In Spring 2024 I taught a graduate seminar on the ‘Replication Crisis,’ in which grad students and faculty read through the (by now rather substantial) literature on the scope and the causes of poor replicability of studies in psychology and neighboring fields. This turned out to be an even more useful exercise than I had hoped. In case our syllabus is of use to others, I have posted it here.

My son Willie just noticed this book on our shelf. I’ve had it for probably 20 years. Never noticed. Somebody should study this.

My longtime colleague, Caren Rotello, has retired from UMass, though she’ll continue to contribute to the field as Editor in Chief of Cognitive Psychology. Over her career, Caren has been one of the foremost contributors to the mathematical modeling of memory.  Caren was an important mentor to me on many professional matters when I was a new assistant professor, and was the person who first got me thinking about analysis of response time distributions.  She was Chair of our department for over four years, and did an amazing job leaving us in a positive budget situation and overseeing a very diverse group of faculty hires.  Caren, I wish you the very best for your next chapter!   

Rosie Cowell and Dave Huber, long-time colleagues in the Cognition and Cognitive Neuroscience Program, have decided to leave UMass for new opportunities at CU Boulder. We too rarely mark these transitions; we welcome new colleagues when they arrive, but carry on with a stiff upper lip when they leave. In this case, that’s difficult, as not only are Rosie and Dave great scientists who have made important contributions to our community at UMass, but they have been very dear friends over the past few years. On a personal level, I’ll miss them….a lot. I wish them the very best in their new roles in Colorado.

I’m honored to report that as of January 1, 2023, I will be the Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Memory and Language. I’m taking over from Kathy Rastle, who has done an amazing job for the last four years instituting new open science initiatives, shepherding interesting special issues, and running a very efficient operation while emphasizing a high-quality review process. She will be a difficult act to follow.

Also, eye movement researchers should be aware that Simon Liversedge and I will be editing a Special Issue of JML entitled “Eye Movements in Reading at 50: Methods, Models, and Findings.” Full details are here. Please don’t hesitate to contact me or Simon if you have questions about submitting; the deadline is March 1, 2023.