Education

December 2003
Ph.D., Psychobiology
The Pennsylvania State University
Dissertation: Visual-vestibular adaptation: a new treatment for motion sickness

August 2001
M.S., Psychology
The Pennsylvania State University
Thesis: The contributions of expectations to motion sickness symptoms and gastric activity

May 1996
B.A., Psychology
B.S., Mathematics, Secondary Education
Lock Haven University

Instructor

• Psychology 181: Introduction to Psychology (in class and online)
• Introduction to Psychology Learning Community
• Psychology 350: Research Design and Data Analysis
• Psychology 450: Advanced Research Design and Data Analysis
• Psychology 451: Multivariate Research Design and Data Analysis
• Psychology 462/862: Motivation and Emotion
• Psychology 373: Biological Bases of Behavior
• Psychology 471/871: Human Sexuality
• Psychology 460/860: Human Memory

Teaching awards

• Nominated, "Teacher of the Year" by the students of the Psi Chi Psychology Honors Fraternity and Undergraduate Psychology Organization (UPO), May 2016
• Winner, "Outstanding Educator of the Year" by the Association of Students at UNL, April 2013
• Scholarship Recipient, Summer Institute of Online Teaching Course Development, May 2010
• Winner, "Outstanding Educator" by the Association of Parents at UNL, April 2009, 2010, 2015, 2016
• Nominated, "Outstanding Educator of the Year" by the Association of Students at UNL, April 2005
• Nominated, "Teacher of the Year" by the University of New England, College of Arts and Sciences Student Body

Research Focus

The Role of Previous Beliefs on the Interpretation of a Novel Stimulus: Master’s Thesis.
The effect of high vs. low expectation of developing nausea and motion sickness on the experience of nausea and motion sickness in either a noxious or benign environment.

Adapting to the illusion of self-motion: A paradigm for rehabilitating individuals suffering from motion sickness: Doctoral Thesis.
The goal is to use findings from this lab suggesting that, after repeated exposure to the optokinetic drum, participants gain the ability to adapt to the illusion of self-motion and to apply them to individuals suffering from motion sickness in order to diminish the frequency and severity of motion sickness in other inducing stimuli (e.g., automobiles, airplanes, boats, amusement park rides).

Expectation and Nausea:
Creating expectation of motion sickness questionnaire that predicts motion sickness based on an individual’s perceived expectancy of becoming sick when exposed to provocative stimuli.

The Detection of Deception:
The role of composite or skin-conductance biofeedback in increasing the reliability of control-question polygraph tests.

The Effects of Protein Supplementation and BCAA absorption on the Experience of Vection and Exercise-Induced Motion Sickness:
The goal is to determine the mechanism underlying findings that protein supplementation buffers individuals subjected to nausea challenge from experiencing the side-effect; i.e., is it the consistency of the protein (solid or liquid) or the absorption of BCAAs into the bloodstream (hydrolyzed vs. intact proteins).