| I am currently Chair of the Psychology Department, a position I began in the Spring of 2004. My training is in Cognitive Psychology and I teach that course, among others. During my graduate school years at University of California, Davis, I studied child development, perception, and cognition. Since then, my research has focused on practical aspects of memory. Most recently, I have been learning about the history of asylums in the Northeast. I came to Quinnipiac University about 20 years ago. |
| Research Interests: |
| My research focuses on everyday problems of human memory. I have mostly studied prospective memory (the way memory is used to plan and carry out future actions), idiosyncratic memory strategies, and the effectiveness of mnemonics. Mnemonics are strategies people use to help themselves remember; they range from formal ones that are taught in school, such as those used to learn the order of the planets, to informal ones, such as taping a note about a doctor's appointment onto a backpack. I advocate the use of a variety of research methods, including observation, questionnaires, and experimentation. |
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| Courses Taught: |
| Like all of us in the Psychology Department, I am dedicated to good teaching. I emphasize the development of expository writing as a learning tool. The concept of Information Literacy has recently caught my attention; students aren't necessarily able to tell the difference between an authoritative online source and one that is designed to look authoritative. I have taught a variety of content courses such as Cognitive Psychology, Mind and Culture, Applied Cognition, Psychology of Writing, and Child and Adolescent Developmental Psychology. I have also taught many of the courses that form our methods sequence for psychology majors: Introduction to Psychology; Introduction to Statistics in Psychology; Methods I: Experimental Methods; Methods II: Non-experimental Methods (team taught); History and Systems in Psychology; Senior Seminar. |
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| My Son Takes Cool Photos: |
| My son, Michael, is a graduate student in tropical ecology at Tulane University. Given that I am a regular mom, I can't help showing you some of his work. |
| This photo of a night heron was taken at Aububon Park in New Orleans. |
| Audubon Night Heron |
| Michael's Grad Advisor, Lee Dyer, is an expert on caterpillars. Here is an incredible example. |
| Saturn Caterpillar! |
| I love this study of raindrops on a flower |
| Purple Flower |
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