Saint Michael's College

Title: Assistant Professor of Psychology

Education: B.A. University of California, San Diego; M.A., Ph.D. University of California, Santa Barbara

Areas of Expertise/Research Interests: Spatial cognition and human navigation

Testimonial: At Saint Michael's, the class sizes allow me to tailor the class to the particular group and spend a substantial amount of time discussing projects with each student on a daily basis.

What is your favorite class to teach, and why? I teach a course called Spatial Perception and Cognition. This class is primarily based on discussing previous research and designing and conducting new experiments to build on previous work. We get to tackle problems that have never been addressed before and make new discoveries. This is immensely rewarding for my students and myself.

What kinds of unique opportunities are available to students in your classes or department? Students are able to use my state of the art immersive virtual reality (VR) lab. The immersive VR system allows users to experience 3D environmental simulations through a Head Mounted Display, and the system also incorporates head orientation and body tracking. Movement is natural and the sense of being inside another world compelling. Such systems are typically found only in larger research institutions.

Favorite quote: "Steal a little and they thow you in jail. Steal a lot and they make you king." - Bob Dylan