Our Faculty
Core Neuroscience Faculty
Anya Goldina, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor of Biology
Ph.D., Behavioral Endocrinology, Florida International University
goldinaa@etown.edu | 717-361-6418 | Lyet 242 | Faculty Website
Dr. Goldina is a behavioral endocrinologist who is interested in understanding the endocrine mechanisms and central processing pathways that contribute to species differences in social strategies and communication tactics. Ultimately, she would like to understand how social experience and environment at different stages of development affect future behavior by altering the social behavior network of the brain, an interconnected network of hormone-sensitive brain regions involved in social behavior. Dr. Goldina joined the faculty of Elizabethtown College in 2013. She teaches Biological Concepts, Human Anatomy and Physiology, and Behavioral Endocrinology.
Jean Pretz, Ph.D.
Professor of Psychology
Ph.D., Cognitive Psychology, Yale University, 2004
pretzj@etown.edu | 717-361-1267 | 260F Esbenshade | Faculty Website
Dr. Pretz is a cognitive psychologist with research interests in creativity, its relationship to academic achievement, and the relationship between intuition and expertise. Dr. Pretz received her Ph.D. from Yale University in 2004. There, she worked with Robert Sternberg on her dissertation on intuition in everyday problem solving. She received her B.A. from Wittenberg University, where she double-majored in psychology and music. After college, she spent a year as a Fulbright scholar studying psychology of religion in the former East Germany, living in Lutherstadt-Wittenberg and studying at Martin-Luther-Universitaet Halle-Wittenberg.
Affiliated Faculty
Diane Bridge, Ph.D.
Associate Professor of Biology
Ph.D. in Biology - Yale University
bridged@etown.edu | 717-361-1177 | Lyet 247 | Faculty Website
Dr. Bridge joined the faculty of Elizabethtown College in 2000. She teaches Principles of Ecology, Evolution, and Diversity of Life; Invertebrate Zoology; Developmental Biology and laboratory sections of Molecules, Cells, and Animal Systems. Dr. Bridge serves on the Health Professions Advisory Committee.
Jane Cavender, Ph.D.
Professor of Biology
Ph.D. in Genetics - Penn State College of Medicine
cavender@etown.edu | 717-361-1448 | Lyet 244 | Faculty Website
Dr Cavender believes that research and discovery are at the heart of learning and scholarship. Dr. Jane Cavender joined the faculty of Elizabethtown College in 1993. She teaches introductory biology courses Molecules, Cells and Animal Systems; Cell Biology, and Experimental Design in Cell Biology. Dr. Cavender is the internship director and faculty advisor to the Beta Beta Beta Biological Honor Society.
Elizabeth Dalton, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor of Psychology
Ph.D., University of California, Los Angeles
daltone@etown.edu | 717-361-1332 | 260C Esbenshade
Dr. Dalton is a clinical psychologist with research interests in stress, mood, and physical health behaviors and outcomes. Dr. Dalton completed her graduate training at UCLA, where she studied how stress and depression influence health behaviors like eating, sleeping, exercise, and substance use among young adults. As part of her clinical training, Dr. Dalton has worked in community mental health centers and hospitals, and completed her clinical internship year at New York Presbyterian Hospital/Weill Cornell Medical Center. Dr. Dalton is eager to involve students in research examining the effects of stress and mood on physical health.
Jodi Lancaster, Ph.D.
Associate Professor of Molecular Biology
Department Chair - Biology
Ph.D. in Immunobiology - Penn State University
yortyj@etown.edu | 717-361-1325 | Lyet 143 | Faculty Website
Dr. Jodi Lancaster joined the faculty of Elizabethtown College in 2007. She currently serves as the Department Chair. She teaches introductory biology courses such as Molecules, Cells, and Animal Systems, and Molecular Biology, Immunology and Nutrition. She manages the Biotechnology major and the Masters in Molecular Medicine Program with Drexel University College of Medicine.
Catherine Craver Lemley, Ph.D.
Professor of Psychology
Ph.D., Northeastern University, 1988
lemleyce@etown.edu | 717-361-1330 | 260D Esbenshade
Dr. Lemley’s area of expertise is in visual perception. Her research focuses on the relation between visual mental imagery and visual perception with an emphasis on how what you imagine can interfere with what you actually perceive. Dr. Lemley has also been investigating the way in which cognitive processes, namely mental imagery, can moderate the mere exposure effect, which occurs when very brief exposures to stimuli increase the degree to which a person likes such stimuli. Most recently Dr. Lemley has examined the roles of attention and learning in synesthesia. Synesthesia occurs when the stimulation of a sensory modality (e.g. vision) consistently elicits an involuntary concurrent perceptual experience within the same or in another modality (e.g. taste).
Michael David Silberstein, Ph.D.
Professor of Philosophy
Director and Advisor of the Cognitive Science Minor
Ph.D. University of Oklahoma, Philosophy
silbermd@etown.edu | 717-361-1253 | Faculty Website
Michael David Silberstein is Professor of Philosophy at Elizabethtown College, Director of the Cognitive Science Minor at the College and Affiliated Faculty in the philosophy department at the University of Maryland, College Park, where he is also a faculty member in the Foundations of Physics Program and a Fellow on the Committee for Philosophy and the Sciences. He is an NEH Fellow. His primary research interests are foundations of physics and foundations of cognitive science, respectively. He is also interested in how these branches of philosophy and science bear on more general questions of reduction, emergence and explanation. His most recent book is Beyond the Dynamical Universe: Unifying Block Universe Physics and Time as Experienced (Oxford University Press, 2018). His next book project with Oxford is entitled Contextual Emergence (forthcoming).