Contact Information
e.counterman@berkeley.edu
Research Interests
I'm particularly interested in the neural bases of human visual perception and memory, and I've been exploring the intersection between those areas in a number of visual working memory studies since beginning my work in the Tong lab in the summer of 2010. I'm now very happy to be conducting related research in the UC Berkeley Helen Wills Neuroscience Institute graduate program!
Quick Bio
I grew up in a small town near Albany, NY, where I developed my love for science, music, the outdoors, and community service. In 2006, I moved to the almost-as-small town of South Hadley, MA, where I completed my BA in Neuroscience and Behavior in May 2010. In the summer of 2008, I worked with Dr. Mark Changizi at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute on a study of how language has evolved to mimic the sound patterns of natural events. The next summer, I worked in the Gabrieli lab of the MIT Brain and Cognitive Sciences department on an fMRI study of the development of source memory from childhood to adulthood. During my senior year at Mount Holyoke, I completed an honors thesis, advised by Dr. Joseph Cohen, in which I investigated the involvement of the dorsal and ventral streams of visual processing in precision grasping and susceptibility to visual illusions. Then, in my two years as a research assistant in the Tong lab, I learned a great deal about fMRI study design, data collection, preprocessing, and analysis in studies of human visual perception and visual working memory. I am now a graduate student in the Helen Wills Neuroscience program at UC Berkeley, where I am conducting research rotations in the D'Esposito, Jagust, and Silver labs.