About this blog
Hi! I’m Christina Poulin, a rising senior from Carmel, Indiana, at Albion College, Michigan. I am a Psychology Major with a Neuroscience concentration and a member of the Prentiss M. Brown Honors Institute.
After returning from my Fall 2007 semester studying at the University of Aberdeen, Scotland, I began my independent research in cognitive psychology. While studying in Scotland, I took an upper-level course in Human Neuropsychology and I was fascinated with the neuroscience applications into understanding language and cognition. Since neuroscience is such a broad and exploding research field, I did not know what research niche I fit into until I got back from Scotland. Presently, most of my research interests are concerned with language acquisition, problem solving, and language applications such as reading comprehension. This upcoming fall, I will be applying to doctoral programs in cognitive neuroscience, cognitive psychology, and the cognitive sciences where there is an emphasis in language research.
This summer at Albion, I was given a FURSCA grant to do my cognitive research. My research advisor is Dr. Mareike Wieth, the psychology department’s cognitive expert. She is interested in higher-order mental processes such as decision-making and problem solving as well as motivation. My summer project reflects a combination of both of our research interests as I want to see what makes people “tick” when they’re solving problems.
This blog will cover all different aspects of my research this summer. In addition, I will be discussing my experiences of what it is like applying to graduate programs in psychology and neuroscience and the beginnings of creating my honors thesis. Also, you will get to see what I am up to in my free time including yoga and strolling through the grounds of Albion’s Whitehouse Nature Center.