Explorations in Research

Explorations in Research 2024

The Office of Experiential Learning and Immersion Vanderbilt (EL&IV) welcomes you to the Explorations in Research, convening researchers from all disciplines for an evening of networking and discovery.

Join us on Thursday, February 22 from 4:00 to 6:00 p.m. CT.

The faculty and staff registration form for Explorations in Research 2024 has closed. If you would still like to present your research and research opportunities, please contact the Office of Experiential Learning and Immersion Vanderbilt at experiential.learning@vanderbilt.edu.

Agenda - Thursday, February 22

4:00 p.m. - Introduction & Keynote Speaker

4:15 p.m. - Lightning Round Speakers

4:30 p.m. - Faculty & Student Networking Session

6:00 p.m. - Event concludes

Keynote Speaker

Timothy P. McNamara, Ph.D.

Interim Dean of the College of Arts and Science

Gertrude Conaway Vanderbilt Chair in the Social and Natural Sciences

Professor, Department of Psychology

Timothy P. McNamara's research investigates human memory, cognition, and decision making, with a particular focus on spatial processing. His research has investigated the metric structure of spatial memory, the spatial reference systems used in memory to represent the locations of objects in the environment, and how people update representations of their own location and orientation during locomotion. Current experiments are examining how people use spatial cues to location and orientation (e.g., landmarks in the environment and body-based cues, such as vestibular, proprioceptive, and efference-copy information) during navigation to estimate their position and the locations of goals. These studies use Bayesian decision theory as a theoretical framework for examining the complex sensory-perceptual and decision processes involved in navigation.