Teenie Matlock is Assistant Professor of Psychology in he School of Humanities and Arts at the University of California, Merced, scheduled for a full opening in Fall, 2005.

Personal message to UC Merced students

I'm originally from Mariposa, California, a small town near Yosemite National Park. My ancestry is deeply rooted in the area -- some of my ancestors immigrated during the Gold Rush and others were native (Miwok and Yokuts).

The first person in my family to attend college, I moved to the San Joaquin Valley to study music. That all changed when I started taking foreign languages and developed a strong interest in language and linguistics. I received my BA in Liberal Studies and MA in (Applied) Linguistics at Fresno State, and later went on to pursue PhD studies, first, in the Linguistics Department at the University of California, San Diego, and later in the Psychology Department at the University of California, Santa Cruz.

After completing my PhD in cognitive psychology in 2001, I went on to do post-doctoral research at Stanford University. I'm still a visiting scholar in the Psychology Department there, and continue to collaborate with colleagues who share an interest in language and spatial cognition. I've also done some research in private industry, including IBM Research, where I was issued a patent for rapid text-entry for small handheld devices.

I've published articles in psychology, cognitive science, linguistics, and human-computer interaction. My primary research interests hover around the interactive, dynamic nature of language. Many language theorists assume that linguistic representations are static and divorced from perception and action. My experiments – in which I video-tape conversations, track eye movements, measure reading times, or analyze people's drawings -- challenge their assumptions.

I've taught at three University of California campuses: San Diego, Santa Cruz, and Berkeley. I decided to come to UC Merced because I was intrigued by the unique opportunity to help set the stage for a world class university a few miles away from my hometown. I look forward to watching the many positive changes our new UC will bring to Merced and the surrounding area in the years to come.

Outside my life as a professor, I enjoy hiking, running, biking, traveling, gardening, and art.