Nilam Ram

My current research interests have grown out of a history of studying change. After my undergraduate study of economics I was lucky enough to land a job as a currency trader. There I studied the movement of world markets as they jerked up, down and sideways. Later I moved on to the study of human movement, kinesiology, and eventually psychological processes - with a specialization in longitudinal research methodology. Generally I study how short-term changes (e.g., processes such as learning, information processing, etc.) develop over the course of the lifespan and how intraindividual change and variability study designs (e.g., measurement bursts) might contribute to our knowledge base. Current projects include examinations of: age differences in short-term dynamics at the cognitive/affective/temperament interface; cyclic patterns in the day-to-day progression of emotions; and change in cognition and well-being over the lifespan, particularly in the oldest old. Methodologically, I am also working to develop a variety of multi-person extensions of intraindividual analytic methods and investigating how we can maintain a focus on the individual while still tackling issues of aggregation and generalizability.