Sample Biographies
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Robert A. Bjork Wendy Castleman Robert Hoffman Mark McDaniel Gregory E. Monaco |
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Helga Noice Victoria Romero Ann Speed Gordon Willis Dan Wright |
Mark McDaniel
Professional Biography: Mark McDaniel is currently a Professor of Psychology, with a joint appointment in Education, at Washington University in St. Louis. He received his Ph.D. from the University of Colorado in 1980 (in experimental psychology). He has developed a number of research interests in the general area of human learning, with his current projects focusing on: (1) Prospective memory and influences of aging; (2) Encoding and retrieval processes in episodic memory and applications to educational contexts; and (3) Aging and memory. To facilitate dissemination of research literatures pertinent to the challenges of aging and memory, he recently coauthored a comprehensive review of the literature on the effectiveness of “brain-specific” nutrients for forestalling memory loss with aging. Most recently, with Gilles Einstein, he coauthored a book published by Yale University Press entitled Memory Fitness: A Guide for Successful Aging (2004) and a book published by Sage Press entitled Prospective Memory: An Overview and Synthesis of an Emerging Field (2007).Personal Statement: The most engaging aspect of every one of my research interests is blending theoretical and applied considerations. My interests in prospective memory nicely illustrate the advantages of blending applied and basic work. From an applied perspective, prospective memory is tightly intertwined with the fabric of our daily lives. Further prospective memory is likely to be especially critical for older adults who must remember to turn off the oven after cooking, show up for doctors’ appointments, take medication, and pay bills in order to be able to live independently. From a theoretical perspective, prospective memory presumably declines substantially with age. The practical importance of prospective memory and the theoretical assumptions regarding its decline with age, serve as strong motivation for investigating prospective memory in the laboratory. In doing so, we have found that some prospective memory tasks do not show age-related declines. These findings in turn have stimulated our work on developing new theories of prospective memory and on applying these theories to anticipate when older adults will and will not show prospective memory difficulties.
In a similar vein, I have found that my research in memory and learning is most engaging when it is situated in contexts relevant to education. In graduate school, I was involved for a summer helping the Air Force develop individualized instructional delivery systems for training personnel. So, I have had a long and persistent interest in how basic memory research might inform and be translated into improving learning outside of the memory laboratory. Consideration of the kinds of materials and retention intervals of importance in education has guided my choice of laboratory paradigms in studying memory and concept formation. Subsequently, results from my laboratory studies help guide recommendations that I’ve been able to assemble to assist students in learning in the classroom. These recommendations in turn become the basis for applied experiments that I conduct in the classroom. I don’t think anything could be more interesting or challenging than this interplay between laboratory research, theory, and applied issues.
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