Principal Investigator
|
Dr. Tas is an assistant professor in the Department of Psychology at the University of Tennessee - Knoxville. She received her B.A. in Psychology and her M.A. in Cognitive Psychology from Bogazici University under the supervision of Aysecan Boduroglu and Ali Tekcan. She then moved to the US and got her Ph.D. in Psychology from the University of Iowa working with Andrew Hollingworth and Cathleen Moore. Her primary research interest is how information is represented and updated across saccadic eye movements.
|
Graduate Students
Jes Parker, PhD student
Email: [email protected] Jes obtained her B.S. in Psychology with research distinction from the Ohio State University, where she studied multisensory integration and crossmodal competition between the auditory and visual modalities. She is a fourth year PhD student in the Visual Perception and Cognition Lab. She is currently working on projects that examine transsaccadic updating and visual stability in scenes. |
Golnaz Forouzandehfar, PhD student
Email: [email protected] Golnaz is a first year Ph.D. student in the Visual Perception and Cognition Lab. She received her B.A. and M.Sc in Clinical Psychology from Zanjan University of Medical Sciences in Iran. Her previous research focused on Psychosomatic Disorders and Social Anxiety. She is interested in research involving visual attention, memory, the neural activity underlying these processes and their clinical applications. She is also interested in computational modeling and programming. |
Madeline Embrey, MA student (she/her)
Email: [email protected] Madeline graduated from Aquinas College with a BA in History and a minor in Educational Psychology. Her undergraduate research focused on the history of neurology, neurosurgery, and psychiatry in military medicine, with simultaneous research on neuropsychological tests and measures in childhood. She is interested in research involving transsaccadic memory, the dynamics of foveal and peripheral perception, and the neural processes underlying visual perception and oculomotor control. She is also interested in the potential clinical applications of this research through the use of neuroimaging and neuropsychological testing. |
Undergraduate Research Assistants
Samantha Altman (she/her)
Samantha is a freshman in the Chancellor's Honors Program and is majoring in Psychology. She hopes to obtain a Ph.D. after graduation. She joined the VPC lab looking to gain a deeper understanding of the world of research, gain valuable hands-on experience in the field, and learn about the fascinating ways in which our brain functions and processes information. |
Ali Bhimani
Ali is a sophomore double majoring in neuroscience and psychology and minoring in linguistics. He hopes to attend an MD/Ph.D. program following his time in undergrad to become a neurologist and cognitive scientist. He started working in the VPC Lab as a high school intern, hoping to gain a deeper insight into the world of research, explore cognitive psychology as a field, and gain invaluable experience. |
Sophia Germano
Sophia is a junior majoring in Neuroscience with a minor in Psychology. She hopes to attend medical school after graduation and specialize in pediatric psychiatry or pediatric oncology. She joined VPC lab to gain research experience for her future career and learn more about neurological processes. |
Jaclyn Hughes (she/they)
Jaclyn is a sophomore majoring in Psychology with a minor in Sociology. She joined the VPC Lab for hands-on experience and to indulge her fascination with how our minds work as humans. Moving forward, she hopes this lab will aid her as she works towards a Ph.D. in Psychology. |
Hannah Summar (she/her)
Hannah is a Chancellor's Honors Program student with a major in Psychology and a minor in American Sign Language. She plans to apply to an occupational therapy graduate program and get her Doctorate in Occupational Therapy. She joined the VPC lab to gain a deeper knowledge in research practices and to help prepare her for her future career. |
Lab Alumni
Jessica Defenderfer (PhD student, 2022)
Jessica obtained her PhD from the department of Speech and Hearing Sciences at the University of Tennessee Health Science Center. Her research primarily focuses on the neurophysiological dynamics of speech perception in adults. Specifically, Jessica uses fNIRS and pupil response data to investigate the effects of effort during degraded listening conditions. She is currently completing her externship at the Kansas City Veterans Affairs Medical Center. |