Lila Davachi, Ph.D., is a pioneering cognitive neuroscientist and Professor of Psychology at Yale University. Her work explores how the brain transforms everyday experience into lasting memory. She earned her Ph.D. in neuroscience from Yale, training under renowned neuroscientist Patricia Goldman-Rakic.
Before returning to Yale, Davachi was a Professor of Psychology at Columbia University and a Research Scientist at the Nathan Kline Institute. Her research combines behavioral experiments, functional neuroimaging, and intracranial electrophysiology to understand how experiences are encoded, consolidated, and retrieved.
Her work has reshaped the study of episodic memory, revealing how the hippocampus, medial temporal lobe, and cortical networks organize everyday life. In particular, Davachi’s research on event segmentation shows how the brain divides continuous experience into meaningful units, creating boundaries that influence what we remember. She has also advanced understanding of spontaneous memory replay and its role in memory consolidation.
Bridging cognitive neuroscience with affective science and clinical research, Davachi examines how motivation, reward, and emotion shape memory. Her many honors include the Cognitive Neuroscience Society’s Young Investigator Award, election to the Society of Experimental Psychologists, the Memory Disorders Research Society, the Association for Psychological Sciences and Columbia’s Lenfest Distinguished Faculty Award.