Summary
Mike Starrett Ambrose (“stAIR-it ... AM-brohz”) joined the Cognitive and Brain Sciences faculty in the Department of Psychology at the University of Nevada, Reno in the Fall of 2026. He began his research career as an undergraduate research assistant and then lab manager at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, studying working memory and attention under the supervision of Dr. Brad Postle. He completed his doctoral training with Dr. Arne Ekstrom – first at the University of California, Davis and later at the University of Arizona – where he first started studying human spatial cognition and navigation using immersive virtual reality. Before coming to UNR, Mike was a postdoctoral scholar at the University of California, Irvine working with Dr. Liz Chrastil to study spatial neuroscience. He is originally from Green Bay, Wisconsin.
His cognitive neuroscience research program aims to understand how the mind and brain facilitate complex spatial cognition and navigation behaviors with the ultimate goal of augmenting human cognition to enhance neurotypical function or to mitigate the effects of aging and disease. Work in his laboratory addresses questions related to the following themes: 1) The fundamental structure and mechanics of spatial representations, 2) flexible use of spatial information dependent on behavior context, 3) interactions between spatial cognition and other cognitive processes, and 4) changes in spatial abilities across the life span and in neurological disorders.
A note regarding last name(s): Although he uses his middle initial and one last name for research products (“Michael J. Starrett”), both last names are preferred in most/all other contexts (“Please welcome, Dr. Starrett Ambrose”).
Publications
Jetter, C., He, C., Tu, A. S., Starrett, M. J., Chrastil, E. R., & Hegarty, M. (2026). Map-based navigation: Individual differences in perspective taking and path integration. Neuropsychologia, 229, 109476. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2026.109476
Chi, L.*, Starrett, M. J.*, Rao, Y. §, & Chrastil, E. R. (2026). Graph properties drive navigational selection between equidistant routes. Neuropsychologia, 221, 109310. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2025.109310
Sabharwal-Siddiqi, S., McAvan, A. S., Robinson, E. M., Starrett, M., Garren, J. D., Zheng, J., Grilli, M. D., Isham, E. A., & Ekstrom, A. D. Naturalistic movements enrich episodic memories but not their spatiotemporal structure. Cognition, 267, 106358. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cognition.2025.106358
Huffman, D. J., Annes, P. J., Yumurtaci, S., Starrett Ambrose, M. J., & Shakya, A. (2025). Another Brick in the wall? A null effect of boundaries on spatial memory judgments in a novel, highly immersive, first-person object-placement task. Proceedings of the annual meeting of the Cognitive Science Society, 47. https://escholarship.org/uc/item/6d11q44r
Alexander, A. S.*, Place, R.*, Starrett, M. J.*, Chrastil, E.R.†, & Nitz, D. A.† (2023). Rethinking retrosplenial cortex: Perspectives and predictions. Neuron, 111(2), 150-175. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neuron.2022.11.006
Doner, S., Zheng, J., McAvan, A. S., Starrett, M. J., Campbell, H., Sanders, D., & Ekstrom, A. D. (2023). Evidence for flexible navigation strategies during spatial learning involving path choices. Spatial Cognition and Computation, 23(3), 233-262. https://doi.org/10.1080/13875868.2022.2158090
Starrett, M. J., Huffman, D. J., & Ekstrom, A. D. (2023). Combining egoformative and alloformative cues in a novel tabletop navigation task. Psychological Research, 87, 1644-1664. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00426-022-01739-y
Starrett, M. J., McAvan, A. S., Huffman, D. J., Stokes, J. D., Kyle, C. T., Smuda, D. N., Kolarik, B. S., Laczko, J., & Ekstrom, A. D. (2021). Landmarks: A solution for spatial navigation and memory experiments in virtual reality. Behavior Research Methods, 53(3), 1046-1059. https://doi.org/10.3758/s13428-020-01481-6
Education
Ph.D. in Psychology, University of Arizona, 2021
M.A. in Psychology, University of California, Davis, 2017
B.A. in Psychology, University of Wisconsin-Madison, 2011
Research interests
Cognitive Neuroscience
Learning
Memory
Spatial Cognition
Navigatio
Courses taught
PSY 446 - Human Neuropsychology