Stephanie Preston
Behavioural Neuroscientist, University of Michigan
Since 2005, Dr Stephanie Preston has been Assistant Professor of Psychology at the University of Michigan and head of its Ecological Neuroscience Lab where she applies an interdisciplinary blend of cognition, evolution, social behaviour, and neuroscience to study the interplay between emotion and decision making. She is interested in the ways in which emotion evolves and intrinsically affects decisions, particularly decisions about resources and trade-offs around material goods, money, food, and even social support.
The purpose of the research is to determine what underpins behavior and examine consumer preferences with corporate sponsors. Dr. Preston’s diverse background has allowed her to produce novel insights into the mechanisms of behavior and develop creative experimental approaches to solving everyday problems. She recently published a theoretical review on the evolution and neuroscience of heroic altruism.
She completed an MA and PhD in Behavioural Neuroscience at the University of California, Berkeley where she studied the biological bases of hoarding in animals. This was followed by a postdoctoral fellowship in the Department of Neurology at the University of Iowa College of Medicine studying the neural substrates of decision making.