Nikki 101
So, what am I doing in Nashville anyway?
I don't know if I ever actually explained it, but here it is in convenient easy-to-access form. Also, I'm bored and don't want to do real work. :P
For the last year and a half of my undergrad at UCI I was at Emily Grossman's lab (the Visual Perception and Neuroscience Lab, clicky,, designed by yours truly). I had one project that grew into three experiments, for which I'm finalizing the analysis and hopefully soon writing a manuscript.
I had some research experience, presented a poster at a Vision conference and was well received, and knew some other very good UCI scientists (who, for whatever reason, liked me too). I could have gone into grad school straight away. But I elected to not even take the GRE exams because I was set on taking a year or two off.
For my year off I decided to do more research. I'll probably continue my schooling, but I don't know if I want a PhD in Cognitive Neuroscience, or a business degree, or a law degree. Taking a year off but doing research is a great resume builder that all three of these paths will like.
So, I'm here at Vanderbilt University! Through a stroke of luck and fate I'm working with Adriane Seiffert and the Perception, Attention, and Control Lab (PAC Lab), who is every bit as intelligent and straightforward and nice as my previous advisor. I've heard nothing but high praise of her as both a scientist and principal investigator, and the vision department here is renowned. I'm a Research Assistant (RA), which means I'm kind of the lab gopher. I'll run subjects, run analyses, be a third brain on a project, all that good stuff, while still being mostly able to leave work at work (unlike Real Grad School).
At the VPNL I had a neuroimaging project studying biological motion - the unique motion that we are instantly able to recognize as animate or alive. I also learned a lot about low-level vision. Here, the PAC lab studies higher-level aspects of vision, such as how many objects we can keep track of at once and what affects our ability to track these items.
I'll be here for a year, possibly two.
After that, who knows?
I don't know if I ever actually explained it, but here it is in convenient easy-to-access form. Also, I'm bored and don't want to do real work. :P
For the last year and a half of my undergrad at UCI I was at Emily Grossman's lab (the Visual Perception and Neuroscience Lab, clicky,, designed by yours truly). I had one project that grew into three experiments, for which I'm finalizing the analysis and hopefully soon writing a manuscript.
I had some research experience, presented a poster at a Vision conference and was well received, and knew some other very good UCI scientists (who, for whatever reason, liked me too). I could have gone into grad school straight away. But I elected to not even take the GRE exams because I was set on taking a year or two off.
For my year off I decided to do more research. I'll probably continue my schooling, but I don't know if I want a PhD in Cognitive Neuroscience, or a business degree, or a law degree. Taking a year off but doing research is a great resume builder that all three of these paths will like.
So, I'm here at Vanderbilt University! Through a stroke of luck and fate I'm working with Adriane Seiffert and the Perception, Attention, and Control Lab (PAC Lab), who is every bit as intelligent and straightforward and nice as my previous advisor. I've heard nothing but high praise of her as both a scientist and principal investigator, and the vision department here is renowned. I'm a Research Assistant (RA), which means I'm kind of the lab gopher. I'll run subjects, run analyses, be a third brain on a project, all that good stuff, while still being mostly able to leave work at work (unlike Real Grad School).
At the VPNL I had a neuroimaging project studying biological motion - the unique motion that we are instantly able to recognize as animate or alive. I also learned a lot about low-level vision. Here, the PAC lab studies higher-level aspects of vision, such as how many objects we can keep track of at once and what affects our ability to track these items.
I'll be here for a year, possibly two.
After that, who knows?