Past Summer Schools

Summer School 2019

The 6th summer school of the Swiss Graduate School for Cognition, Learning, and Memory organized by Claudia M. Roebers (Chair) and Mariette H. van Loon (program coordinator) took place from the 17th to the 20th of June 2019. The topic “Dealing with uncertainty: Decision making and memory processes” attracted Ph.D. students from 12 different nations. Keynote talks, group discussions, and workshops held by the invited experts Simona Ghetti (University of California, Davis, USA), Christopher Hertzog (Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, USA) and Benedetto de Martino (University College London, UK). Ph. D. presentations, peer review sessions and a hike on the mountain Rigi (including cheese and butter making) completed the 4-day program. 

Summer School 2017

From June 19 –June 22, 2017, our fourth Summer School was organized in Weggis. The theme of this Summer School was Cognitive Control and Consciousness: Behavioral and Neural Mechanisms. We are looking back at a very inspiring summer school, we learned a lot from each other. Besides presenting, listening to talks, and discussing research, we also enjoyed leisure time (we went swimming and hiking and we learned to make Swiss cheese).

For this summer school, we invited four international experts to present their research on cognitive control. Dr. Adriana Galvan (University of California, Los Angeles, USA) presented fMRI research on adolescents’ cognitive control; Prof. Dr. Todd Braver (Washington University, USA) presented findings on neural mechanisms of control; Prof. Dr. Christopher Moulin (University of Grenoble, France) gave keynotes about control and monitoring in Alzheimer patients and déjà vu, control, and consciousness; and Prof. Dr. Brandon Schmeichel (Texas A&M University, USA) presented research on executive functioning, motivation, and self-regulation.

Twenty-four PhD students participated (13 students from the University of Bern, and 11 international graduate students from 8 different countries). They presented their research in poster and paper presentation sessions. Further, peer-review sessions were organized; graduate students who were close to finalizing a manuscript could benefit from peer-review comments from fellow PhD students and experts. The summer school ended with a group discussion in which we addressed questions and comments related to research on cognitive control, and questions about how to be successful in academia. 

Summer School 2016

In 2016 the summer school`s topic was “Improving Cognition, Learning, and Memory in Healthy and Clinical samples: Interventions and Methodological Considerations”. The Summer School experts were Prof. Dr. Charles Hulme (University College London, UK), Dr. Suzanne Jaeggi (University of California, Irvine, USA), Prof. Dr. Bob Woods (University of Bagor, UK) and Prof. Dr. Philip Tomporowski (University of Georgia, USA). Together 28 PhD students from 9 different countries came to Weggis, Lucerne. The content consisted of a mix of keynote talks and methodological inputs from the invited experts. Further the PhD students engaged actively in peer review sessions, poster presentations, and paper presentations. The summer school`s topic and discussions over the week culminated in a round table discussion on the last day during which PhD students` questions and ideas were discussed. 

Summer School 2015 

In 2015, the second summer school`s topic was “Cognition, Learning, and Memory: Evolutionary and Comparative Perspectives” following up on the courses on comparative approaches to cognition, learning and memory held in the two semesters before. Well-known and highly respected active researchers on the cutting-edge of Psychology and Biology joined as experts: Prof. Dr. David Bjorklund (Florida Atlantic University, USA), Dr. David Buttelmann (University of Erfurt, Germany), Prof. Dr. Nicola Clayton (University of Cambridge, UK), and Dr. Jennifer Vonk (Oakland University, USA). The core question of this academic year “what makes human cognition uniquely human?” was lively and controversy discussed during expert talks, Ph.D. presentations, peer review session, literature discussions but also during swimming, hiking and other leisure time activities. Altogether twenty-one PhD students with 10 different nationalities were accepted to participate in 2015.

Summer School 2014

The first summer school took place in 2014 in the Seminar Hotel Rigi am See in Weggis. The topic was “Neuroanatomy and Neurophysiology of Cognition, Learning and Memory”. During this Summer School we had intensive discussion of state-of-the-art research, methodological issues and future research topics. Three internationally well-known and well-recited experts joined this Summer School: Prof. Dr. Brad Postle (University of Wisconsin-Madison, USA), Prof. Dr. Silvia Bunge (University of California at Berkeley, USA), and Prof. Dr. Nikolai Axmacher (University of Bonn, Germany). Thirty Ph.D. students from nine different institutions participated.