Sarah Getz, Ph.D.
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Affiliation(s):
University of Miami
Lab URL:
ORCID URL:
Areas of Interest:
Aging and Cognition, Alzheimer's disease, dementia, decision making
Biography & Research:
I am an early stage investigator in my third year as an Instructor at the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine. My research interests as a graduate student at Princeton University focused on impulsive and maladaptive decision-making and the imbalance between motivational brain circuitry and regulatory control circuitry. My dissertation employed a neuroeconomics framework to examine impulsivity and cognitive control in decision-making and led to a dissertation grant funded by the Center for Health and Wellbeing’s Demography of Aging Center, which is supported by the National Institute of Aging at the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs. In other lines of my doctoral research, I examined working memory training and intelligence. After earning my PhD, I began postdoctoral re-specialization training in Boston where I completed research interventions and advanced neuropsychology practica, including training experiences at Brigham and Women's Hospital Harvard Medical School and Beth Israel Deaconess Harvard Medical School. As the Chief Intern and Neuropsychology Intern at the Miami VA, I evaluated patients with a wide range of neurodegenerative disorders. During my fellowship, under the mentorship of Dr. Bonnie Levin in the Department of Neurology Division of Neuropsychology, at the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine, I evaluated patients from diverse backgrounds and cultures and participated in a number of research projects examining prodromal features of cognitive decline in patients with movement disorders, memory loss, mild traumatic brain injury, and physical frailty. In my new role as an instructor, my research efforts have focused on the cognitive, behavioral, and psychological features of susceptibility to deception among vulnerable populations and have led to a multisite McKnight pilot grant with Dr. Levin and collaborators at the Universities of Arizona and Florida as well as the development the “Assessment of Situational Judgement” questionnaire. I am the recipient of the prestigious McKnight Clinical Translational Research Scholarship in Cognitive Aging and Age-Related Memory Loss Award funded by the McKnight Brain Research Foundation through the American Brain Foundation and the American Academy of Neurology for my research on deception and age related hearing loss. Currently, Dr. James Galvin is mentoring me in the development of career development awards.
