Current Members
Dr. Hilary Miller-Goldwater
Hilary Miller-Goldwater is the Principal Investigator of the Learning and Cognition Lab. She started as an Assistant Professor in Psychology at Lawrence in Fall 2024. She received her Ph.D. from the University of Wisconsin in 2018 and was a postdoctoral Fellow at Emory University before joining the faculty at Lawrence. She is a cognitive developmental psychologist who specializes in studying STEM learning throughout development.
Kylie Kutschera
Kylie Kutschera is the lab manager and is a junior psychology major on the pre-medicine track. She aspires to go into a career in pediatrics and has experience working with neurotypical children, as well as with kids with Autism. Her main goal is to make a difference in the lives of others in any way that she can. She is excited to research children’s learning and cognition processes, as part of the initial step in making these processes and teaching regarding them more effective.
Emmett Bowman-Grubbs
Emmett Bowman-Grubbs is a senior at Lawrence University majoring in Psychology and Political Science. Within the field of Psychology, he is most drawn to working with children, specifically those with neurodevelopmental disorders. At this point, he is deciding whether or not he wants to go to graduate school for Psychology or pursue a JD and attempt to help people as a lawyer.
Giang Pham
Giang Pham is a junior at Lawrence University majoring in Psychology with a focus on Cognitive Science and Data Science. As an international student from Vietnam, she is interested in the intersection between Cognitive Science and Organizational Psychology, leveraging behavioral science and cognitive science to understand more about the cognitive process of how people make social judgments and decisions. She is also deeply passionate about leveraging data and artificial intelligence to better understand individuals’ minds and offer a personalized approach.
Maddie Santiago
Maddie Santiago is a senior at Lawrence University. She is currently majoring in Psychology with a minor in Health and Society. Her interests include researching the connection between mental health and the legal system, and her future plans involve earning a Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology with a forensic emphasis. She hopes to learn more about how cognitive processes change across child development and gain greater psychological experiences of working with youth.
Kimberli Mazariegos-Bautista
Kimberli Mazariegos-Bautista is a Junior at Lawrence University. She is a triple major in Psychology, Spanish, and Music who is mainly interested in psychology but also teaching and had the chance to volunteer at Edison Elementary School and Even Start. Kimberli want to continue exploring her interest in teaching kids, so she hope our findings in this lab will provide her with knowledge that will be helpful for her in the future. She is excited to be able to research and participate in this children’s and learning cognition lab.
Ellie VanKirk
Ellie VanKirk is a junior at Lawrence University majoring in Ethnic studies and minoring in Psychology and Spanish. She enjoy working with children and has experience teaching them Chinese lion dance and kung fu. Ellie plans on going to grad school and eventually I want to go into a career that will help others. She is still exploring her interests, but believes this lab will help her further develop her career goals and be a worthwhile experience. Ellie can’t wait to research and participate in this children’s learning and cognition lab.
Sofie Le
Sofie Le is currently a sophomore at Lawrence University, majoring in Psychology and Government. She is interested in politics, law, and how psychology intertwines with those matters. Sofie spend most of my time reading articles and researching how the minds of people work, specifically those of criminals and psychic patients. She is also intrigued in cognitive psychology as it unfolds a more profound insight into how our mind functions on
the basis. Sofie looks forward to working in the lab and gaining valuable experience for my PhD in Forensic Psychology.
Abbey Johnson
Abbey is a senior at Lawrence University majoring in Psychology with a minor in Cognitive Science. Her academic interests include developmental psychology and counseling psychology, and she plans to pursue a master’s degree in Counseling with the goal of becoming a licensed clinical counselor working with children and adolescents. She hopes that researching children’s learning and development will provide valuable knowledge and experience that Abbey can apply in my future counseling career.
Diego X. Cortez
Diego X. Cortez. is a Psychology and English: Creative Writing double major who hopes to become a professor and a published Poet. He enjoys playing the piano and running events. Diego hopes that by contributing to the Cognition and Learning Lab, he can more clearly define particular interests in Psychology.
Alumni
Sophia Schultz
Sophia Schultz was the lab manager for the Learning and Cognition Lab in the 2024-2025 school year. She graduated from Lawrence University in Spring 2025, majoring in Psychology and minoring in Neuroscience. She has previously held research roles in the Developmental Biopsychology Lab with Dr. Kristina Pagel-Martinez and the Kindness Project with Dr. Beth Haines, both at Lawrence. Currently, she is also the Neurodiversity Support Intern at the Fox Valley Unitarian Universalist Fellowship. Sophia aims to pursue a Ph.D. in school psychology to support the learning, mental health, and well-being of autistic youth across individual, group, and system levels.
Kwame Ankamah
Kwame Adjei Ankamah graduated in 2025 from Lawrence University, majoring in Psychology and minoring in Neuroscience. His interests include neurodegenerative diseases, STEM learning, and medicine. After Lawrence, his career goal is to gain an MD and MPH, and open state-of-the-art hospital clinics back home in Accra, Ghana. When he is not working on studies for the Learning and Cognition Lab, he will normally binge-watch television shows, play basketball, or watch either tennis, basketball, or European football.
Chloe Vande Hey
Chloe Vande Hey is a senior at Lawrence University, majoring in psychology and minoring in cognitive science, education studies, and dance. She currently works at Wisconsin Early Autism Project (WEAP) and she has an internship with the Kindness Project. Her interests revolve around understanding, studying, and working with neurodiverse children. In the future, she hopes to become a behavior analyst or a counselor and help neurodivergent children on a larger scale.