Honored to hood not one but two PhD students this year! They’ve grown into outstanding scientists, and I’m grateful to have been part of their journey. So proud. 🥹 Congratulations, Dr. Morales-Calva @morales-calva.bsky.social & Dr. Clark! 🎓 @ricegradschool.bsky.social

I am immensely proud of Dr. Fernanda Morales-Calva @morales-calva.bsky.social for successfully defending her dissertation today! Her research examining how culture shapes memory is so important, and I’m lucky to have worked beside her these past 5 yrs. Congratulations Dr. Morales-Calva! 🥹

Excited to share our latest paper out examining the relationship of image memorability through a mnemonic discrimination lens rdcu.be/eL0IC @lealmemorylab.bsky.social

Incredibly honored for this recognition by @psychonomicsociety.bsky.social @lealmemorylab.bsky.social

🚨Attending APS 2025?🚨 Be sure to stop by @morales-calva.bsky.social poster TODAY from 4-5pm! Fernanda will be presenting her work examining cultural impacts on perception and memory. Details below. #APS25DC

Congratulations to the Leal Lab RAs for presenting their research projects at the Undergraduate Research Symposium! Great job! Extra congrats to Jacob, Ahi, and Giselle for winning awards for their presentations! 🎉

Congratulations to graduate student @morales-calva.bsky.social for winning the 2025 Excellence in Research, Teaching, & Service Award in the Psychological Sciences Department at Rice University! So proud of you!

If you’re attending INS in NOLA, be sure to stop bu Angie Cordova’s poster “Effects of Chronic Stress on Memory Performance in Latinx Populations”. Poster 05 2/13 @4:15 Angie was an NSF REU student this summer and this is her first ever conference! Please go show her some love 🩵

To get started posting on here, going to re-share the papers the lab has published this year! First up, earlier this year @morales-calva.bsky.social published her work on examining how memorability of images can modulate emotional mnemonic discrimination. www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Congratulations to the Expanding Horizons Scholarship recipients from the Anthropology Department! 🎉🎉🎉https://graduate.rice.edu/news/current-news/rice-students-soar-new-heights-expanding-horizons-scholarship-winners-announced #RiceSocSci #ShapingTheFuture @ricegradschool.bsky.social

Episodic memory is often operationalized as memory for *what* happened, *where* it happened, and *when* it happened. But equally important is *why* that event matters enough to be encoded. Check out this comprehensive review paper by Morales-Calva & Leal, adding "why" into what-where-when memory.