People

PRINCIPAL INVESTIGATOR

Rebecca Spencer  rspencer [at] psych.umass.edu

Post-doctoral fellow, Neuroscience (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, CA)
PhD, Neuroscience (Purdue Univeristy, West Lafayette, IN)
BA, Biology & Kinesiology (Hope College, Holland, MI)

Rebecca runs the show – at least when there’s enough coffee to keep her going.   She also teaches Psychology of Sleep (Psych 391) and Behavioral Neuroscience (Psych 330).  In her spare time she chases monkeys, runs marathons and likes to exercise her “right brain” (too bad she has no spare time ).

POST-DOCTORAL FELLOW

Ed Pace-Schott

PhD Behavioral Neuroscience (Boston University)
MA Counseling Psychology (Lesley College)
MS Oceanography and Limnology (University of Wisconsin-Madison)
BA  Biology (Oberlin College)
Ed is interested in how sleep helps humans regulate their negative emotions. To do so, his experiments will shock, annoy or disgust you.  And then you’ll get to sleep on it (or maybe not) and you’ll come back and he’ll see how you’re feeling.  When not grossing out research subjects, Ed is interested in their dreams and what’s going on in their brains during sleep. And when he’s not doing that, he hangs out with family and fellow creatures, both cuddly canine and reptilian.

GRADUATE STUDENTS

Bengi Baran

PhD-track Cognitive Psychology
MS  Bogazici University

Bengi is interested in emotional memories, metacognition, aging, movement disorders and the influence of sleep on these.  She likes artichokes, hates raspberries and her accent comes from Istanbul where very few people know what maple syrup tastes like.

Timothy Miller

PhD-track Cognitive Psychology

Lauri Kurdziel

PhD-track Neuroscience & Behavior
MS Animal Behavior (Bucknell University)
BS Zoology (University of Maryland, College Park)

Lauri’s research interests include aging, cognition, and the neurodegenerative diseases. She is particularly interested in the role of sleep, exercise and the sex hormones on these. In her spare time, she likes to ballroom dance, cook, and plan her back-up career as a party planner – just in case this whole PhD thing doesn’t work out.

UNDERGRADUATE RESEARCHERS

Billy Anderson


Susan Balding

Susan is an undergraduate Psychology major who is very excited for her first semester of research. In addition to neuroscience and cognitive science, she is interested in comparative religion and literature and would love to combine all four in her studies. Outside of class Susan has a love for food (both preparation and consumption), yoga, and adding to her pile of books to read.


Tobias Bennett

Tobias is an undergraduate Psychology major who finds nothing more fascinating then the thought of thinking about thoughts. He is interested in a multitude of topics ranging from clinical psychology to cognition, noting sleep, familial relations, and suicide prevention as his major areas of focus. When not pondering the inner workings of the human mind, Tobias enjoys riding his old rusty bike and reading classic dystopian literature.

Dasha Daniels

Dasha is an undergraduate psychology major looking to graduate with departmental honors, and acquiring a PhD in the future. She is interested in sleep (what she does best) cognition and clinical psychology.

Katie Dempsey

[semester abroad spring 2010]

Caitlin Dillon

Kelly Donohue

Kasey Duclos

Kasey Duclos is a junior Neuroscience major on the Pre-Med track trying to get into medical school and hopefully become a surgeon one day. She joined the lab to get a feel for research before she has to do her honors thesis next year. This past fall, she spent a semester abroad in Brisbane, Australia at the University of Queensland taking classes in marine and terrestrial biology. Outside of school, she likes to eat chocolate, play sports (basketball, soccer, and volleyball), watch hockey games, read, SCUBA dive/snorkel, and just  hang out with friends and family.

Callie Erikson

[semester abroad spring 2010]

Sara Heaton

My Name is Sara Heaton, I am an undergraduate psychology major getting my BA in psychology. I spent my junior year studying abroad in Brighton England studying at Sussux University. I joined this lab to learn more about how a psych lab works and gain research experience. I enjoy reading, swimming, practicing yoga, painting and drawing and hanging out with friends. After school I hope to return to England to continue my education in cognitive psychology and eventually earn my PhD in cognitive development and one day work with children.

Morgan Kelly

[semester abroad for spring 2010]


Alyssa Laser

Alyssa Laser is an undergraduate psychology major. She enjoys helping people and plans to attend graduate school for occupational therapy in the future.

Lauren Lensis

Lauren is an undergraduate psychology and art history double major. She is interested in sleep, cognition and clinical psychology and plans to acquire a masters or PhD in the future.  In her spare time you’ll probably find her drawing, running, reading and listening to music.


Allie Levy

Shannon McKeon

Shannon is an undergraduate psychology major who hopes to become a teacher. She’s interested in sleep research because she rarely sleeps, and consequently she’s interested in drinking lots of coffee too. In her spare time she enjoys drawing, bike rides, procrastinating, and eating pancakes.


Kyle Mendes

Genevieve Nave

I am a junior Neuroscience major, Dance minor at Smith from Boston. My other research has been on epigenetics in plants, and on mouse behavior at the University of Buenos Aires and Smith College respectively.
I love body/mind theory, c57 mice, and modern dance. I play on the Smith Ice Hockey team and am trying out for Varsity Tennis this spring! I am a bad speller and just learned how to use an ipod.

Rebecca Owen

Rebecca is an undergraduate psychology major.  She is a member of Commonwealth College and the International Scholars Program.  She has interned in several neurobehavioral labs at Children’s Hospital Boston.  She began working in Cognac lab as a freshman and has since become interested in studying unconscious thought and how sleep influences how we access such information.  Eventually she would like to somehow combine her interests of international relations with psychology and go on to pursue a PhD.  But her ultimate life goal is to move somewhere much warmer and less snowy than Amherst!

Francois Ranoux


Amanda Schultz

Amanda is a Psychology major getting a certificate in Developmental Disorders and Human Services. She loves etymology, watches trash TV (for sociological purposes), and performs Improv comedy every Saturday night. Her sole reason for joining the Cognac Lab is to meet male psychology students (also for sociological purposes).

Ashley Scott

ALUMNI

Mike Brickhouse (Harvard/MGH)

Michelle Sunm (PhD Program, SUNY Buffalo)