Michael D. Nelson

I grew up in Pendleton, Oregon and attended Linfield College (McMinnville, OR) from 1987 – 1991, where I majored in Psychology. I have always been fascinated by human behavior (both my own and that of other people) and Psychology was a natural fit for me in college (although I started out as a Physics major!). After college I took a year off and then enrolled in a Neuroscience graduate program at Baylor University in 1992. After graduating with a Master’s degree in Neuroscience in 1995, I attended Dartmouth College, where I earned my Ph.D. in Experimental Psychology (Cognitive Neuroscience emphasis) in 2000. My dissertation was on the selection of targets for saccadic (fast, re-orienting) eye movements under the supervision of Dr. Howard C. Hughes. In 2000 I joined Dr. G. (Ron) Mangun at the Center for Cognitive Neuroscience at Duke University as a post-doctoral fellow. My research there focused on functional neuroimaging (functional magnetic resonance imaging; fMRI) and the mechanisms of human visual selective attention. In 2003 I took a full-time position as a professor at the University of Missouri- Rolla (now known as the Missouri University for Science and Technology), where I taught General Psychology, Experimental Psychology, Sensation and Perception, and Neuroscience. My desire to be closer to my family led me back to the West coast, and I moved to Gonzaga University in the fall of 2008. At Gonzaga University I teach General Psychology, Sensation & Perception (a course mainly on vision and hearing) and Cognition (how we think, speak, remember, pay attention, represent knowledge, and make decisions).