Scientists

Assistant Research Scientist, UC San Diego

Where were you born and raised?
San Diego, Californai

What is the one piece of advice you would give your younger self?
Connect with people in every aspect of your life (lifelong friends, family, peers, colleagues, mentors) and ask for guidance. Everyone has their own unique and valuable perspective. You will have a better shot at success if you reach out. You don’t have to do it all on your own.

Describe the moment when you knew you had to go into science?
Humans are such strange animals. In college, I was fascinated with what controlled human behavior. Once I understood that studying the brain was a way to understand behavior, I was hooked.

Describe an aha moment you’ve had in the lab?
Sometimes your expectations can cloud your interpretation of what you are seeing. Once I had to let go of my expectations. After that, making sense of my findings was straightforward.

What is one significant advance TDLC research has brought to the science of learning?
TDLC research has established connections across the different temporal scales of learning that we all experience: seconds, hours, weeks and years.

What do you hope to accomplish in the next seven years?
We have rich memories from the past. I hope to discover how the ability to learn new information is connected to how well we can remember the past. I want to unravel how brain structure and brain function serve memory.

What is your favorite TDLC value?
Community – we are all in this together so let’s work together.

Christine Smith is Assistant Professor in the Department of Psychiatry at UC San Diego. Her research interests focus on understanding the biological bases of learning and memory. She received her B.A. from the University of Puget Sound and her M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in Psychology from the University of Wisconsin Milwaukee.