Christine N. Smith, Ph.D.

Christine N. Smith, Ph.D. is a cognitive neuroscientist focusing on the biological bases of learning and memory. She applies structural and functional neuroimaging techniques and eye tracking to the study of human memory. Her work encompasses healthy individuals and individuals affected by brain injury or disease. Her current efforts aim to identify 1) the structural and functional neuroanatomy that supports the ability to remember information from the recent and remote past, and 2) how experience-dependent eye movements can reveal how memory is organized in the brain.  She completed her graduate training in experimental psychology at the University of Wisconsin Milwaukee with Fred Helmstetter, Ph.D. where she examined emotional learning in humans using functional neuroimaging. She completed her post-doctoral training at the University of California San Diego with Larry Squire, Ph.D. where she investigated the brain regions associated with different components of memory using novel memory tests to measure conscious and unconscious memory, recollection and familiarity, and strong and weak memory. She has a dual appointment in the Research Service at the San Diego VA (Research Health Scientist) and in the Department of Psychiatry at UCSD (Assistant Professor).