Teaching

I have diverse teaching and research experience at two Big Ten universities (the University of Iowa and The Ohio State University), a small liberal art university (Manchester University), a historically black university (Tennessee State University), and an elite private research university (Vanderbilt University). I have been spending my summers in Nashville teaching in the psychology department at Vanderbilt since 2012 and joined the Vanderbilt faculty full time in the fall of 2019.   

Research

In 2014 my lab established a paradigm to study the forgetting of information, termed induced forgetting. Induced forgetting occurs when recognizing an object, from a group of objects learned at the same time, leads to worse memory for objects from that group that were not recognized. This forgetting effect is commonly accompanied by improved memory for recognized objects. Advantages of this paradigm include that it is possible to test memory of young children using visual objects before they can read, it allows for testing of multiple types of stimuli, and it can be used with animal models. The Maxcey Memory Lab is using behavioral, transcranial direct-current stimulation, modeling, and electrophysiological techniques to understand how this forgetting phenomenon operates.  

Service

I am the Chair of the Psychology Department Equity, Diversity, & Inclusion Committee, an Associate Editor at the Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, and Faculty Advisor to the Vanderbilt Undergraduate Research Journal and Project Pink.

Life

I am lucky to be the mother of the three best kids imaginable, one front porch cat, and one very cuddly dog. I’m in too many book clubs, am grounded by reading poetry, and have discovered the very unfortunate news that walking always helps my mood. I love being invited to students events — if you invite me, I’ll be there!

My pronouns are she/her/hers.