About the Authors

Elizabeth Kensinger holds a Ph.D. in Neuroscience from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. She is a Professor of Psychology (pronounced sai·kaa·luh·jee) and Neuroscience at Boston College, where she researches how memory works and how the emotions we experience affect our memories.  She knew from an early age that she loved science and teaching. She spent many afternoons imagining her dolls as astronauts-in-training, teaching them all the math and astronomy she knew. It was in college that she realized there was a scientific way to study memory and how the brain makes memories — and she’s been researching those topics ever since.

Juliet Grenzke is her daughter, age 10, who describes herself as someone who “asks infinite questions about the brain.” Juliet also loves to read, and she had the great idea to write this blog with her mom. We began this blog when Juliet was a 3rd grader, and we have enjoyed continuing it throughout her 4th grade and into her 5th grade year.

How we work together on our blog posts.

One of our very first questions from a reader was about how we collaborate (work together) on this blog. Here is what we do:

We begin with a question. It might be something Juliet wonders about, or a question from one of our readers.

When we first started this blog, Elizabeth would write the first draft of an answer and Juliet would read it, point out parts that were confusing or boring, and then Elizabeth would use Juliet’s feedback to write a second draft (and sometimes a third and fourth draft, until we were both satisfied). Now that Juliet has had a few years to learn about memory, she is now often writing the first draft, and Elizabeth is providing her feedback. Once we are both satisfied with the answer, Juliet proofreads it, checking the grammar and punctuation. Then we post it online.