Nicole Alea, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor, Psychology, University of North Carolina, Wilmington

Phone: (910) 962-3370
Email:alean@uncw.edu

 


Education

  • Ph.D., Psychology, University of Florida,  2003
  • M.S., Psychology, Gerontology Graduate Certificate, University of Florida, August 2000
  • B.S. Psychology, Gerontology minor, University of Florida, 1995

Research Interests

Nicole’s primary research interest is in social cognition. Particularly, she is interested in the relation between cognition and the social context across the adult lifespan, particularly in late life. Her research has two directions:

  • Investigating cognition in collaborative contexts. This work is concerned with age differences in the use of help-seeking, one type of collaborative behavior, that can be used as a compensatory strategy to maintain cognitive performance during problem solving.
  • Everyday uses of autobiographical memory. This area of work investigates how and why adults use past memories for maintaining social relationships across the lifespan, particularly in late life.

Graduate Profile

Nicole's academic and research interest in aging began as an undergraduate at UF. She graduated with honors earning a B.S. in psychology and a minor in gerontology. She has also completed her requirements for the Graduate Gerontology Certificate, which she received upon receiving her Master’s in Psychology.

Nicole has been funded through a variety of mechanisms, including a NICHD training grant in the developmental area in the Department of Psychology, and as a research assistant on a project funded by the McArthur Foundation. More recently, she was awarded the Provost Award in Aging from the Institute on Aging. She has earned a number of travel awards to present her work at psychological and gerontological conferences.

Currently, Nicole’s work includes: (1) developing a model of the processes and variables involved when individuals use autobiographical memories in social contexts, (2) evaluating the emotional quality of older and younger adult’s autobiographical memories, and (3) beginning a dissertation project on the influence that autobiographical memory sharing has on levels of closeness in relationships across the lifespan.