Dr. Alexa Tompary is a postdoctoral fellow working with Dr. Sharon Thompson-Schill at the University of Pennsylvania. She received her BA in Psychology from the University of Chicago and earned her PhD in Psychology at New York University while working in Dr. Lila Davachi’s laboratory. As a graduate student, she used functional neuroimaging (fMRI) to investigate how the brain can store distinct memories while also extracting over their commonalities. Currently, she studies how the organization of prior semantic knowledge shapes new episodic memories, and how semantic knowledge and new memories are integrated together to build new knowledge. Her BRAIN Initiative project aims to examine how shifting interactions between hippocampal and cortical memory systems give rise to distortions in memory as a result of this integration of prior knowledge and new memories, using computational modeling to make predictions that are tested with fMRI and non-invasive brain stimulation techniques (TMS).
Read the RFAs:
- BRAIN Initiative Advanced Postdoctoral Career Transition Award to Promote Diversity (K99/R00 Independent Clinical Trial Not Allowed)
- BRAIN Initiative Advanced Postdoctoral Career Transition Award to Promote Diversity (K99/R00 Independent Clinical Trial Required)
For more information about the program: