Nora Newcombe

Nora S. Newcombe is the Laura H. Carnell Professor of Psychology and the James H. Glackin Distinguished Faculty Fellow at Temple University. She is a Canadian-American researcher in cognitive development, cognitive psychology and cognitive science, working on the development of spatial thinking and reasoning and on the development of episodic memory. She was the principal investigator of the Spatial Intelligence and Learning Center, one of six NSF-funded Science of Learning Centers.
Background.
Newcombe received her Ph.D. from Harvard University in 1976. She has served as the Chair of the Cognitive Science Society Board, President of the Cognitive Development Society, Division 7 (Developmental) of the American Psychological Association, the Eastern Psychological Association and as Chair of the Board of Scientific Affairs of the American Psychological Association. She has been elected as a Fellow in various societies including the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the Society of Experimental Psychologists, the Association for Psychological Science, four divisions of the American Psychological Association, and the American Association for the Advancement of Science.
Newcombe's contributions to spatial cognition and its development are extensive. Her book with Janellen Huttenlocher in 2003, "Making Space", synthesized decades of research and provided a new direction for the field, and provides a new conceptualization of cognitive development different from either traditional nativist or from traditional empiricist approaches. In addition, she has worked on sex differences in cognition, beginning in the late 1970s with a critical look at a then-popular explanation of sex differences in spatial functioning in terms the onset of puberty. Since then, she has recognized the evolutionary and neural factors involved in sex differences while also emphasizing the malleability of cognitive ability as noted in the literature. (recently reprinted in a special issue celebrating 25 years of Applied Cognitive Psychology).
Newcombe has been the keynote speaker discussing relevant developments in spatial cognition at several meetings such as the Psychonomic Society, the American Psychological Society, the International Mind Brain Education Society and the German Psychological Society.
Spatial Intelligence and Learning Center.
Newcombe led the Spatial Intelligence and Learning Center (SILC), one of 6 NSF-funded Science of Learning Centers that explore learning in an interdisciplinary framework, during its grant period from 2006-2018. She has thus brought spatial cognition to the forefront of our conceptualization of the human intellect and its potential for learning.
In her work on memory and memory development, Newcombe has integrated research from adult cognitive psychology and neuroscience to the study of development, both in terms of distinctions between implicit and explicit memory and distinctions between semantic and episodic memory.
Awards and fellowships.
Newcombe has received the 2014 APA William James Fellow Award recognizing her achievement in advancing the field of cognitive science, G. Stanley Hall Award, the George A. Miller Award, an Award for Distinguished Service to Psychological Science, and the Women in Cognitive Science Mentorship Award. She was a James McKeen Cattell Fellow for a sabbatical year at Princeton in 1999-2000. She is a Fellow of the Cognitive Science Society. In 2020 she presented the Paul B. Baltes Lecture at the Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences and Humanities.