Dr. Cindy Lustig
I grew up in a farming community in Northeastern Ohio. (Yes, the home of OSU, UM’s major football rival!) I completed my undergraduate degree at Case Western Reserve University, where I got my first start in aging research, my PhD at Duke University, where I continued my training in aging and attention, and also began collaborating with animal researchers and learning about fMRI, and my post-doctoral work at Washington University in St. Louis, where I continued work in neuroimaging and aging.
I’ve been very lucky throughout my training and in my faculty collaborations as a faculty member to work with people who are excited about considering questions about cognition and the brain from multiple angles, and to consider sometimes counterintuitive ideas: Might older adults actually remember TOO MUCH rather than not enough? What can work with rats and mice tell us about human cognition, and vice versa?
Currently we’re trying to understand how the brain systems that support attention and memory respond to manipulations of incentive and motivation in younger and older adults, and how dopaminergic and cholinergic systems contribute to motivation, cognition, and falls in people with Parkinson’s disease. Come join us!
Hyesue Jang
Program: Psychology, Ph.D.
Area: Cognition and Cognitive Neuroscience
Year: 2
Research interests: learning and memory, cognitive aging, computational modeling of human cognition
Deepa Prasad
Lab Manager
Major: Neuroscience; Cognitive Science
Year: Senior
Goals: My short term goals in this lab are to learn more about cognitive science research and how it’s conducted, and to develop the skills that would help me run my own research in the future. One of my long term goals is to write an original honors research thesis, which will prepare me for my other long term goal of getting a PhD in behavioral or cognitive neuroscience.
Sayali Amin
Research Assistant
Major: Neuroscience and English
Year: Sophomore
Goals: I want to gain exposure to research in the realm of psychology and experience working with human subjects. I hope to understand more about cognition and how it relates to aging through the experiments we’re working on as well. In the future, I hope to attend medical school.
Michelle Kim
Research Assistant
Major: Biopsychology, Cognition, and Neuroscience (BCN)
Year: Freshman
Goals: My goals in the lab are to gain experience and further develop the skills I need in a research lab setting, especially relating to cognitive science. I am also interested in learning more about memory and attention and the effects of incentives and motivation among the different age groups. My plan is to pursue psychology here as an undergraduate, and I hope to conduct my own research in the future.
Eli Song
Research Assistant
Major: Biopsychology, Cognition and Neuroscience
Year: Junior
Goals: My long term goal is to attend medical school and study medicine in the United States Air Force. Currently as an undergraduate student, I am interested in learning more about the development and different mechanisms of human behavior. I also hope to gain more experience learning about psychology and the role of motivation in attention and memory in a research lab setting.
Kiran Gafa
Research Assistant
Major: Double majoring in Behavioral and Biological Sciences (BBS) and Psychology at he University of Michigan-Dearborn
Year: Senior
Goals: My goals in lab are to learn more about cognitive psychology research, especially motivation and reward, and gain skills that I will use in graduate school. In the future, I’d like to go to graduate school for an applied field of psychology.
Elise Whitney
Research Assistant
Major: Biopsychology , Cognition, and Neuroscience
Year: Freshman
Goals: My goal for this lab is to learn how to conduct and analyze research and obtain the skills to conduct my own research one day. I hope to learn more about cognition and motivation in response to incentive. I plan on using the knowledge I gain from this lab and applying to towards medical school.
Julia Twigg
Research Assistant
Major: Undecided
Year: Freshman
Goals: My goal in the lab is to assist in gathering as much data as possible by the end of my time here.
Claire Schmidt
Research Assistant
Major: Biopsychology, Cognition, and Neuroscience
Year: Freshman
Goals: My immediate goal in this lab is to gain experience in a cognitive science lab, learning how research in this field is realistically conducted; I also am looking to further hone my communication skills in a lab setting. Long term, I aim to be involved in academia and cognitive/behavioral research after attending graduate school to get my masters degree.
Past Lab Members
Lucy Jiang, Research Assistant
Audrey London, Research Assistant
Helena Bryans, Research Assistant
Marissa Robeson, UROP Student
Jamie Yoon, Lab Manager
Ziyong Lin, PhD Student
Daejin Kim, Lab Manager
