Staci Weiss is a doctoral student in the Developmental Psychology area, working with Dr. Peter Marshall. Staci works in the Developmental Science Laboratory, which investigates how infants and children develop an understanding of the world around them. This lab studies children's development with a variety of measures, including behavioral tasks and measurements of children's brain activity using the electroencephalogram (EEG). Staci's research focuses on the brain and behavioral changes associated with anticipation or preparation for a predicted stimulus. She is currently examining brain responses of adults and children following a cue to direct attention to an upcoming sound, sight or touch. Staci is particularly interested in how the predictability of the early environment contributes to the regularity of children's behavior and control of action, how the sense of touch develops, and the reconciliation of statistical techniques & empirical evidence with theories of development.

In her first year at Temple, Staci received a National Science Foundation (NSF) Graduate Research Fellowship in support of a project that showed how adult's and children's brain responses in anticipation of a tactile stimulus was related to individual differences in executive function abilities. This research also shows that children's anticipatory brain responses differed according to family socio-economic status, which suggests connections between brain measures of anticipation and the environments that children experience. 

Staci values providing knowledge about research in an accessible, yet accurate fashion to the child and community participants in her studies. In collaboration with a talented undergraduate artist, she made a comic book with an accompanying narrative that explains the study procedures and motives to children and visiting families. The comic book helps families become more comfortable with the unusual 'capping and tapping' procedures and sets the tone for an informative, fun and empowering visit for our "supersensory" participants. The goal is to ensure a smoother data collection process while leaving a positive, enduring impression on visiting families of what developmental cognitive neuroscience can tell us about children's development. 

Upon earning her doctorate, Staci aspires to pursue a postdoctoral research position that would allow her to combine her expertise in infant and child EEG with computational modeling methods.