Taylor Schmitz

Man of Action

Education:

• BS with honors, Psychology, University of Wisconsin—Madison (Summer 2002)
• PhD, University of Toronto (Fall 2006—) Collaborative Program in Neuroscience (Psychology)

Additional experience:

I held a research specialist position in Dr. Sterling Johnson’s neuroimaging and neuropsychology laboratory at the University of Wisconsin—Madison Department of Medicine (Fall 2002—Spring 2006). I assisted in Dr. Johnson’s multidisciplinary lab with data collection and analysis for two longitudinal functional/quantitative magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) studies, one focusing on neural recover/plasticity after traumatic brain injury, and the other on neural bases of memory decline in healthy and pathological aging (e.g. mild cognitive impairment, Alzheimer’s Disease).

Attention and Emotion

Current research questions include:

(1a) What are the neural correlates of our capacity to maintain both task-relevant and irrelevant (i.e. ignored) information over time?
(1b) Are discrete systems engaged by shifts in the attribution of relevance when task demands change?
(2) How are these systems affected by normative ageing?
(3) How are these systems influenced by emotional states?

Trivedi MA, Schmitz TW, Ries ML, Hess TM, Fitzgerald ME, Atwood CS, Rowley HA, Asthana S, Sager MA, Johnson SC (2007) fMRI activation during episodic encoding and metacognitive appraisal across the lifespan: Risk factors for Alzheimer's disease. Neuropsychologia. 2007 Dec 17 [Epub ahead of print]