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Postdoctoral Scholars

 

Sara Schneider, PhD 

NCPC Postdoctoral Scholar 

2024-2026

 

 

Education and Training

UNIVERSITY  DEGREE DISCIPLINE DATE
University of California, Merced PhD Cognitive and Information Sciences

08/2021
University of California, Merced MS Cognitive and Information Sciences 05/2021
University of Cincinnati BS Psychology 05/2015
University of Cincinnati BA Philosophy

05/2015

 

 

 

 

Overview

Sara Schneider, PhD, MS, is a cognitive scientist by training and a postdoctoral scholar at the UC Merced Nicotine and Cannabis Policy Center (NCPC). Her current research focuses on investigating community- and policy-level factors related to tobacco and cannabis use and cessation through community-engaged research in the San Joaquin Valley (SJV).

Her work applies a community-engaged and mixed-methods approach to addressing tobacco-related inequities in rural communities like the SJV. As part of a funded Tobacco-Related Disease Research (TRDRP) study (MPIs: Dr. Dorie Apollonio, UC San Francisco; Dr. Anna Song, UC Merced, TRDRP #T33IR6471), she conducted a quantitative survey with San Joaquin Valley community members, and also conducted qualitative interviews with SJV pharmacists to understand their knowledge, attitudes, and experiences with pharmacist-furnished nicotine therapy replacement (NRT). She has also written on the health consequences of cannabis for youth, and is currently writing about criteria needed to improve cannabis marketplaces (e.g., federally regulating product testing and descheduling cannabis to allow scientists to conduct ecologically sound research).

With a multidisciplinary background, she earned her PhD and MS in Cognitive and Information Sciences from UC Merced, where she investigated speech structure (i.e., hierarchical temporal structure) and the alignment of levels of speech between speakers (i.e., complexity matching) in the contexts of infant vocalization development, joint task performance, and Spanish-English bilingual conversations. Displaying a strong commitment to pedagogy, she has mentored 23 undergraduate UC Merced students and received UC Merced’s Outstanding Teaching Award in 2018 for her efforts. Her long-term goals are to reduce health disparities relating to tobacco and cannabis in the SJV and other rural regions, while continuing to mentor students in their academic and professional development.

Publications:

  1. Halliday DM, Espinoza S, Schneider S, Steinberg J. Cannabis use in youth: Consumption and health consequences. Encycl Child Adolesc Health. 2023;415-427. doi: doi:10.1016/B978-0-12-818872-9.00153-9
  2. Schneider SC. Hierarchical temporal structure and convergence in development, performance, and bilingualism (Publication no. 28716628) [Doctoral dissertation]. University of California, Merced; 2021. ProQuest Dissertations Publishing.
  3. Lopez L, Moorman K, Schneider S, Baker M, Holbrook C. Morality is relative: Anger, disgust and aggression as contingent responses to sibling versus stranger harm. Emotion. 2020;21(2):376-390. doi:10.1037/emo0000707; PMID: 31829720
  4. Schneider S, Ramirez-Aristizabal AG, Gavilan C, Kello CT. Complexity matching and lexical matching in monolingual and bilingual conversations. Biling Lang Cogn. 2020;23(4):845-857. doi:10.1017/S1366728919000774