Susan M. Courtney

Associate Professor of Psychology, Johns Hopkins University

Ph.D. , M.S.E., Bioengineering, 1993 - University of Pennsylvania

B.A., Physics 1988 - Williams College

Post Docs

Leon Gmeindl received his PhD from the University of Michigan. At Hopkins, he plans to study the neural and psychological mechanisms of spatial working memory and attention.

Graduate Students

Christopher Ackerman is a PhD student in the Department of Neuroscience.

Caroline Montojo graduated with a B.A. in psychology from the University of California, Berkeley in 2005. Currently, she is pursuing two lines of research in the lab. One line focuses on the neural mechanisms involved in shifting selection among information represented perceptually and in working memory. Another line of research focuses on the effects of repeated performance of working memory tasks on patterns of brain activation in Multiple Sclerosis patients. Both behavioral and neuroimaging techniques will be used in her research.

Megan Walsh is interested in verbal and spatial working memory and the various effects of distraction and interference on these processes. Past research has focused on the effects of healthy aging on memory. In particular, particular projects have probed the question if difficulty is equated between healthy older adults and young adults, what activations in BOLD signal do we observe during verbal and spatial memory? What does this tell us about normal aging? About working memory and its neural substrates? She has also helped conduct projects at the University of Michigan focusing on the phenomenon of false working memories. Current research focuses on the object vs spatial working memory in patients with Multiple Sclerosis. Specifically, she uses functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) and Diffusion Tensor Imaging (DTI) to explore the effects of Multiple Sclerosis on cognition. If the axonal paths connecting different brain areas are damaged as a result of the disease process do we see deficits in performance? Are certain paths more affected than others? Is damage in tracts related to increases or decreases in the fMRI BOLD signal? Is this a result purely of white matter tracts, or is there a parallel phenomenon of focal or global gray matter atrophy? How can this data be combined to give us a greater understanding of working memory, brain organization, and the disease process?

Lab Manager

Derek Leben graduated with a B.A. from the University of California, Santa Cruz in 2006. He is currently a PhD student in the Department of Philosophy.

Research Assistants

Farai Chidavaenzi

Ben Kallman

Past Members

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