Megan H. Papesh

Ashley finished her MA at NMSU in Summer 2023. She is interested in social-cognitive neuroscience of inter-group dynamics, collaboration, and decision-making that has impacts on environmental sustainability. Despite an abundance of technological solutions, we are still experiencing human-caused environmental imperilment due to limitations of social organization. Ashley hopes to shed light on how our brain's social functions are supporting or jeopardizing global ecological stability so that better approaches can be developed.

Ashley loves teaching because it's a form of applying learning and memory research! What could be more fun than using science-backed techniques about learning to help a class of students learn about the science of learning?

For the future, she's interested in continuing research that sheds light on intergroup pro-sociality, especially as it applies to collaboratively solving problems of pollution and climate stability. That may take the form of post-doc work or possibly a tenure-track research position.

Outside of school, Ashley loves taking kids on nature hikes and is an advocate for mothers in STEM careers.

Does the threat of being at-odds with our community impact our ability to learn and remember facts on controversial topics, such as climate change? Ashley hopes to understand how retrieval-induced forgetting is affected by the need to belong in a community.