Candice Koolhaas

In the Fall of 2023, I began my studies in the Brain and Developmental Sciences PhD program at the University of Massachusetts, Boston. I work with Dr. Zsuzsa Kaldy and Dr. Erik Blaser studying cognitive development from infancy to adults in the Early Minds Lab and am grateful to be funded by the National Defense Science and Engineering Graduate (NDSEG) fellowship.

I am interested in cognitive effort and how we use working memory in naturalistic settings. I use pupillometry and eye-tracking in my research to investigate when and why kids and adults decide to use memory versus rely on information in-the-world.

At Eastern Connecticut State University, I received my B.S. in psychology with a concentration in cognitive neuroscience. I worked with Dr. Lyndsey Lanagan-Leitzel studying visual attention in lifeguards and with Dr. Alita Cousins studying human mating behavior using pupillometry.