To explain who I am as a researcher, I think it is important to explain how I became a researcher. I did not come into college knowing that I wanted to be a scientist. As a first-generation student, I was not even aware that being a scientist was a potential option. A happy accident of circumstances led me to join a research lab in psychology as a second semester freshman. Fast forward two years, and I had managed to work my way up to running my own projects. I distinctly remember coming home one Friday night after aggregating all of our raw data and being completely and utterly befuddled. I had taken a look at some of the basic statistics, and knew something was a bit off. However, I did not have the capabilities on my laptop at home to run a full analysis of the data. I emailed one of my mentors, who said we could meet on Monday to go over everything. That seemed like far too long to wait.

 

So, I did what any logical person would do – I started calculating things by hand. All of a sudden, after five cups of coffee, it was 3 in the morning. I had answered my initial question, but it had only opened the door to even bigger questions. In my tired and semi-delirious state the thought hit me that, at that very moment, I was the only person who knew this little tidbit of information. I had answered a question that others had not even asked, and I truly realized how incredible it was to be a scientist. I had a moment of realization: no one knew all of the answers. I certainly did not. My mentors did not either. I realized that I had gotten to the point in my studies where questions did not have answers that could be Googled, and I was hooked. As a researcher, I continue to chase that feeling of not knowing, to chase the boundary between what is known and what is to be known. 

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My primary work sits at the intersection of cognitive control and decision making, and I believe that these domains, often thought of as independent, are interwoven in ways that are typically not discussed. What exactly is cognitive control? How do we resolve conflict in order to make adaptive decisions and direct our attention appropriately? Why is it that, even when given immense amounts of good information, people still make maladaptive decisions? How do people adapt when their environment changes, and what keeps them from doing so in some situations? These are just some of the questions that I am interested in answering as a researcher. My dissertation examines when and how feedback can be used to improve biased decision making, in addition to exploring the role and nature of conflict detection in this process.

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I am additionally engaged in research that has a primary goal of improving the student experience in higher education, with a specific focus of reducing barriers for marginalized students. I have done work on syllabus design, open educational resources, and diversifying textbooks in psychology. I am also currently melding my knowledge of decision making with open educational resources to study why biases against free textbooks exist. I look forward to continuing to combine my skills in experimental design and research with my passion for and love of teaching.