UMA Lab Principal Investigator
Sharda Umanath is an associate professor of psychology at Claremont McKenna College and the director of CMC’s Memory and Aging Lab (UMA Lab). She earned her Ph.D. in cognitive psychology from Duke University and did her postdoctoral work at Washington University in St. Louis. Her research focuses on how knowledge works in memory and explores related issues involving cognitive aging, autobiographical memory, collective memory, false memories, and education. She fell in love with the field of memory as an undergraduate at Washington University in St. Louis through her philosophy-neuroscience-psychology major. She was named an APS Rising Star in 2018 and recently received an Honorable Mention for the 2023 J. Don Read Early Career Award from the Society for Applied Research in Memory and Cognition (SARMAC). She was also awarded the Psychonomic Society’s 2023 Early Career Award as well as the Mentorship Award in Aging from the American Psychological Association’s Division 20 - Adult Development and Aging. Her currently ongoing project entitled “Stabilizing Accessibility of Prior Knowledge Across the Lifespan” is funded by the National Science Foundation’s Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) Program and a Research Experiences for Undergraduates (REU) supplement. She has also received funding for other projects through the James S. McDonnell Foundation, the Society for Applied Research in Memory and Cognition, the CMC Keck Center for International and Strategic Studies, and the CMC Lowe Institute of Political Economy. Outside the lab and classroom, Sharda spends her time painting, reading sci-fi/fantasy, playing overly complex board games, traveling, and hiking.
Lab Members
Lab Manager
May McCollum joined the Umanath Memory and Aging Lab as Lab Manager in August 2024. She graduated from UC Riverside with a B.S. in Neuroscience in June 2024. Her interest in cognitive science grew through her University Honors capstone project with the LANI Lab, where she developed a short-term associative memory task to investigate the relationship between short-term memory capacity and associative load. She is especially interested in researching memory, age-related pathological etiologies such as AD and other dementias, and how to best promote healthy cognitive aging. Outside of the lab, she enjoys reading, baking, and spending time with her pet bunny.
Jason Bao is a sophomore at CMC from Vancouver, Canada, planning to major in Psychology and Philosophy with a Data Science and Leadership Sequence. Within the lab, Jason has worked on a study that investigates stabilizing access to prior knowledge via learning strategies. After conducting numerous in-person experiments on older adults and collecting the necessary data over the spring, Jason spent the summer in the lab with two other members to complete the study. Through cleaning, analyzing, interpreting, writing, and presenting the data, Jason is grateful for gaining invaluable research experience and is excited to be published in the spring. Currently, he is working with Jackson Cate on extending the paradigm of the summer study to recently learned knowledge. Outside the lab, he enjoys internet subcultures, reading obscure one-shots, and cooking Chinese food now with a gas-stove kitchen.
Jackson Cate is a PhD student from The University of Waikato, New Zealand. He is visiting the Umanath Memory and Aging Lab for a year as a Fulbright Graduate Research Fellow. His research interests include autobiographical memory, collective memory, and how our environment shapes what and how we remember. Outside of the lab, he is a member of the SARMAC Student Caucus, plays cricket, and plays chess.
Sara Cawley is a junior at Scripps College from Chicago, Illinois, majoring in data science with a minor in psychology. She became interested in research with older adults after volunteering at a senior center in Claremont during a Clinical Geropsychology class. Outside the lab, she enjoys hiking, swimming, and trying new coffee shops.
Eleanor Farry is a senior at Pomona College from London, England, majoring in cognitive science and minoring in media studies. She enjoys unpacking the intricacies of memory, in particular, how misinformation interacts with prior knowledge. Outside of the lab, she works as a campus advocate providing support for survivors of interpersonal violence. She also loves watching weird movies and hiking with friends.
Ragini Mohan is a sophomore at CMC from Mumbai, India, and she plans to dual major in Economics and Psychological Science. She was inspired to work in the UMA Lab after taking Professor Umanath’s Cognitive Psychology class. She believes this opportunity will combine her love for working with older adults with her desire to learn and explore how formal research is conducted in a lab. Outside the lab, Ragini plays the piano, is part of the Sagehen Investment Club, and enjoys karaoke.
Meilan Uyeno is a sophomore at CMC from Bellevue, Washington, majoring in Biology & Psychological Science. She enjoys working with older adults, and she took Dr. Umanath’s Cognitive Psychology class during the fall of her freshman year. She is interested in memory research and learning more about cognitive aging. Outside of the lab, Meilan dives for the CMS swim & dive team, plays piano, and loves to explore the outdoors with her friends.
Wendy Zhang is a junior at Pomona College from Beijing, China. She is majoring in Cognitive Science and minoring in Linguistics. She is interested in how cognitive aging impacts memory and how language plays a role in those effects. Outside the lab, she is a photographer for The Student Life newspaper and enjoys watching movies.
Lab Alumni
Kathrine Whitman (2019) joined the UMA Lab as a lab manager from 2022-2024. She is currently pursuing her Ph.D. at Stanford University, where she hopes to utilize the cognitive aging knowledge she gained in the UMA lab to examine the unique psychological strengths of aging and well-being.
Claire Hou (2024) graduated with a bachelor’s degree in Psychological Science and a Data Science sequence.
Lexi Lee (2024) graduated from Claremont McKenna College as a Neuroscience major with honors. She is now back home in Minnesota for a year working as a Medical Scribe and Age Group Swim Coach while she applies to medical school. Her work positions have allowed her to gain further experience in the medical field and foster a love of swimming in young athletes.
Elyse Shan (2024) graduated from Scripps College with a bachelor’s degree in Psychology with a Spanish minor. She is currently doing a masters in Speech-Language Pathology at Vanderbilt University.
