Position Title
PhD Student
Education
- B.A., Neuroscience, Scripps College, 2019
About
Shannon (smklotz@ucdavis.edu) is currently a 3rd year Ph.D. student in Developmental Psychology working with Dr. Lisa Oakes, where she explores infant cognition using behavioral and computational methods. Earning her B.A. in Cognitive Neuroscience from Scripps College in May 2019, she is proud to be a first-generation college graduate originally from Sacramento. During her undergraduate studies, Shannon was a member of Dr. Michael Spezio's Laboratory for Inquiry into Valuation and Emotion (LIVE Lab) for three years, focusing on Theory of Mind using EEG and investigating how individuals use mental representations in social interactions. As the Assistant Director for Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) of the ASPIRE Program (Accelerating Success by Providing Intensive Research Experience), she combines her passions for fostering diverse lived experiences and perspectives in research and supporting early undergraduate endeavors in mind and brain sciences.
Research Focus
Shannon's research aims to provide a holistic understanding of how infants perceive and interact with their world by bridging the disciplines of developmental psychology and computer vision. Her work delves into the evolution of infant attention, investigating the transition from preferences for low-level visual features like physical saliency to more informative and abstract content. This exploration is further enriched by the use of convolutional neural network (CNN) models based on the architecture of the ventral stream object recognition pathway, allowing her to extract computational insights from eye-tracking data. Within this integrated framework, she examines how developmental cascades connect various aspects of infant development, shedding light on how daily experiences and environmental interactions shape infants' perceptual and cognitive growth.
Publications
Oakes, L. M., Hayes, T. R., Klotz, S. M., Pomaranski, K. I., & Henderson, J. M. (2024). The role of local meaning in infants' fixations of natural scenes. Infancy, 1–15. https://doi.org/10.1111/infa.12582
Teaching
Guest Lecturer
PSC 143 Developmental Psychology (Fall 2023)
Teaching Assistant
PSC 140 Developmental Psychology (Fall 2022, Spring 2023)
PSC 143 Infant Development (Winter 2023, Fall 2023)
Awards
2023 Dukes Travel Award
2022 Graduate Student Association's Travel Award
2022 UC Davis Psychology Outstanding Mentorship Award
2018 Claremont Colleges' Intercollegiate Neuroscience Summer Fellowship
2015 -2019 Scripps College Presidential Scholarship