Welcome to the home page for the Schizophrenia Cognition Laboratory at Wesleyan University.  I am a faculty member in Psychology at Wesleyan as well as the director of the lab.  Thank you for coming to view our lab website. My students and I study issues related to cognition and rehabilitation in schizophrenia and related severe mental illness. 

Bio

I received my undergraduate degree in Psychology at Reed College in Portland, Oregon, my doctorate in Psychology and Neuroscience at Princeton University and post-doctoral training in neuropsychiatric aspects of schizophrenia in the Department of Psychiatry at the University of Pennsylvania under the direction of Drs. Ruben and Raquel Gur.   Before coming to Wesleyan I worked at the Schizophrenia Rehabilitation Program at The Institute of Living, a private psychiatric hospital in Hartford, CT.,  for seven years beginning as a staff neuropsychologist and was promoted to the role of Senior Research Scientist in 2005  (with a joint appointment in the Olin Neuropsychiatry Research Center there).  Many of our studies continue to be conducted at The Institute.  I arrived at Wesleyan in 2007 when I was appointed Assistant Professor in the Department of Psychology and Program in Neuroscience and Behavior at Wesleyan University and was promoted to Associate Professor in 2010.  I have also been an Assistant Clinical Professor of Psychiatry in the Yale School of Medicine since 2001.  I am a licensed psychologist with a specialty in clinical neuropsychological assessment and a member of the American Psychological Association, the American Psychological Society, the International Neuropsychological Society, the Schizophrenia International Research Society and the Society for Research in Psychopathology. 

Student Roles in the Laboratory

Students working in my lab over the past three years have learned techniques in structured symptom assessment and standardized symptom ratings in people with schizophrenia, administered and scored neurocognitive tests, have supervised cognitive training sessions and run or helped lead social-skills training groups for clients, and have learned statistical procedures for conducting meta-analyses. Some of this work has been conducted on-site, with clients coming to Wesleyan for research studies, some off-site at local outpatient mental health centers and some at the largest state inpatient facility, Connecticut Valley Hospital.  Recent graduates of our laboratory are Ralph Gerraty ’09 (now a research associate in neuroimaging at the Department of Psychiatry at the University of Pennsylvania Medical Center), Eric Lamotte ’09 (now at UCSF medical school), Emily Langner MA ’09 (intern White House Office of Health Reform), Sarah Jeffrey ’09 (grants and special projects coordinator at Middlesex Hospital Cancer Center, as well as MBA student at UConn), Ari Tolman ’10 (Programs Director, Shining Hope for the Community, Wesleyan program in Africa), Kelley Miller ’10 and Christi Richardson ’10, current lab manager. 

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