Today is Sara's last day in the lab & we're going to miss her! Sara built the systems that keep our lab running, including the work behind our big adolescent brain study. She'll be managing projects in local government & we couldn't be more thrilled for her. Thank you, Sara! 🧡

We'll be at @umlaufsculpture.bsky.social Family Day this Sunday! Stop by our table to explore hands-on science activities & learn more about our work. Whether you're a curious kid, a budding scientist, or love learning something new, we want to meet you! Join us for a day of art, nature & STEAM!

Two milestones in the Preston Lab this week 🎉 1️⃣ Andrei Amatuni defended his dissertation proposal! His work asks how we learn the hidden structure of experience & use it to reason in new situations + how that ability develops from childhood to adulthood. Congrats, Andrei!

We're recruiting postdocs to study how people build structured knowledge from experience & use it to act flexibly. Behavioral work, fMRI, computational & AI models, with a lifespan focus. You don't need experience with every method; fit & curiosity matter most. Please repost & share! 🧠

Mentorship works best when we stop expecting one person to do all the mentoring. We talk about needing "a mentor," singular. But a better model is constellation mentoring: a set of relationships that together give us what we need, shifting as we do. We all need a constellation!

When you're stressed, what happens to the mental links that let you connect related experiences and draw new conclusions? In our new @science.org #ScienceAdvances paper, we show that stress disrupts that linking process in the hippocampus🧵

We're recruiting postdocs to study how people build structured knowledge from experience & use it to act flexibly. Behavioral work, fMRI, computational & AI models, with a lifespan focus. You don't need experience with every method; fit & curiosity matter most. Please repost & share! 🧠

As the school year ends, we want to thank our incredible Research Assistants for all their hard work and dedication throughout the year. We're so grateful to have such an amazing team. Thank you for everything you’ve done this year — we can’t wait to see all that you accomplish next! 🧠🧡

Welcome to Emily Powell, our newest research coordinator! Emily joins us from UT Austin and will be central to our NIH-funded BrainWave Project, studying how memory changes through adolescence and shapes how we decide, reason, and learn. So glad to have you, Emily!

Proud mentor moment! My student @mujianing.bsky.social (co-supervised w/ @alexanderhuth.bsky.social) presents at #CEMS2026 today. Her work challenges the idea that event boundaries are remembered because they're surprising. What predicts memory is how much a moment shares with the rest of the story.

Really enjoyed giving yesterday's #TAMeG2026 keynote & joining @barense.bsky.social, @efriskouw.bsky.social & Ike Okafor on the mentorship panel. Things that have stuck with me: 🪟 Mentorship needs transparency 📣 It needs advocacy beyond advice 🔁 Mentors learn from mentees too

Thank you Rotman Research Institute at Baycrest for hosting me at Grand Rounds, and to the trainees for a great lunch beforehand. They study brain health in aging, so it was fun to bring work from the other end of the lifespan. So many parallels & divergences in memory across development and aging!

When you're stressed, what happens to the mental links that let you connect related experiences and draw new conclusions? In our new @science.org #ScienceAdvances paper, we show that stress disrupts that linking process in the hippocampus🧵

Spatial cognition has been the theme at CRaNE 2026 @crane-navsci.bsky.social today. Loved @russellepstein.bsky.social's keynote on how the brain builds cognitive maps. Looking forward to my panel tomorrow with Danny Dilks & @noranewcombe.bsky.social on how spatial cognition develops!

One thing I wish we talked about more explicitly with #earlycareer faculty is how gradually the pool of people who'll write their tenure letters develops. Impressions form slowly over the pre-tenure years, which makes visibility much easier to build over time than to manufacture later.

One thing I wish we talked about more explicitly with #earlycareer faculty is how gradually the pool of people who'll write their tenure letters develops. Impressions form slowly over the pre-tenure years, which makes visibility much easier to build over time than to manufacture later.

Children get better at reasoning from memory as they grow up. But is it the same brain process getting stronger, or something more fundamental changing? In our new paper, we use fMRI and computational modeling to test that question directly 🧵

Children get better at reasoning from memory as they grow up. But is it the same brain process getting stronger, or something more fundamental changing? In our new paper, we use fMRI and computational modeling to test that question directly 🧵

What comes to mind when you hear "math playground"? Because at a @simonsfoundation.org gathering for the Fusebox Festival this past weekend, I saw a literal one (more in thread 🛝)

Come find us this Sunday at #ThinkeryATX's Spring into STEAM event! Stop by the Preston Lab table to learn about our research, try a hands-on brain challenge, and hear what it's like to work in a neuroscience lab. Learn more here: thinkeryaustin.org/steam-sunday

The Preston Lab is at the 2026 Girls in STEM Conference with #Girlstart this weekend! Two of our lab members are speaking to 4th–8th grade girls about their paths in science & what research looks like day-to-day. Proud to support this event! More here: girlstart.org/our-programs...

How children remember time changes dramatically as they grow up & understanding that shift matters more than you might think. Two new papers from the lab's newest PhD, Dr. Owen Friend, explore what that difference looks like & what it tells us about the developing brain 🧠

The Preston Lab has a new doctor in the house! 🥂🎉 Congratulations to Dr. Owen Friend, who defended his dissertation today. Seven studies in four years, all on how children remember when things happen. His committee called it the best defense talk they'd ever seen. We're so proud!

We’re hiring a full-time Research Coordinator in the Preston Lab at UT Austin (start May/June 2026). Work on behavioral + fMRI studies of how memory & decision-making develop from childhood to adulthood. Learn more & apply: preston.clm.utexas.edu/news/join-th... Please repost!

