(Andrea Burgess in front of her slides.)
EBRL is overjoyed to report that the lab’s own PhD student Andrea Burgess has successfully defended her doctoral dissertation! On March 4th, 2026, she presented her dissertation titled: “How the brain processes emotional salience in text: Investigating lexical arousal in discourse processing” to a lively crowd of a mix of the public, Vanderbilt staff, and fellow students. Defending your dissertation is an incredibly important milestone in the life of a PhD student, and marks the official point where a PhD student crosses the final hurtle for receiving their PhD! We here at the lab are very proud of Dr. Burgess and are looking forward to her continued academic success!
(Andrea Burgess with members of her family.)
(Cookies from her Dissertation Defense after party)