Research Labs

Kimele Persaud, Assistant Professor

Memory and Computational Cognition (MC2) Lab

Dr. Persaud’s research program lies at the intersection between memory, learning, and development. Her work uses a combination of behavioral studies and computational modeling to answer important questions of learning memory such as: 1) How do children and adults encode, store, and retrieve information from memory? 2. How do they use and rely on prior knowledge to scaffold learning new information and fill in fuzzy memories? 3. How do changes in the contexts in which information is learned impact how well that information is remembered and retained over time? 4. And finally, how do biological and social factors, like stress and emotions, shape learning and memory across the lifespan?

Phone: 973-353-3944

Email: Kimele.persaud@rutgers.edu

Website: https://sites.rutgers.edu/mc2-lab/

Miriam Rosenberg-Lee, Assistant Professor

Mathematics, Reasoning and Learning Lab

Dr. Miriam Rosenberg-Lee is an Assistant Professor in the Psychology Department at Rutgers University, Newark, NJ campus. She completed her undergraduate degree in mathematics at McGill University and her PhD in cognitive psychology at Carnegie Mellon University. She was a post-doctoral fellow and then Instructor at Stanford University. Her work focuses on understanding the brain basis of math cognition and learning, in typical and atypical development.

Phone: 973-353-3948

Email: Miriam.rosenberglee@psychology.rutgers.edu

Karen Smith, Assistant Professor

Stress Psychophysiology and Affective Neuroscience (SPAN) Lab

Dr. Smith’s research takes an integrative and multi-level approach, bridging across fields of social neuroscience, developmental psychology, and psychophysiology, towards examining the factors that shape variability in how individuals respond to stress, with a focus on stress in early childhood. In this work, she asks critical questions including: 1) how do factors like loneliness, predictability, and control interact to shape experiences of stress across development; 2) how do experiences of stress influence how we interpret, learn, remember, and use emotional information; 3) what are the implications of these effects for our social behavior and decision making. Dr. Smith’s broader goal with this research is to provide insight into the mechanisms through which stress shapes development across the lifespan that can be used to inform more targeted and effective interventions.

Phone: 973-353-3951

Email: Karen.e.smith@rutgers.edu

Website: https://sites.rutgers.edu/span-lab/

The Well-Being Lab

Dr. Heintzelman is a Social and Personality Psychologist and conducts research focusing on the experience of meaning in everyday life and on strategies to increase happiness. The Well-Being Lab conducts research examining how people experience meaning and happiness in their lives. This lab is especially interested in how ordinary aspects of everyday life can feel meaningful. Additionally, the lab examines strategies to increase happiness across contexts.

Phone: 973-353-3953

Email: sh1318@psychology.rutgers.edu

Website: Samanthaheintzelman.com 

Elizabeth Tricomi, Professor and Graduate Director

Learning and Decision Making Lab

Dr. Elizabeth Tricomi received her B.S. from Cornell University in 2000, with a major in Biological Sciences and a concentration in Neurobiology and Behavior. She then attended the University of Pittsburgh for graduate school, where she worked with Dr. Julie Fiez in the Psychology Department and the Center for the Neural Basis of Cognition. After receiving her Ph.D. in 2006, she did a postdoctoral fellowship with Dr. John O’Doherty at Caltech, where she studied neuroeconomics and habit learning. She was hired as an Assistant Professor in the Psychology Department at Rutgers-Newark in 2009, and she was promoted to Associate Professor in 2016. Research in her lab focuses on understanding the neural mechanisms supporting learning, motivation, and decision-making.

Phone: 973-353-3956

Email: Etricomi@psychology.rutgers.edu

Website: https://tricomilab.wixsite.com/ldmlab

William Graves, Associate Professor

Language Behavior and Brain Imaging Lab

Dr. Graves is PI of the Language Behavior and Brain Imaging Lab and an Associate Professor of Psychology at Rutgers University – Newark. He received his PhD in neuroscience from the University of Iowa and completed a postdoctoral fellowship at the Medical College of Wisconsin. He studies the brain basis of reading, understanding, and producing words. His lab uses a variety of techniques such as functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), magnetoencephalography (MEG), behavioral measurements, computational modeling, and brain lesion-behavior correlations. Studies in his lab have been funded by federal and state agencies such as the National Institutes of Health and the New Jersey Health Foundation.

Kent Harber, Professor

Behavioral Dynamics Lab

Kent D. Harber received his doctorate in experimental social psychology from Stanford University (1995). He completed postdoctoral training in health behavior at Washington University in Saint Louis, MO, and then worked for two years as a research scientist at American Institutes for Research in Palo Alto, CA, where he focused on class size reduction and effective teaching practices. In 1999 he accepted his current position at Rutgers/Newark. His research has been supported by the National Science Foundation, the Spencer Foundation, the National Institutes of Health, and the Lucent Foundation. It has been featured in The Atlantic, Newsweek, Huffington Post and other popular venues.

Phone: 973-353-3955

Email: kharber@psychology.rutgers.edu

Website:http://nwkpsych.rutgers.edu/~kharber/

Mauricio Delgado, Professor

Social and Affective Neuroscience Lab

Research in the lab bridges cognitive, affective and social neuroscience approaches to understand how positive and negative reinforcers affect neural and behavioral mechanisms that underlie our ability to learn, adapt and make good decisions under ever-changing social and environmental demands.  We use functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) in conjunction with physiological and behavioral measures to obtain converging information aimed at addressing questions such as: 1) How does the human brain process stimuli that carry positive or negative value (e.g., rewards and punishments)? 2) How does it use this information to make decisions and guide behavior during basic processes (learning actions which lead to desired outcomes) and more complex social interactions which are integral to everyday behavior (e.g., learning to trust someone)? 3) How do we control or regulate our emotions to cope with social and environmental demands?

Phone: 973-353-3949

Email: delgado@psychology.rutgers.edu

Website: https://delgadolab.com