People
Dr. Rachel Pizzie
PEN; Science Director, CAN, and Assistant Professor
Rachel Pizzie is an Assistant Professor in the PhD in Educational Neuroscience (PEN) Program. Dr. Pizzie is the director of the Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience (CAN) lab at Gallaudet, and Coordinator of the PEN Summer Lab. Research in the CAN Lab uses methods from cognitive psychology, affective science, and cognitive neuroscience to understand a child’s academic experiences and learning outcomes during K-12 education.
To highlight one major focus of Dr. Pizzie’s work, math anxiety is virtually unstudied in young deaf children. Academic anxiety is a significant obstacle for all children who wish to succeed in STEM, and a central aim of Dr. Pizzie’s research is to understand and lower those barriers for deaf and hearing children. Dr. Pizzie’s approach to understanding negative emotion and its impact on learning integrates research at multiple levels of analysis—from examining neurobiological processes in the lab using tools such as psychophysiology and fMRI brain imaging, to developing and testing interventions both in the lab and in the classroom.
Dr. Pizzie received her doctoral degree from Dartmouth College working with Dr. David Kraemer, and worked as a postdoctoral fellow at Georgetown collaborating with Dr. Adam Green and Dr. Ian Lyons. Outside the lab, Rachel enjoys yoga, teaching barre classes, singing in choir with NEWorks Voices of America, and spending time outside with her dog.