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NPR Lab
After receiving his PhD in experimental psychology from Georgia Tech, Dr. Rypma did postdoctoral work focusing on neural imaging at Stanford and the University of Pennsylvania. He also brings his expertise in fMRI (functional magnetic resonance imaging) to UT Southwestern Medical Center (UTSW), and he has been appointed by Dean Bert Moore as the faculty liaison between UT Dallas and UTSW. Dr. Rypma came to the Center from Rutgers University. “I had never imagined myself living in Dallas, Texas, but once I came here and saw all the resources being committed to neuroscience, I knew it was a good place for me,” he says. “Neuroscience isn’t something you can do in a small way. It has to be done big, and it has to be done right, so I was really impressed with Center for Brain Health, UT Dallas, and UTSW.” Dr. Rypma’s research is aimed at exploring the cognitive and neurobiological mechanisms of human memory and how those mechanisms are affected by aging and disease. He uses functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to observe the activity of younger and older adults as they perform cognitive tasks. fMRI is still a relatively new method for studying brain activity and much work remains to be done to perfect it, especially when comparing different populations like young and old. Thus, one focus of Dr. Rypma’s work has been the development of fMRI experimental methods to facilitate cross-population comparisons of neural activity. He has published extensively cognitive and neurobiological mechanisms of human memory, including high-profile publications in Proceedings of the National Academy of Science, Nature Neuroscience, Cortex, and Neuroimage. Click here for his Biographical Sketch.
Dr. Ilana J. Bennett is currently a Postdoctoral Research Fellow in Dr. Bart Rypmas lab at the Center for Brain Health and the School of Behavioral and Brain Sciences at the University of Texas at Dallas and at the Department of Psychiatry at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center. She received a PhD in Psychology with a concentration in Lifespan Cognitive Neuroscience from Georgetown University in 2009. For the past 8 years, her research has focused on cognitive and neurobiological changes associated with healthy aging with an emphasis on understanding the neural mechanisms underlying age-related differences in learning and memory.
Dr. Joanna Hutchison is currently working as a Postdoctoral
Research Fellow with Dr. Bart Rypma at the Center for BrainHealth
and the School of Behavioral and Brain Sciences at the University
of Texas at Dallas and at the Department of Psychiatry at
the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center.
Amanda Colby, Ph.D. Dr. Colby completed a B.S. in Biology Composite Teaching at Brigham Young University with a minor in English. Following, she attended Baylor University were she received her M.A. and Ph.D. in Neuroscience with a minor in Assessment. Dr. Colby's research passion has always been learning and memory. Particularly, she is interested in the physiology of memory and individual differences.
Meghana Karnik-Henry Dr. Meghana Karnik-Henry is currently a Postdoctoral Research
Fellow working with Dr. Bart Rypma at the Center for Brain
Health and the School of Behavioral and Brain Sciences at
the University of Texas at Dallas. In 2009, she completed
her Doctorate in Neuroscience from Washington University in
Saint Louis. Prior to that, she graduated from Rutgers, The
State University of New Jersey with a BA in Cell Biology and
Neuroscience. Her background is in functional neuroanatomy
and cognitive neuroscience. In graduate school, Dr. Karnik-Henry
gained experience in processing structural magnetic resonance
imaging data and she has delineated and mapped several structures
of the medial temporal lobe in healthy control subjects, schizophrenia
patients and their unaffected younger siblings. Her doctoral
dissertation involved identifying differences in medial temporal
structure across the above four groups, and relating her structural
findings to cognitive data collected from these same subjects.
Traci Sandoval graduated University of Texas
at Dallas, Bachelor of Arts in Psychology, Fall 2008. Previous
research experience includes the University of Texas at Dallas
Thinklab, studying cognition in children and research in positive
psychology and mindfulness. She hopes to continue her career
by pursuing more education in Experimental Psychology.
Andrew Hillis received his B.S. in Psychology and Political Science in Spring 2007 from Texas Christian University. While completing his undergraduate degree he spent a year gaining experience as a research assistant in the Perceptual Dynamics Laboratory within the Department of Psychology at Texas Christian University. Andrew has since been with the NeuroPsychometric Research imaging lab at the University of Texas at Dallas Center for BrainHealth for over a year gaining experience in the field of neuroimaging. |
