Lewis-Peacock Lab

🦚 Principal Investigator

Dr. Jarrod Lewis-Peacock

ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR
Department of Psychology
Department of Neuroscience
Department of Psychiatry & Behavioral Sciences
Center for Learning and Memory
Institute for Neuroscience (Graduate Advisor)
The University of Texas at Austin

📩 jalewpea@utexas.edu
☎️ +1 (512) 232-2149 | 🐦 @jalewpea
🎓 C.V. | NeuroTree | Google Scholar

"My primary interest concerns how the brain "forgets" things, both accidentally and on purpose. I use neuroimaging techniques to examine brain activity as healthy volunteers try to remember or forget things in the laboratory. Specifically, my lab investigates human working memory (our “mental workspace” for accomplishing goals) and its interactions with other cognitive functions including perception, attention, and long-term memory. Our research uses novel psychological tests, neuroimaging (fMRI and EEG), advanced analysis methods, and computational modeling to characterize core features of human cognition. Currently my research program focuses on three main threads: 1) long-term consequences of working memory operations, 2) removal of unwanted information from working memory, and 3) protection of working memory from distraction."

* On sabbatical for the 2022-23 academic year in the MRC Cognition and Brain Sciences Unit at the University of Cambridge, England.

** Dr. Lewis-Peacock is not accepting new graduate students for Fall 2023.

🦚 Research Fellows

Dr. Laura Werner

Postdoctoral Research Fellow

Ph.D., University of Nevada, Las Vegas

📩 laura.werner@utexas.edu

"My overall research goal is to understand how working memory functions. I am particularly interested in understanding forgetting mechanisms in working memory, such as removal. My current research focuses on how emotional memories are removed from working memory."

Dr. Diane Whitmer

Senior Research Fellow

Ph.D., University of California San Diego

📩 dianejwhitmer@utexas.edu

"My overall research interest is neuromodulation of cognitive function via real-time closed-loop neurofeedback. In particular, I am interested in whether memory competition and subsequent forgetting can be facilitated by closed-loop neurofeedback."

🦚 Doctoral Students

Justin Kilmarx

Ph.D. student, Mechanical Engineering (Year 5)

B.S., University of Tennessee, Knoxville

📩 jkilmarx@utexas.edu

"Motor deficits, such as the ability to individuate finger movements, is a common impairment associated with stroke that often never reaches full recovery. Here, we use hyperalignment to create a neural template of ideal brain activity from healthy participants. Our goal is to use this template to guide recovery in a real-time fMRI neurofeedback experiment post-stroke."

Zachary Bretton-Granatoor

Ph.D. student, Neuroscience (Year 4)

B.A., Boston University

📩 zbretton@utexas.edu

"My interest is in exploring the role of our emotional state on our memory systems. Specifically, I am interested in the ways in which persistent mental illness can greatly affect our working memory capabilities and our ability to deal with the daily challenges of an information rich life."

Ziyao Zhang

Ph.D. student, Psychology (Year 2)

M.S., Lehigh University

📩 ziyaoz@utexas.edu

"My main interest lies in the interaction between memory and attention. Specifically, I am interested in how attentional control shapes memory representations and how internal representations influence ongoing processes. My research combines cognitive neuroscience and computational techniques to explore these questions."

Caleb Jerinic-Brodeur

Ph.D. student, Psychology (Year 1)

B.S., Arizona State University

📩 cjerinic@utexas.edu

"My main research interests revolve around the ability to control what we remember. More specifically, I’m curious as to how removal processes influence forgetting in the context of emotional information. I’m also interested in how these working memory mechanisms influence long-term memory outcomes."

Edward Leung

Ph.D. rotation student, Neuroscience (Year 1)

B.S., B.A., University of Washington

📩 edjoeleung@utexas.edu

"I am interested in understanding the factors behind retrieval of long-term memories into working memory and how that affects behavior and decision making. Additionally, I want to explore retrieval in the context of psychological disorders such as PTSD or addiction, when maladaptive information dominates working memory processing."