I am the Principal Investigator of the How We Learn Lab, cognitive scientist, and Assistant Professor of Psychological and Brain Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis. Before joining WashU, I trained as a postdoctoral fellow with John Gabrieli at MIT and completed my Ph.D. at the University of Toronto, working with Amy Finn and Katherine Duncan.

My research focuses on uncovering how we learn by focusing on the cognitive processes that support learning and long-term memory. To tackle this complex problem, we track learning and memory processes on a moment-to-moment basis and study how subtle shifts in other factors, like attention, arousal, reward, or cognitive conflict shape what we learn. A second line of work focuses on the fascinating question of why learning often looks different in children compared to adults. We test how the slow development of cognitive processes like attention and decision-making and differences in states (arousal-driven, attentional, curiosity-driven) drive developmental differences in learning.

Curious to learn more? We are looking for motivated, visionary, and talented individuals to join our growing team! Check out our research questions and publications to learn more about our work. Please note that I will be recruiting graduate students for Fall 2026! Please reach out if you are a prospective undergraduate research assistant interested in answering questions about how the mind attends, learns and forms memories.