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!
