Early Career Impact Awardee – Society for Mathematical Psychology
Dr. Matzke has established herself as an internationally recognized expert in the mathematical modeling of cognitive processes, focusing on the cognitive mechanisms that underlie human decision making. Her innovative work on response inhibition and cognitive control has facilitated the interpretation of numerous studies in psychology and cognitive neuroscience. Dr. Matzke obtained her PhD (Cum Laude) in Mathematical Psychology in 2014 at the University of Amsterdam, where she continues to work as an associate professor at the Psychological Methods Unit and in her Mathematical Psychology Laboratory. Dr. Matzke’s recent work, inspired by the Covid-19 pandemic, combines cognitive science with agent modeling to understand and predict how physical, psychological, and social manipulations affect people’s walking behavior and underlying mental states. This work has afforded her collaborations with the Public Health Service of Amsterdam and the Dutch National Institute for Public Health and the Environment.
Dr. Matzke has had an exceptional early-career trajectory and has received extensive recognition from prestigious international associations including, a Rising Star Award from the Association for Psychological Science, Early Career Awards from both the Psychonomic Society and the Society for Experimental Psychology and Cognitive Science, and the William K. Estes Early Career Award from the Society for Mathematical Psychology.
Dr. Matzke’s broad scientific interest is demonstrated by her involvement in the Open Science movement, for which she received the inaugural Leamer-Rosenthal Prize for Emerging Researchers from the Berkeley Initiative for Transparency in the Social Sciences. Her commitment to increasing the accessibility of formal methods in the social sciences is illustrated by her contribution to various open-source software packages that facilitate the use of cognitive models, and by her involvement in over 25 successful workshops and summer schools, two of which were sponsored by the William K. and Katherine W. Estes Fund Award.
Dr. Matzke is an alumna of the prestigious Young Academy of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences, a group of top young scientists who regularly contribute to public debates on higher education, science policy, and open science. She has also contributed to activities on the interface between science and society, including an outreach project focusing on scientist-citizen conversations in Dutch community centers. Dr. Matzke is a member of the Board of the Women of Mathematical Psychology, promoting the involvement of women in the field, overseeing a mentoring program for junior female members, and organizing a yearly symposium. She is member of the Diversity & Inclusion Committee of the Department of Psychology at the University of Amsterdam, advising on departmental policy related to equality, diversity, and inclusion, and serves in the mentoring program of the Graduate School of Psychology, advising students on study success, career development, and work-life balance.
