headshot of Shelly Putt

Shelby S. J. Putt

The Department of Psychology and the Cognitive Behavioral Sciences (CBS) Colloquium Series will present a talk titled, “Brain activation related to learning prehistoric toolmaking skills” with Shelby S. J. Putt, Ph.D., at 2 p.m. Friday, September 20, in 48 DeGarmo Hall. Putt is an assistant professor of anthropology at Illinois State University.

Putt received her Ph.D. in anthropology from the University of Iowa in 2016, where she was an AAUW American Fellow. Her dissertation, Human Brain Activity during Stone Tool Production: Tracing the Evolution of Cognition and Language, received the University of Iowa’s Distinguished Dissertation Award. She did her postdoctoral work at the Stone Age Institute and the Human Brain Evolution Lab at Indiana University before accepting the position of assistant professor in the Department of Sociology and Anthropology at Illinois State University this year. Putt is a biological anthropologist whose research program combines functional neuroimaging technology (fNIRS and fMRI) with the fossil and archaeological record to investigate the evolution of human language, cognition, and brain size. Her research, which has been published in Nature Human Behaviour and NeuroImage, has been featured in Discover Magazine, Nature, and Science Friday on NPR.

CBS Colloquium Series

The CBS Colloquium Series brings high caliber researchers to the Illinois State University campus to share their work with the local academic community. Individual faculty members invite speakers to campus based on their interests. The Department of Psychology also invites alumni to speak in the series in an effort to maintain strong connections with former students and provide them with a chance to pass on their knowledge to current students. The series provides both faculty and students with a variety of professional development opportunities and allows students to network with professionals in their field of study.

This speaker series is sponsored by the Department of Psychology. To support the Department of Psychology and help enhance its educational mission with advanced teaching methods, guest speakers, and more opportunities for students to learn through research experiences, please consider making a gift to the department through the Illinois State University Foundation.

If you need a special accommodation to participate in this program, call the Department of Psychology at (309) 439-8651. Please allow sufficient time to arrange the accommodation.