UC Santa Cruz alumna and Special Adviser to the Chancellor Teenie Matlock has been selected as the recipient of the 4th Jeffrey L. Elman Prize for Scientific Achievement and Community Building. Jeff Elman was a long-time professor at UC San Diego who made significant contributions to the field of cognitive science and was revered for his mentoring throughout his career.
Matlock, a cognitive science professor at UC Merced and special adviser at UC Santa Cruz, studies language use in real world contexts, including climate change, politics, technology, and health. Her research has made valuable contributions to our understanding of how people communicate, make decisions, and take action. A leading figure in cognitive science, she has served on the Cognitive Science Society governing board and currently serves on its Diversity and Inclusion Committee and the Cognitive Science editorial board. She earned her Ph.D. in psychology from UC Santa Cruz.
Matlock has earned awards for leadership, mentoring, teaching, and research, and has published more than 100 peer-reviewed articles that span cognitive science, psychology, linguistics, climate communication, and human-computer interaction.
The honor will be celebrated at the CogSci 2023 conference in Sydney, Australia with a prize and dedicated symposium.
