瓦莱丽•卡尔
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副教授
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目前的研究活动
The overarching goal of my research program is to understand biological and psychological factors that influence learning and memory across the lifespan. 这些兴趣可以 分解如下:
(1) international research partnerships that involve neuroimaging methods, (2) behavioral research performed by students in my lab, and (3) scholarship of teaching and learning 与上海大学的同事一起进行的研究. 我研究项目的神经成像部门 涉及两个主要伙伴关系. First, with colleagues at Stanford, we are examining how individual differences in brain structure and function among older adults relate 记忆能力的差异. 第二，与来自……的同事合作 around the world, we are developing a unified method for anatomically defining subfields of the human hippocampus, a brain region known to be critically important for memory. Here at 菠菜网lol正规平台, I lead the Carr Lab Investigating Memory and the Brain (CLIMB), where I work with student researchers on projects relating to physical fitness and memory, depression and memory, divergent thinking and semantic memory, and meta-analyses of MRI studies relating to Alzheimer's disease and major depressive disorder. 最后, I am actively engaged in pedagogical research performed in collaboration with faculty from the 大学 of 社会科学s, 工程, and 教育, as well as the Center 教师发展. Our interdisciplinary team examines factors that influence the success of students in a new interdisciplinary computing minor degree and in a similar program for lower division and community college students, Applied Programming 经历.
研究与当前事件的联系
I. The incidence of Alzheimer’s disease and other age-related memory disorders is expected to rise sharply as the Baby Boomer generation reaches retirement age and 除了. This increased incidence will put a heavy strain on the American healthcare system as well as families and caregivers, to which end research on age-related brain 认知变化是非常重要的. 我在生物学和心理学方面的研究 factors that influence learning and memory across the lifespan aims to address this 非常需要的.
II. With online learning here to stay, a better understanding of factors influencing learning in online courses is more important than over. 我的学生和我现在 investigating whether students engage in more multitasking when learning online than in-person, and if so, what the consequences of this multitasking are on learning.
3. A large number of students major in social sciences disciplines here at 菠菜网lol正规平台 and across the US, yet social science majors have among the highest unemployment rates 在所有大学毕业生中. In creating the Applied Computing minor, my colleagues and I aim to provide social science students with computing education that will expand their career opportunities and increase their income while addressing the need for 多样化的、技术熟练的劳动力. 与同事合作 the university, I am conducting research to optimize the success of this program, with the ultimate aim of making computing education more accessible to a broader segment of 菠菜网lol正规平台 students, including those who are traditionally underrepresented in STEM. We recently created a similar program for lower division and community college students, 应用程序设计经验.
个人与研究的关系
I.I was drawn towards the sciences as a child, inspired by grandparents who grew up on farms in rural Alabama and who worked incredibly hard to not only attend college, but to earn graduate degrees in physics and chemistry, respectively. 我自己开发了 a love of biology in high school, and I planned to major in it once I reached college. However, an AP psychology course introduced me to the fantastically interesting world of neuroscience, and I decided to pursue an interdisciplinary minor in biological 心理学,而不是. In college, a transformative research experience the summer before my senior year (via an NSF Research Experience for Undergraduates program) led me to the research approach that I have now pursued for 20 years: neuroimaging. 虽然 I can’t pinpoint a specific incident that contributed to my interest in the neuroscience of learning and memory, my many years as student made me curious about the best ways to learn and retain information, how knowledge is stored in the brain, and why memory 随着年龄的增长而衰退.
II. As an undergraduate student I took many challenging technical courses (calculus, 有机化学、神经生理学等.)，但我没有选计算机编程 course, namely because it never occurred to me that programming could be relevant 符合我的兴趣. I soon learned otherwise, when I began a position as a research assistant 大学毕业后在神经成像实验室工作. 不得不在我的 spare time was an incredibly stressful experience, and 一个 that I had to repeat when I got to graduate school and needed to learn a different language in my new lab. 这些 experiences played an enormous role in motivating me to help develop and conduct research 关于应用计算机辅修.
