Rebecca Todd was an arts journalist and contemporary dance choreographer probing relationships between embodiment, mental imagery, emotion, and memory before turning to the tools of cognitive science to investigate the same themes. She has a Master’s degree in Dance from UCLA and a PhD in Developmental Science and Neuroscience from University of Toronto. As a writer she was a regular dance and theatre columnist for the late Eye Weekly and also contributed pieces to The Dance Current and The Globe and Mail.  She is currently an Associate Professor in cognitive science in the University of British Columbia in the Department of Psychology. Her work uses measures of brain activation, physiology and behaviour to understand on how emotional relevance influences how we perceive and remember the world during times of health and in depression and anxiety. She also tends a young cider apple orchard on the Slocan River in British Columbia. For more about her lab’s research see: http://mclab.psych.ubc.ca/.