Aichatou Diaw (2024) graduated from Claremont McKenna college and is currently a UX Research Fellow for a startup company called LePal.ai.
Kara Hoover joined the Memory and Aging Lab as a lab manager after graduating from UCLA in 2019 with her bachelor’s in psychology. Kara is currently pursuing her Ph.D. in Cognitive Psychology at UCLA and hopes to use what she has learned in the UMA Lab to conduct research that will aid the aging population.
Madison McCue (2023) graduated as a Psychological Science major in 2023 and is currently a graduate student in a PsyD program for School Psychology at the University of Colorado Denver.
Joanna Hwang (2022) graduated with a bachelor’s degree in Psychological Science and a sequence in Leadership. She is currently working as an Operations Specialist at Pima Council on Aging. There, she assists with optimizing project workflows and maintains a resource directory to help older adults in need find local resources.
Dana Harris (2022) graduated with her bachelor’s in Computer Science. She is currently working as a software engineer at a cyber security company, Proofpoint, working to protect emails from malicious threats such as phish, spam, and malware.
Megan Itagaki (2022) graduated from Scripps College with her bachelor’s in psychology. In May 2023, she received her master’s in Human Development and Education from the Harvard Graduate School of Education. She currently works as an executive function coach, helping students develop organizational, time management, and study skills.
Emily Langston (2022) graduated from Scripps college in 2022. She majored in cognitive science and minored in science, technology, and society studies. She is currently working as a lab manager at the CREATE lab at Florida State University. There, she is involved in developing technology to cognitively and socially support older adults with mild cognitive impairment.
Maddie Valdez (2021) graduated from Claremont McKenna College as a neuroscience major with a focus in cognition. After graduating, she spent two years as a lab manager in the Cognition, Aging, and Brain Imaging Lab at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. She is currently pursuing her Ph.D. in Psychological and Brain Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis. She works alongside Dr. Julie Bugg in the Cognitive Control and Aging Lab where she investigates the cognitive control mechanisms that support prospective memory and how these mechanisms change with age.
Su Young Choi (December 2020) graduated as a double major in psychology and economics. He is now a Ph.D. student in Social Psychology at the University of Southern California, working with Dr. Daphna Oyserman.
Jessica Selig (2020) graduated as a dual major in psychology and economics. She works as a clinical research associate for the Pfizer Innovations Research Lab in digital medicine working on using wearable devices to better understand the patient experience.
Sarah Tritschler (2020) graduated as a psychology major with a sequence in Data Science. She is a healthcare consultant for Cloudmed Consulting Group in San Francisco.
CC Schwab (2019) graduated as a dual major in economics and psychology. She now works at AArete as a management consultant with a healthcare focus. This involves helping clients with claims analytics, contract management, regulatory compliance, systems integration, and process improvement.
Alicia Tsai (2019) graduated as a dual major in biology and psychology. She now works remotely as a user delight specialist for Matter, a reading tech startup based in San Francisco. She is also a freelance photographer and photographs weddings, sports, families, and more! (She even photographed Professor Umanath’s wedding ceremony.)
Juan (Johnny) Castillo (2018) graduated from CMC as a dual major in Neuroscience and Psychology. After graduation, he completed a two-year Intramural Research Training Award fellowship at the National Institutes of Health, investigating how nicotine addiction dysregulates cognitive control alongside Dr. Elliot Stein. He is now a Ph.D. candidate at Harvard University in Psychology working with Dr. Elizabeth Phelps to characterize how fear affects memory, self-reflection, decision-making, and emotional wellbeing. He is also completing a secondary field in Data Science at Harvard, and concurrently worked as a Data Scientist at Enterra Solutions, and more recently an AI UX Researcher at Google DeepMind.
Lauren Clubb (2018) graduated with a BA in Biochemistry from CMC. Following graduation, she completed a two-year NIH IRTA Post-Bac fellowship with Dr. Paul Love, studying thymic immune cell development. In 2020 she joined the Biomedical Sciences PhD program at UCSD where she is now a PhD candidate co-advised by Drs. Silvio Gutkind and Jill Mesirov. She is currently studying the role of G protein coupled receptors in anti-tumor immunity.
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Grant Gilchrist (2018) graduated as an economics major. He works as a knowledge analyst at Russell Reynolds Associates in Boston, Massachusetts, working with a team of executive recruitment professionals to research market trends and identify top-tier talent.
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Audrey Siqi-Liu (2018) graduated as a dual major in Psychology and Literature. She completed her Ph.D. in Cognitive Neuroscience at Duke University in May 2023 and is now working as a postdoctoral associate in the Visual Cognition Lab with Stephen Mitroff and Dwight Kravitz at George Washington University.
Francois Ries (2018) graduated as an economics and engineering major from CMC before transferring to Columbia University to complete a bachelor’s in Operation Research. He works as a business analyst at McKinsey & Company in Switzerland.
Other former lab members
Ryan Burnell
Alexandra Carter
Allie Crum
Samantha Kinder
Bella Milano
Jay Renaker
Izzy Sakoda
Richa Shah
Isabel Streiffer
Rachel Supnick
Ethan Tom
Daniel Wu
Main Collaborators
Magdalena Abel, University of Regensburg
Dorthe Berntsen, University of Aarhus
Andrew C. Butler, Washington University in St. Louis
Jen Coane, Colby College
Samantha A. Deffler, York College of Pennsylvania
Maryanne Garry, University of Waikato
Mark J. Huff, University of Southern Mississippi
Elizabeth J. Marsh, Duke University
Mark A. McDaniel, Washington University in St. Louis
Henry L. Roediger III, Washington University in St. Louis
David C. Rubin, Duke University