The mission of the lab is broad—We explore cognitive and neural mechanisms of learning, memory, and motivation. We apply those insights to support effective learning & behavior change across contexts: 🫀 health, 🌎 climate change, and 📚 education. I can't imagine a better team to build these bridges!
Lorena Nunes: Lab Manager. Lorena (she/her) earned a B.S. in Psychological Sciences and MS in Neuroscience at Worcester Polytechnic Institute. Her interests focus on health psychology and effects of stress on biopsychosocial health. She also works in the SWEL Lab at Rice w/ @erinstanden.bsky.social.
Summer (Tiange) Lu: PhD student. Summer (she/her) earned her B.S. in Neurobiology from UC Irvine, where she did research w/ @eitans.bsky.social. She is interested in the neural mechanisms of memory transformation, especially how sleep, emotion, & prior knowledge influence consolidation and updating.
Rachael Veldman: PhD student. Rachael (she/her) earned her B.A. in Psychology from the University of St. Thomas and previously worked as a research assistant and lab manager in Dr. Bryan Denny’s T-SCAN Lab at Rice. She is interested in behavior change interventions, especially for climate change.
I'm thrilled to introduce the inaugural cohort of my lab, the Learning & Behavior Change Lab at Rice!! 🤩 I'm so excited to have the opportunity to work with these stellar budding scientists. As a team, we'll bridge basic cognitive neuroscience with real-world applications. 🧵
www.sinclairlab-rice.com
Grant Witness is hiring! We're seeking a full-time data scientist to join our team building data resources to support journalism, litigation, and activism protecting science, public health, and the rule of law. grant-witness.us/apply.html #rstats
‼️ We are on track for a staggering 98% reduction in posted NIH funding opportunities this year relative to historical norms. Political review and red tape are blocking approval of funding announcements across the board. See Elizabeth Ginexi’s analysis:
elizabethginexi.substack.com/p/i-wrote-re...
Thanks for this important analysis. Did you find confirmation that 50% of submitted apps were discussed, or is that an assumption based on prior years? I ask because a colleague recently mentioned that she was on an NIH study section last year and they only discussed 30% instead of the usual 50%
Abruptly switching to multiyear funding means the same annual budget gets allocated to far fewer projects, making it even harder to get grants. Congress may have shot down the drastic budget cuts proposed by the White House, but the NIH is finding other ways to award fewer grants. Fight’s not over.
Featuring @erinmorrow.bsky.social, @snapcoalition.bsky.social, and Bradley Voytek!
#CNS2026 Join our workshop TODAY and bring a free “Brain Box” lunch from the foyer! In the face of threats to science funding + higher ed, we share exciting science advocacy and communication efforts. We hope it will be actionable and energizing despite the challenges we face. @cnsmtg.bsky.social
Board 17 is a hidden gem in the room where the coffee and food is— look behind the exhibitor row on the right!
#CNS2026 I’m presenting at board C17 in the poster session today (w/ ice cream social!) from 5-7 PM! Come chat about how the affective framing of info shapes decision making and memory, and harnessing these insights to support engagement with news about climate change + health. @cnsmtg.bsky.social
Many thanks to cofounder @asinclair.bsky.social & the entire SCIMaP team (scienceimpacts.org) for collaborative work to confront federal cuts to science and medical research; together, our effort was recognized as a 2025 Public Health Hero in @thenation.com.
a 🧵
www.thenation.com/article/soci...
🚨📣 We’re recruiting a postdoc! 📣🚨
Are you curious about how the environments in which people spend time influence their health? Are you motivated by research that promotes climate action, resilience, and wellbeing?
Read more and apply here: www.asc.upenn.edu/node/5905
Check out our new preprint, led by @dcosme.bsky.social, highlighting evidence-based strategies to motivate youth to vote!
The Sinclair Lab website won an award for Best Research Lab or Group Website! Check out the website and the other winners here:
theacademicdesigner.com/2025/winners...
www.sinclairlab-rice.com
🗳️📣Happy election day!! What motivates young people to vote?
In a new preprint, we share key findings from our collaboration with undergraduate students where we developed and tested a theory-guided GOTV messaging campaign doi.org/10.31234/osf... (1/5)
Great talk from @asinclair.bsky.social! Definitely check it out if you missed it.
I’ll be presenting in the MindCORE seminar this Friday! Come hear about exciting empirical insights from our SCIMaP studies, and opportunities to build resilience and engage in advocacy.
New environmental psychology jobs: 1 full professor, 2 postdocs:
Lüneburg, Germany is hiring a Full Professor in “Psychology, in particular Behavior Change and Sustainability Transformation”. www.leuphana.de/en/universit...
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I’ve been thinking of Trump’s government as the Regime of Type One Error.
In statistics, Type 1 error is when you get a false positive, or claim to have found a relationship that isn’t really real. It’s like convicting someone who is actually innocent, for example.
Amidst a government shutdown in which the White House has proposed slashing federal support of science by billions of dollars, our #SCIMaP team continues to assess the impact of research cuts on communities nationwide.
Learn more about our efforts: scienceimpacts.org
With more to come...
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I will be recruiting 🌟PhD students🌟 for my newish lab! If you're interested in learning & memory mechanisms applied to individual, interactive & collective behavior using computational modeling, real-world experiments and fMRI, email me! RTs much appreciated 🙏 rouhanilab.com
Picture of Dr. Allie Sinclair
Coming up on October 28! Dr. Allie Sinclair @asinclair.bsky.social (UPenn/Rice) will be presenting in @motcogmeet.bsky.social series: "Motivational States Bias Choices, Information Consumption, and Memory" 1/
Penn has launched a new website to share climate insights, available to PennKey holders. Our post-doc @asinclair.bsky.social and Emily shared their first insight here: climateinsights.upenn.edu/insights/wha...
University of Pennsylvania community: Stand up and speak out against Trump's compact. Sign and share this petition urging Penn's leaders to uphold our values, independence, and integrity:
actionnetwork.org/petitions/ju...
Attending #SNE2025? Come learn about how we applied insights from cognitive psych/neuro to inform policy-relevant decision making to address the current science funding crisis!
I’ll be presenting a poster this afternoon from 2:45-4 PM, board #48 in the Skyline Foyer! @socforneuroecon.bsky.social
đź“Ł Job opportunity: the SCIMaP team is hiring a Communication + Media Outreach specialist to support our work on mapping and communicating the impact of science funding cuts!
Letters on Wednesday were going out to solicit agreement and feedback from Vanderbilt University, Dartmouth College, the University of Pennsylvania, the University of Southern California, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the University of Texas, the University of Arizona, Brown University and the University of Virginia, according to an administration official.
The government is officially shut down, but the Trump administration is trying to get nine selective colleges to agree to major controls on their operations in order to get a leg up on federal funding.
www.wsj.com/us-news/educ...
