Contact

Dawn A. Morales
471 University Parkway, Box 2
Aiken, SC 29801

dawnm@usca.edu
office  803-641-3422
fax     803-641-3726



I am an Assistant Professor of Psychology at the University of South Carolina at Aiken, in the Department of Psychology.   My research program addresses questions about cognition from a cognitive neuroscience perspective.  I am currently working on a project that will explain why older adults are more likely to perseverate (e.g., get stuck on) certain kinds of tasks more than others.  The results of this project will inform basic science models of executive control as well as guide better task design for older adults.    I am also collaborating with a colleague on a project where we try and understand the role intelligence may play in recovery from traumatic experiences. 

Previously, I was a Ruth L. Kirschstein-National Research Service Award postdoctoral fellow, where my research training focused on the overlap between memory and executive function in the context of cognitive aging.  My fellowship was tenured at the Center for Cognitive Neuroscience and the Department of Psychology at the University of Pennsylvania, in a lab that studies representation in, and the neural basis of, semantic memory, directed by Sharon Thompson-Schill.  I also collaborate closely with H. Branch Coslett, chief of the Cognitive Neurology Section at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania. 

My graduate training was in attention, focusing at the intersection of memory and perception, and took place in the Cognitive section at the University of California at San Diego, under the direction of Hal Pashler, with the capable help of Don MacLeod and John Wixted.