).

laurenaulet.com

Jacquelyn Ellison

Ph.D. student, Psychology: Cognition and Development, Emory University

Concept Mining Lab

Advisor: Dr. Phil Wolff

E-mail: jacquelyn.ellison@emory.edu

I am a second year graduate student in Dr. Phil Wolff's lab, working in collaboration with Dr. Patricia Bauer. My research asks how the particulars of language use influence the acquisition of knowledge and skills; as language is both perceived and produced, I am also interested in how it influences its own acquisition. Using big-data computational methods, behavioral studies and ERP, I seek to understand how information is structured in the linguistic environment and how this structure influences learning.

Kristina Dahlgren

Ph.D. student, Psychology: Cognition and Development, Emory University

Hamann Cognitive Neuroscience Lab

Advisor: Dr. Stephan Hamann

E-mail: kristina.dahlgren@emory.edu

My research uses functional magnetic resonance imaging to investigate the neural correlates of emotional modulation of memory. In particular I am interested in understanding how emotion and stress can result in both impairments and enhancements of memory. I am also interested in how emotion and stress affect different stages of memory including: encoding, consolidation, retrieval, and re-consolidation.

Ana Maria Hoffmann

Ph.D. student, Psychology: Cognition and Development, Emory University

Bauer Memory at Emory Lab

Advisor: Dr. Patricia Bauer

E-mail: ana.maria.hoffmann@emory.edu

I am a second year graduate student in the Bauer Memory Development Lab. I completed my undergraduate at the University of San Francisco, where I majored in Psychology and minored in Neuroscience. My current research interests include the development of semantic memory across childhood and into adulthood and the processes involved in knowledge extension through information integration. Particularly, I am interested in the impact of second language learning on semantic memory.

Erin King

Ph.D. student, Neuroscience, Emory University

Neural Plasticity Research Laboratory

Advisor: Dr. Michael Borich

E-mail: erin.michele.king@emory.edu

I am currently a third year graduate student in the Neuroscience PhD program at Emory. My research uses transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) to investigate different neurological processes that occur in primary and secondary sensorimotor areas. More specifically, I am interested in understanding neuroplastic mechanisms that underlie motor skill learning with the hope of using this knowledge to enhance rehabilitative outcomes for individuals after stroke.

James McGregor

Ph.D. student, Neuroscience, Emory University

Sober Laboratory

Advisor: Dr. Sam Sober

E-mail: james.neal.mcgregor@emory.edu

I am a fourth year graduate student pursuing my Ph.D. at Emory University in Dr. Samuel Sober's Lab. As an undergraduate, I majored in neuroscience and biology and minored in chemistry at Brandeis University, where I was a member of Dr. Gina Turrigiano's lab studying synaptic plasticity in rodent visual cortex. As a Ph.D. candidate in Dr. Sober's lab, my research has focused on neural circuit mechanisms underlying reward and aversive reinforcement learning of complex, skilled behaviors. I use multiple neuroscience techniques and exploit a unique model system - the songbird - to study how the brain processes sensory feedback to guide motor learning.

April Ratliff

Ph.D. student, Neuroscience, Emory University

Laboratory

Advisor: Dr. Mar Sanchez

Email: april.darcy.ratliff@emory.edu

I am a third year PhD candidate in the Neuroscience Program at Emory University. My research aims to study adolescence as a developmental period of enhanced neuroplasticity using a rhesus macaque model. I am particularly interested in examining the mechanisms by which various stress and sex hormones may facilitate or inhibit the maturation of neural connections between cortical and limbic regions in the brain, in turn affecting different aspects of learning, memory, and emotional regulation. I hope to use this knowledge to advance our understanding and treatment of adolescents who may be at risk for developing long-term psychiatric diseases.

Steve Riley

Ph.D. student, Psychology: Clinical, Emory University

Laboratory for Mathematical and Computational Behavior Analysis

Advisor: Dr. Jack McDowell

Email: steven.riley@emory.edu

Steve Riley received a B.S. in Mathematics and Symbolic Systems from Stanford University in 2002. He has worked as a computer programmer, teacher, tutor, researcher and therapist. He received his M.S. in clinical psychology from Notre Dame de Namur University in 2015. He holds two patents for his work in on-the-fly language translation in video games. He is an avid crossword puzzle constructor and has had three of his puzzles published in the New York Times. Steve is interested in the overlap between psychology and consumer technology, and he hopes to develop this intersection through his research.

Ahmed Roman

Ph.D. student, Physics, Emory University

Theoretical Biopyhsics Lab

Advisor: Dr.Ilya Nemenman

Email: ahmed.hemdan.roman@emory.edu

I am a third-year physics graduate student in the Nemenman Lab. I am interested in understanding the dynamics of associative learning in animals. In particular, I model how the round worm C. elegans uses associative memory between food and temperature to navigate its environment across multiple time scales. We aim to prove that operant conditioning and classical conditioning are implemented in the brain of the nematodes through two distinct biological pathways. I am also interested in probability matching in bees: a foraging strategy where the bees visit flowers in proportion to the nectar produced the flowers. I employ experiments, computation and theory to understand these dynamics.

Julia Wilson

Ph.D. student, Psychology: Cognition and Development, Emory University

Bauer Memory at Emory Lab

Advisor: Dr. Patricia Bauer

Email: julia.taylor.wilson@emory.edu

I am a first year graduate student in Dr. Patricia Bauer’s Memory Development Lab. I graduated in the spring of 2018 from Kenyon College with a Bachelor of Arts in Psychology and a concentration in Neuroscience. Broadly speaking, I am interested in the accumulation of semantic knowledge across the lifetime. I am interested in studying productive knowledge extension in both children and adults, using neurophysiological and behavioral methods.

Patricia Bauer

Ph.D. Developmental Psychology, Miami University

Bauer Memory at Emory Lab

E-mail: pjbauer@emory.edu

Patricia Bauer received her Ph.D. from Miami University in 1985 and was a post-doctoral fellow at the University of California, San Diego from 1985 to 1989. She was on the faculty of the Institute of Child Development at the University of Minnesota from 1989 to 2005. After two years in the Department of Psychology and Neuroscience at Duke University, she joined the faculty of Emory University in 2007, where she is the Asa Griggs Candler Professor of Psychology. Her research focuses on the development of memory from infancy through childhood, with special emphasis on the determinants of remembering and forgetting; links between social, cognitive, and neural developments and age-related changes in autobiographical or personal memory; and self-derivation of new factual knowledge through integration of separate yet related episodes of new learning. She is the Co-Director of the National Institutes of Health T32 “Mechanisms of Learning across Development and Species.”

Robert R. Hampton

Ph.D. Psychology, University of Toronto

Laboratory of Comparative Primate Cognition

E-mail: robert.hampton@emory.edu

Our lab studies memory and cognition in nonhuman primates. Our experiments help define the relationship between human and nonhuman memory, and identify the neural substrates of memory. Our comparative work addresses questions about the evolution of memory and cognition, while our basic neuroscience research contributes to the knowledge base needed to develop treatments for diseases affecting memory and cognition in humans. Our laboratory has done a lot of work on metamemory and metacognition in monkeys. More recently we have focused on studies of the mental representation of sequences and other ordered stimuli. We have recently initiated a new research program addressing cognition in wild birds. I co-direct, with Dr. Patricia Bauer, the National Institutes of Health T32 “Mechanisms of Learning across Development and Species.”