This seminar will begin at 4:00 pm at the Jerome L. Greene Science Center, room L8-084.

From robots to humans, the ability to learn from experience turns a rigid response system into a flexible, adaptive one. What are the neurobiological and cognitive mechanisms that allow everyday experiences to change the way we perceive, act and make decisions? Daphna Shohamy’s research explores how different parts of the brain work together to support learning, what this means for how memories are built, and what the consequences are for how we make decisions. 

Dr. Shohamy is a Professor of Psychology at Columbia University and a Principal Investigator at Columbia's Zuckerman Institute. She is also a member of the Kavli Institute for Brain Science. Dr. Shohamy’s research combines brain imaging in healthy humans with studies of patients with brain disorders to understand how our expectations and experiences change the way memories are formed and the consequences for health and disease.

Growing Up in Science is a seminar series initiated at NYU by Drs. Wei Ji Ma and Cristina Alberini in 2014. The speakers of this series do not talk about their science; they talk about the human side of becoming and being a scientist. They share their successes as well as the struggles, weaknesses, detours and failures.

This seminar is a joint effort of the Zuckerman Institute and the Columbia University Postdoctoral Society.

This seminar is part of the Growing Up in Science seminar series. For questions about this or future seminars, please contact series organizers Bianca Jones Marlin, PhD, Chiara Bertipaglia, PhD or Dr. Rainer Engelken.