I was born and raised in York, PA. I graduated from the University of Pittsburgh in 2009 with a Bachelor of Philosophy in neuroscience and psychology. After college, I worked as a research assistant at Pitt while also an EMT. While interacting with my patients as an EMT, I became intimately familiar with the many self-control and mental health issues so prevalent in our society today.
Pitt's Cathedral of Learning from LRDC, 2009 (exact view no longer exists because LRDC was demolished).
Most of my work is based on this theoretical model of brain-behavior relationships and etiology.
I received a Ph.D. in neuroscience and cognitive psychology from the University of Colorado Boulder in 2016 while under the direction of Marie Banich. My dissertation work involved a series of studies investigating the neural basis of executive functions (e.g., goal maintenance, working memory updating, task set shifting) using a variety of techniques that measure functional connectivity between brain areas and networks.
I was a postdoc in Naomi Friedman's lab at the Institute for Behavioral Genetics in Boulder, CO. My postdoctoral work extended my graduate work in a behavioral genetics context (i.e., what drives individual differences in cognition and brain connectivity?).
I am now faculty at the University of Pittsburgh where I work in the Magnetic Resonance Research Center. I am attempting to expand my functional connectivity work into the clinical world by identifying cognitive and neural predictors of internalizing psychopathology. Below you will find a list of my academic publications, presentations, and relevant excerpts from popular media highlighting my work. I also highlight academic outreach and public service.
Map of functional connections with high heritability replicated in two samples.
Andrew in Carbondale, CO.
In my free time I enjoy backpacking, rock climbing, and photography. Some of my photography trips into the backcountry and elsewhere are documented on my other website: This Fragile Earth.