In Their Words: Peter Krause

Name: Peter Krause

Department: Psychology

What Award/Scholarship did you receive? Federico and Rena Perlino Award

What year do you expect to graduate? I expect to graduate Spring 2019.

Where do you call home? Santa Paula, CA, which is a small citrus-farming town in Ventura County.

With all of the choices for college, what made UC Santa Cruz stand out? Many in the cognitive psychology area at UCSC are committed to constructionist and/or dynamical systems perspectives on cognition that have been slow to take hold at some institutions, but which I believe are crucial if we are to outgrow the restrictive computer metaphor of mind.

What is your field of focus? I study articulatory phonetics from a cognitive science perspective.  I am specifically interested in what articulation can tell us about speech planning mechanisms and about how phonology is represented by speakers.

What do you hope to do once you graduate from UC Santa Cruz? My ultimate goal is to become a tenured researcher at a university. In the immediate term, I have plans to begin lecturing at a small university in Southern California, while a prospective postdoctoral mentor and I prepare an application for funding.

What is one memorable moment that stands out for you as a student here? In the Spring of my first or second year I was walking home from the lab through the forest (I lived on campus at the time).  I was on one of the fire trails moving pretty quickly when movement maybe 150 feet ahead of me caught my eye.  I looked up just in time to see a very small baby fawn go flat on its belly with all four legs splayed out, trying to hide from me behind some grass.  After I moment, I realized the mother was nearby, grazing calmly but with a watchful eye.  I hung back until the fawn realized I was cool and got up and walked away. I felt bad for surprising it, but the way it "hit the deck" sure was cute.

What is your one piece of advice for incoming students about life at UC Santa Cruz? There's no avoiding the fact that the housing scenario is difficult.  Stressing about a bad housing situation will only make academics harder, so do as much as possible to mitigate it early.  The UCSC hosing registry is one very useful tool.  The other thing is to work quickly to find one or two people you really trust to go in on housing with you.

How will this scholarship impact your academic life/research? The Perlino gave me space to focus on research without teaching obligations last summer.  This space was crucial for completing a revision of what became a published journal article.