2021 CSBBCS Vincent Di Lollo Early-Career Award Winner: Dr. Jonathan Fawcett

Dr. Jonathan Fawcett is an Assistant Professor in the Psychology Department at Memorial University of Newfoundland. He received his PhD in 2012 from Dalhousie University under the supervision of Dr. Tracy Taylor-Helmick. Dr. Fawcett subsequently completed post-doctoral training at the Medical Research Council Cognition and Brain Sciences Unit in Cambridge, England, under the supervision of Dr. Michael Anderson, where he was also a Junior Research Fellow at Clare College and held post-doctoral funding from NSERC and the British Academy.

Dr. Fawcett’s NSERC-funded research program has balanced fundamental research questions with real-world applications and methodological development. Much of his work focuses on the mechanisms underlying the control of unwanted thoughts and memories, including recent work exploring how the failure of those control mechanisms could contribute to mental disorders. His interest in distinctive encoding modalities and memory for unexpected events has also led him to study laboratory-based phenomena such as the production effect and applied topics such as the weapon focus effect.

To date, Dr. Fawcett has published 36 articles, 1 edited volume, and 2 popular science articles. His publications have appeared in leading research outlets such as the Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, Psychonomic Bulletin and Review, Cognition, Journal of Clinical Psychiatry, and Psychological Medicine. He has also supervised numerous students at the graduate and undergraduate level and is a long-standing member of the CSBBCS community, having received the Donald O. Hebb Student Award at CSBBCS in 2010.