Dr. Steven Luck stands as a preeminent cognitive neuroscientist whose work has fundamentally shaped our understanding of human attention and memory systems. He currently holds the distinguished position of Distinguished Professor of Psychology at the University of California, Davis, with additional appointments at the Center for Mind and Brain and affiliations with the UC Davis MIND Institute and Center for Neuroscience. After earning his Ph.D. in Neurosciences from the University of California, San Diego in 1993, he established himself as a rising scholar at the University of Iowa before joining UC Davis in 2006. Dr. Luck has provided significant leadership to the field through his decade-long directorship of the Center for Mind and Brain from 2009 to 2019, guiding it to become a premier institution for cognitive neuroscience research.
Dr. Luck's groundbreaking research has illuminated the fundamental mechanisms of attention and working memory through rigorous experimental paradigms combining behavioral measurements, eye tracking, and event-related potential (ERP) recordings. His laboratory has made seminal contributions to understanding how the brain selects relevant information while filtering distractions, with his 2008 Nature paper on discrete fixed-resolution representations in visual working memory becoming a cornerstone of the field with over 2,000 citations. He has extended this work to investigate cognitive dysfunction in psychiatric and neurological disorders including schizophrenia and ADHD, bridging basic science with clinical applications. Dr. Luck has also dedicated substantial effort to advancing methodological rigor in cognitive neuroscience, authoring influential textbooks that have standardized ERP practices across laboratories worldwide, thereby elevating the quality and reproducibility of research in the field.
Beyond his research achievements, Dr. Luck has been instrumental in transforming cognitive neuroscience education through innovative teaching approaches that integrate online learning with in-person discussions, creating a model adopted by numerous institutions. As one of the founding faculty members of UC Davis's Cognitive Science major, he has helped shape an entire generation of interdisciplinary scholars who bridge psychology, neuroscience, and computational approaches. His exceptional contributions to both research and education were recognized with the prestigious UC Davis Prize for Teaching and Scholarly Achievement in 2024-25, the highest honor bestowed by the university on its faculty members. Dr. Luck's standing as a scientific leader is further evidenced by his election as a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the Society of Experimental Psychologists, and the American Psychological Association, cementing his legacy as a transformative figure whose work continues to guide the future direction of cognitive neuroscience.