One of the most valuable things trainees can see is how scientists think through uncertainty. We do this each year at #MPMD. Each PI brings a question instead of a talk—and we work through it together. I hope others consider this format created by Simona Ghetti, hosted this year by Jeni Pathman.

Had a blast co-hosting a booth with the Church Lab at @utwistem.bsky.social UT STEM Girl Day! So fun meeting curious kids and families and sharing our research on memory and brain development. Visit our website to learn more and get involved! 🧠 preston.clm.utexas.edu/participate

We only experience time moving forward. But memory can both predict what comes next and reconstruct what must have happened before. In a new @biorxivpreprint.bsky.social preprint, we show how hippocampal development enables this flexible representation of time 🧵

Excited to join the Toronto Area Memory Group (TAMeG) for #TAMeG2026 in May as keynote speaker! I’m especially looking forward to the panel discussion on scientific mentorship and how we support the next generation of scientists.

Every time you experience something new, your brain faces a decision: Should it update an existing memory or create a new one? In our new paper in @sfnjournals.bsky.social #JNeurosci, we isolate that exact decision, moment-by-moment during learning 🧵

One thing I've learned about grad student interviews is to stop asking "Why do you want to go to graduate school?" and start asking candidates to reason backward from the end of the PhD. Who will you become? What will you do that you couldn't before? You learn so much more.

🧠✨ The future of science starts here! The Preston & Church Labs will be at UT STEM Girl Day, hosted by @utwistem.bsky.social! Visit us to: ➡️ Explore how memory works ➡️ Try our pretend MRI ➡️ Meet our research team ➡️ Learn how you can participate in UT research Learn more: girlday.utexas.edu

Thrilled to be part of this event! Such a fantastic lineup and an exciting, interdisciplinary space for thinking deeply about spatial cognition. Looking forward to the conversations and encourage folks to submit!

✨ That’s a wrap on 2025! From research milestones to community connections, we’ve accomplished so much this past year. Here’s a look back at everything we did together...

(1/5) 🧵Our new preprint shows how the brain develops to transform how kids, teens & adults represent & navigate their world: shifting from local, moment-to-moment memories in childhood to integrated, global cognitive maps in adulthood 🧠 Paper: www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

We love connecting with curious minds at UT Hot Science – Cool Talks, hosted by UT Environmental Science Institute! 🔬 We always have fun sharing the wonders of science with our community & watching their interest spark! Are you in the Austin area? Check it out: www.esi.utexas.edu/community-en...

Looking for a nice way to build team connection before the holiday? Our lab drew names (gift exchange style) & shared aloud why we're grateful for that teammate, what makes us proud of them & how they strengthen the team. Such a sweet, grounding moment. Highly recommend 💛🧠

(1/4) Encouraging children & teens to manage their schedules independently has positive impacts for their memory! Our new study reveals that age & independence combine to enhance memory development 🧵 Read here: osf.io/preprints/ps...

(1/4) Encouraging children & teens to manage their schedules independently has positive impacts for their memory! Our new study reveals that age & independence combine to enhance memory development 🧵 Read here: osf.io/preprints/ps...

Congratulations to the recipients of the 2025 Science Education and Outreach Awards These researchers are advancing neuroscience through groundbreaking discoveries, mentorship, & scientific excellence. Listen to their remarks: vist.ly/4f8cn #SfN25 #neurosky #neuroskyence

#SfN25, what a week! So proud watching lab members Omer, Nicole & Owen shine at their posters. Loved catching up with colleagues, former students & neuroscientists I deeply admire. Thank you for a fantastic event @sfn.org! 🧠

Beautiful watercolor brain paintings each one of a kind, at the Art of Neuroscience area at #sfn #sfn25

If you're at @sfn.org #SfN2025, hope you can swing by and see us today! 🧠

The Preston Lab will be at @sfn.org #SfN2025! Come see what we've been working on 🧠 We'll discuss how kids & adults remember when things happen, how memory changes impact reasoning & how we learn different actions have different consequences based on the setting. Find us Monday & Wednesday 🤘

Happy New Preprint Friday!* Thrilled to share new results in collab with Sarah Lichenstein & @yiplab.bsky.social showing our brain's functional connections reflect the environments we grow up in! tinyurl.com/exposomeConnectivity #neuroskyence #PsychSciSky #DevPsy #cognition *can this be a thing??

The Preston Lab will be at @sfn.org #SfN2025! Come see what we've been working on 🧠 We'll discuss how kids & adults remember when things happen, how memory changes impact reasoning & how we learn different actions have different consequences based on the setting. Find us Monday & Wednesday 🤘

(1/4) 🧠 Did you know that kids remember time differently than adults? Our new preprint review w/ @drjeni-mdlab.bsky.social discusses the real implications for juvenile justice & why we need to ask about timing in ways that match kids' developing brains ⚖️ Paper: osf.io/preprints/ps...

It’s grad school application season, and I wanted to give some public advice. Caveats: -*-*-*-* 
> These are my opinions, based on my experiences, they are not secret tricks or guarantees 
> They are general guidelines, not meant to cover a host of idiosyncrasies and special cases

Met a celebrity the other day! Bevo is the ultimate longhorn 🤘🐂

Big thanks to #ThinkeryATX Children's Museum for hosting us at their STEAM Sunday Halloween celebration! 🎃 We love connecting with families and future scientists while sharing what we do at the Preston Lab 🤘 #SciComm #AustinScience

It was great fun working with @alexanderhuth.bsky.social and @mujianing.bsky.social on these theoretical ideas. We are excited for everyone to check out the preprint! www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...