QUESTIONS, QUESTIONS, QUESTIONS

All of the work we do has the goal of answering unknowns about learning and development. Questions are the best! They keep us happy, curious, honest, thoughtful, and focused. They also bring us to new, fun and unexpected places. Our lab is motivated to answer questions about learning and use whatever tool (behavioral or neuroscientific) that makes progress toward answering them. We understand that some questions are huge and won’t have answers for a long time. Others questions are small and make progress toward answering the larger questions. Everyone in the lab is encouraged to develop their own questions and become experts in them, pursuing them to the very edges of what is possible.

USE THE BEST TOOLS, EVEN WHEN IT'S HARD

We strive to do the best science possible. This means using the best tools to answer our questions. Sometimes this means using old tools (audio recordings of children and parents talking, paper and pencil tasks in the classroom) and very often this means using the newest and coolest tools (multivariatate, machine learning and graph theory-based analysis techniques for brain-imaging and behavioral data). We don’t avoid new tools because they are hard or use new tools simply because they are cool and exciting. We use the best tool. This means learning and changing, not pretending to understand things, and collaborating and learning from others!

HAVE FUN, SHARE, & LEARN

The most important thing is to have fun and do the best science possible. It’s important to share our research findings and any of the tools we develop. There is nothing to gain by not sharing things. Doing good science and sharing methods and tools furthers scientific discovery and helps us all get answers to questions and learn things we didn’t know before. It’s most important for us to have fun, to talk about ideas and to share our findings!

THINK

We try to always remember to think. This is harder than it sounds when we are surrounded by deadlines and need to get things done. We get to think in this crazy job – such an awesome and important luxury!