Biography

Dr. Downey earned her Ph.D. in Neuroscience from the Interdisciplinary Program in Neuroscience at Georgetown University, where she used cognitive neuroscience techniques to study the bilingual brain. During this time, she discovered a passion for teaching. This led her to a psychology department for her first full-time teaching job, where she taught and researched diverse topics such as synesthesia and sport psychology. Dr. Downey is excited to have returned to her home state of Pennsylvania to teach across the psychology and neuroscience programs at Temple.

Selected Publications

• Chen, L.C., Downey, K.B. & Whitteck, E.W. (2023). A multi-institutional alternative assessment faculty learning community: Supporting teaching in higher education. CourseSource. https://doi.org/10.24918/cs.2023.35
• Downey, R.M., Downey, K.B., Jacobs, J., Korthas, H., Melchor, G., Speidell, A., Waguespack, H., Mulroney, S.E., Myers, A.K. (2022). Learning design in science education: perspectives from designing a graduate-level course in evidence-based teaching of science. Advances in Physiology Education. https://doi.org/10.1152/advan.00069.2022
• Downey, K.B. (2020). Functional neuroanatomy of arithmetic in bilinguals. [Unpublished doctoral dissertation]. Georgetown University. https://repository.library.georgetown.edu/handle/10822/1060545

Courses Taught

• Honors Fundamentals of Neuroscience
• Careers in Neuroscience
• Critical Thinking in Psychology
• Conducting Neuroscience Research