Karen B. Schloss is an Associate Professor in the Department of Psychology and the Wisconsin Institute for Discovery (WID). Her Visual Reasoning Lab studies how people interpret meaning from visual features, with a focus on color. Her lab addresses fundamental questions in information visualization and visual cognition, with the goal of making visual communication more effective and efficient. As part of the WID Virtual Environments group, her lab also develops virtual reality educational tools to help make science accessible and engaging. Dr. Schloss received her B.A. from Barnard College, Columbia University in 2005 (major in Psychology, minor in Architecture) and her Ph.D. in Psychology at the University of California, Berkeley in 2011. After positions as a postdoctoral scholar in Berkeley (Psychology) and an Assistant Professor of Research at Brown University (Cognitive, Linguistic, and Psychological Sciences), she joined the UW–Madison faculty in 2016.
A word from Allyson Bennett, Mark and Ilene Laufman Family Professor and Chair of Psychology:
Dr. Karen Schloss brings enthusiasm, creativity and rigor to teaching, research and mentorship. Her research on the interactions between color perception and decision making establishes her as a rising ‘star’ and has broad implications beyond our field. Our department and campus are fortunate to have such a talented and dedicated individual.