Collaborative Research, Globalization Efforts Are Priorities for APS President-Elect Randi Martin

^{New to the APS Board of Directors, left to right: Teresa Bajo, Randi Martin, Lila Davachi}

Psychological scientists Randi Martin, Teresa Bajo, and Lila Davachi joined the APS Board of Directors for three-year terms on June 1, complementing the existing board membership with extensive experience influencing our understanding of memory, cognitive neuroscience, and language, among other topics.  

Martin is the Elma Schneider Professor of Psychological Sciences in Rice University’s School of Social Sciences and director of the T.L.L. Temple Foundation Neuroplasticity Lab. Bajo is a professor of psychology in the Department of Experimental Psychology at the University of Granada and director of the Memory and Language laboratory in the Center for Mind, Brain and Behavior. And Davachi is a professor of psychology at Columbia University and principal investigator of the CORE (Construction, Organization, and Reactivation of Experience) Lab. 

With Martin joining as President-Elect, Wendy Wood (University of Southern California) becomes APS President, and Alison Gopnik (University of California, Berkeley) becomes Immediate Past President. APS thanks departing Past President Jennifer Eberhardt and departing Members-at-Large Seth Pollak and Janet F. Werker for their invaluable service to APS and the field. 

Martin hopes to further APS’s efforts supporting integrative and interdisciplinary work that brings together cognitive and affective approaches. “My own recent work has involved collaborative work examining the effects of immigration-related stress on physical health and cognitive processes,” she explained in an email. “This is a departure for me from my previous cognitive research that was stripped of effects of emotion and of individuals’ life context. I would be excited to be involved in supporting and publicizing work along these lines bringing these different cognitive and affective strands together.” 

Martin also expressed excitement about APS’s efforts to globalize psychological science by furthering the awareness and expansion of international research and training opportunities. Her experience supervising PhDs from abroad who returned to their home countries has taught her “that those around the globe would welcome the opportunity to be involved in a prestigious organization like APS, and I strongly support such outreach.” 

See election profiles for Martin, Bajo, and Davachi.