Some Alumni

Some distinguished former students (graduate and postdoctoral fellows) I have been fortunate enough to mentor:

Chris Westbury was my graduate student at McGill University and completed his dissertation under my direction on Primary Progressive Aphasia.  His thesis included the development of an expert system that was used to classify language deficits in a population of neurological cases, and a new way of diagramming such deficits to allow easy classification of symptoms (A-grams).  The late John Marshall, who acted as the outside examiner on Chris’ dissertation wrote that the work at the time set the standard for others to follow.  Chris is an Associate Professor in the Department of Psychology at the University of Alberta.

Martin Arguin was my postdoctoral fellow at McGill University.  He carried out detailed research on the nature of the perceptual deficit in letter-by-letter reading, seen in neurological patients with damage to the occipito-temporal region of the left hemisphere.   In addition, he conducted extensive research on visual agnosia, in particular a remarkable case of category specific agnosia whose impairment concerned objects apparently confined to biological categories (animals, fruits and vegetables).  Martin is a Professor in the Department of Psychology at the University of Montreal.

Mike Dixon was my postdoctoral fellow at McGill University and completed award-winning research on category-specific agnosia (the Nelson Butters Award for the best postdoctoral submission at the International Neuropsychological Society). Mike is a Professor of Psychology at the University of Waterloo. 

Jeff Bowers was my postdoctoral fellow at McGill University and carried out research on letter-by-letter reading that included an ingenious application of masked orthographic priming to demonstrate that the disorder did not preclude fast, unconscious word identification.  Jeff is a Professor of Psychology at the University of Bristol, United Kingdom.

Todd Woodward  was my graduate student at the University of Victoria who carried out research on task switching and executive function in normal participants and patients with Parkinson’s disease.    He is an Assistant Professor in Psychiatry at the University of British Columbia, Vancouver and now investigates the cognitive operations underlying the primary symptoms of psychosis and schizophrenia.   He was recently the inaugural recipient of an Early Career Award from the Confederation of University Faculty Associations of BC.

Shannon Johnson was my graduate student at the University of Victoria.  She is a clinical neuropsychologist who completed her dissertation on Asperger’s syndrome.  Shannon is currently an Associate Professor of Psychology at Dalhousie University where she continues to develop her research program in autism spectrum disorders.  In addition, she works on the Predict-HD study, an international, longitudinal, prospective study of Huntington’s Disease.

Daniel Fiset is an Assistant Professor of Psychology and Education at the University of Ottawa.  He was my postdoctoral fellow at the University of Victoria where he conducted innovative research on the spatiotemporal dynamics of visual letter recognition, and on the perceptual features that contribute to face identification.