Background

I grew up in the Midwest, starting out in Columbus, OH and winding up in Chicago, IL. Pursuit of my education and my passion for studying cognition took me to Berkeley, CA, Urbana-Champaign, IL, and Iowa City, IA. I am currently in the process of establishing myself as an independent cognitive neuroscience researcher with the goal of studying human memory using a wide variety of techniques.

Undergraduate

I attended the University of California, Berkeley (on campus it’s “Cal”) for my undergraduate education. After a brief flirtation with history, I settled on a degree in psychology, concentrating on cognitive and biological courses and working in Prof. Art Shimamura’s lab during my junior and senior years. I completed a senior project in Art’s lab with Mike Ciranni and Chad Dodson, and was invited to join Phi Beta Kappa after graduating with honors.

Graduate

After completing my bachelor’s at Cal, I returned to Illinois to work in Prof. Neal J. Cohen’s lab at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. While at UIUC, I learned a tremendous amount about the practice of experimental psychology, the study and theory of memory, and a variety of technical skills including programming and statistical analysis. All this was facilitated by an extraordinarily talented, generous faculty and a terrific cohort of fellow students.

Post-doctoral

Having finished my doctorate, I took a post-doctoral position at the University of Iowa with long-time collaborator and co-author Prof. Daniel Tranel. Under his expert guidance, I’ve learned a tremendous amount about working with non-amnesic neuropsychological populations, grant-writing, manuscript reviewing, manuscript preparation, and mentoring graduate students. Moving to Iowa also allowed me to continue working with Prof. Melissa Duff, a fellow Cohen-lab alum, who had just accepted her faculty position as I arrived. Melissa and I have a long record of collaborating on novel research into hippocampal function, and she even convinced me to explore some language-related topics. I also made the acquaintance of Prof. Michael Wall a neuro-ophthalmologist who studies perimetry. Mike and I have been collaborating on a method for conducting visual field testing using eye movements.

Junior Faculty

In the fall of 2014, I was very pleased to accept the offer of a junior faculty position (“Associate”) in the Department of Neurology at the University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics. I was excited to take this step toward being an independent scientist.

Tenure Track

On Januray 1st of 2016 I assumed the position of Assistant Professor in the Department of Neurological Sciences at the University of Nebraska Medical Center in Omaha, NE. I'm thrilled to be a member of a rapidly-developing department at a great institution alongside Dr. Matt Rizzo and a terrific faculty.

Future Directions

As I begin the transition into the next stage of my career, I am excited to deploy the expertise that I have developed over many years of training in the service of scientific investigation of the neural correlates of memory and in the mentorship of talented students.