Principal Investigator
Kelly S. Giovanello, Ph.D. | Google Scholar
kgio@unc.edu
Kelly was born and raised in Carver, Massachusetts. She completed her BS degree in Biology at Stonehill College (1995), MS degree in Neuroscience at Brandeis University (1996), and Ph.D. in Neuroscience at Boston University (2003). She spent three years as a postdoctoral fellow at Harvard University and the Martinos Center for Biomedical Imaging (2003-2006). In 2006 she became a faculty member at UNC Chapel Hill in the Department of Psychology and Neuroscience and started the Cognitive Neuroscience of Memory Laboratory. She is now a tenured Professor in the Department and serves as the Associate Director of the Biomedical Research Imaging Center at UNC Chapel Hill. Her research interests center on understanding the cognitive processes and neural mechanisms that give rise to human memory, and how mnemonic processes change across the adult lifespan. In her free time, Kelly enjoys spending time with her husband and two children, reading fiction series, and gardening.
Graduate Students
Min Sung Seo | CV |
msungseo@unc.edu
Min Sung is a 5th-year doctoral student born and raised in Seoul, South Korea. He completed his B.S. in Psychology with a concentration in Neuroscience at Pennsylvania State University. Min Sung’s research focuses on the effects of aging on various aspects of episodic memory at both the behavioral and neural levels. Currently, he studies the impact of prediction error on subsequent memory and how aging influences this relationship. In his free time, Min Sung enjoys playing golf and tennis, and cooking.
Jennifer Fiedler
jfiedler@unc.edu
Jenny was born and raised in Northern Virginia and completed her B.S. in Psychology at the College of William & Mary. At William & Mary, she worked in an Autobiographical memory lab on research projects investigating the effects of doodling on mind-wandering and later memory retrieval and completed her honors thesis on the self-reference effect. After graduation, she worked as a Clinical Research Coordinator at the A.A. Martinos Center for Biomedical Imaging in Boston, where she used several neuroimaging techniques to evaluate the neural mechanisms behind attention and auditory working memory maintenance. Jenny is currently a 3rd year doctoral student in Cognitive Psychology at UNC-Chapel Hill, studying episodic memory updating with an emphasis on contextual reinstatement and subjective awareness of change. In her free time, Jenny enjoys rock climbing, hiking, and watching Premier League soccer.
Lindsay Howard
lchowar@unc.edu
Lindsay was born and raised in Maryland and completed her B.A. in Psychology at Gettysburg College. At Gettysburg College, she worked in a socio-emotional lab studying children’s’ sense of belonging and racial bias. She completed her behavioral neuroscience capstone on the effects of ketamine on anxiety in rats. After graduating, she worked in the Behavioral Pharmacology Research Unit at Johns Hopkins University where she studied the pharmacokinetics as well as the cognitive effects associated with cannabis use. Through this work, she became interested in cognition and memory and pursued a coordinator position at the Division of Psychiatric Neuroimaging at Johns Hopkins University. During her time in the memory lab, she conducted various neuropsychological assessments on patients diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease, Mild Cognitive Impairment, and Obsessive Compulsive Disorder. In addition, she collected functional magnetic resonance imaging data while patients completed a pattern separation task. Lindsay is currently a 1st year doctoral student in Cognitive Psychology at UNC-Chapel Hill, where she aims to study the effects of confirmation bias and cognitive dissonance on the relational memory of healthy young adults. In her free time, Lindsay likes to go on runs, try different cuisines, and watch movies.
Research Assistants
Qingyang (Claire) Sun
Claire was born and raised in Jinan, China. She is now a junior at UNC-Chapel Hill majoring in Psychology and Neuroscience with a minor in Music. Claire’s interested research area includes cognitive psychology such as learning and memory, CPTSD, and studies with equipment measuring brain activities. In the Cognitive Neuroscience of Memory Lab, she mainly helps to recruit participants and run experiment sessions for context reactivation of memory study. In her free time, she enjoys playing music, cooking, and traveling.
Xiangling Chen
Xiangling is an undergrad in the class of 2027. Her favorite things include volcanoes, and she loves watching documentaries about nature and the environment. Le Rouge et le Noir – L’Opéra is her favorite musical, she loves all the songs. Her current research interest is in how short-term memory is consolidated and what environmental factors can influence memory retrieval.
Tianyu Gu
Tianyu was born and raised in Jiangsu, China. She came to the United States in 2021. After spending two years at Brandeis University, She transferred to UNC-Chapel Hill in 2023. Currently, Tianyu is a senior majoring in Psychology with a minor in Neuroscience. She is interested in cognitive and clinical psychology research. In the Cognitive Neuroscience of Memory Lab, she helps run experiments and related tasks for aging and memory. Tianyu enjoys cooking, traveling, hanging out with friends, and watching table tennis games.
Lab Alumni
Aslihan Imamoglu, Ph.D.
Stephanie Langella, Ph.D.
Felipe De Brigard, Ph.D.
Ilana Dew, Ph.D.
Jaclyn Hennessey Ford, Ph.D.
Chris Foster, Ph.D.
So-Yeon Kim, Ph.D.
Will Moore, Ph.D.
Weichun Wang, Ph.D.
Eleanna Varangis, Ph.D.
A. Leslie Vaughan, Ph.D.
Collaborators
Wei-Tang Chang, Ph.D.
weitang_chang@med.unc.edu
Aysenil Belger, Ph.D.
abelger@med.unc.edu
Eran Dayan, Ph.D.
eran_dayan@med.unc.edu
Elizabeth A. Kensinger, Ph.D.
elizabeth.kensinger.1@bc.edu
Weili Lin, Ph.D.
weili_lin@med.unc.edu
Christopher Wahlheim, Ph.D.
cnwahlhe@uncg.edu
Hongtu Zhu, Ph.D.
hzhu@bios.unc.edu
Mieke Verfaellie, Ph.D.
verf@bu.edu
Kathleen Welsh-Bohmer, Ph.D.
kathleen.welshbohmer@duke.edu
Roberto Cabeza, Ph.D.
cabeza@duke.edu
Nicole Long, Ph.D.
niclong@virginia.edu
Lab Pets
Merlin & Momo
Lab Pet Alumni
Goliath