Post-Doctoral Fellows

Erika Nyhus
Position: Postdoctoral Research Associate
Email: erika.nyhus(at)colorado.edu; curriculum vitae
Website:  http://research.clps.brown.edu/enyhus/

 

 

Research Interests: I graduated with a PhD in Cognitive Psychology, Neuroscience, and Cognitive Science at the University of Colorado at Boulder and am now a postdoctoral fellow in the Cognitive, Linguistic, and Psychological Sicences department at Brown University. My research is focused on using EEG and fMRI to study recognition memory processes. I am also beginning to look at how neural oscillations and synchronization can lead to large-scale brain network dynamics underlying higher cognitive processes such as recognition memory.

 

Chris Chatham
Position: Postdoctoral Research Associate
Email: chathach(at)gmail.com; curriculum vitae

 

 

Research Interests: My research utilizes a combination of behavioral, computational, developmental, and neuroimaging measures to examine the temporal dynamics of cognitive control across multiple time scales.  In my initial research conducted for my PhD (under the direction of Yuko Munakata, at the University of Colorado, Boulder) we found that cognitive control is utilized on an "as-needed" or reactive basis by young children, whereas older children exert cognitive control in a more adult-like proactive fashion.  Subsequent work examined the interactions of reactive and proactive control in adults within the domain of response inhibition, such that reactive inhibitory processes may be supported by more proactive and sustained mechanisms utilized for monitoring the environment.  More recently, I have investigated both the developmental and the computational characteristics of working memory updating, putatively subserved by striatal gating mechanisms, which operate at the nexus of reactive and proactive control, and which may constitute a "developmental bottleneck" in the expression of proactive control.  One of my planned projects in the Badre Lab includes an examination of the temporal dynamics of these gating mechanisms in the adult, and their selectivity; a second project is focused on how behavioral responses may be progressively constrained, moment-by-moment, as a result of the representations undergoing such gating.

 

Theresa Desrochers

Position: Postdoctoral Research Associate
Email: Theresa_Desrochers(at)brown.edu; curriculum vitae
Website:  http://research.clps.brown.edu/tmd/

 

 

Research Interests: I am interested in sequences and sequence learning. I completed my PhD in Neuroscience at MIT studying habit formation using multi-electrode recording techniques in the non-human primate. I am joining the Badre lab to learn human imaging techniques and study the interaction between frontal cortical and subcortical brain areas during the proceduralization of tasks.

 

Graduate Students

Jennifer Barredo
Position: Graduate Student (Neuroscience)
Email: jennifer_barredo(at)brown.edu; curriculum vitae

 

 

 

Research Interests: One means by which the prefrontal cortex (PFC) might control memory is through top-down biasing or modulation of ongoing memory processing in medial temporal lobe (MTL) structures. However, the pathways and dynamics by which PFC might influence MTL are understudied. My research combines functional and anatomical MRI scanning with causal analysis methods to explore the dynamics of PFC-MTL interactions during controlled memory processing.

 

Jason Scimeca
Position:Graduate Student (Cognitive, Linguistic, and Psychological Sciences)
Email: jason_scimeca(at)brown.edu; curriculum vitae

 

 

 

Lab Manager

Lauren McShane
Position: Lab Manager
Email: lauren_mcshane(at)brown.edu

 

 

 

Research Interests: I am interested in using neuroimaging techniques to explore how hierarchical rule structures adapt throughout development. In addition, I want to explore flexible and creative thought and their contributions to the role of the prefrontal cortex in learning and goal oriented behavior.

 

Jamie Brew
Position: Undergraduate Research Assistant
Email: jamie_brew(at)brown.edu

 

 

 

Zack Bornstein
Position: Undergraduate Research Assistant
Email: zachary_bornstein(at)brown.edu

 

 

Carolyn Ranti
Position: Undergraduate Research Assistant
Email: carolyn_ranti(at)brown.edu

 

 

 

Perri Katzman
Position: Undergraduate Research Assistant
Email: perri_katzman(at)brown.edu