Rachael Lapidis, M.A.

Rachael Lapidis has always been interested in language, psychology, and music.  Currently a Ph.D. candidate in Psychology at the University of California, San Diego, her work in the laboratory of renowned scientist Dr. Diana Deutsch combines these three domains by examining pitch memory, musical illusions, and linguistic pitch and rhythm in speakers of lexical tone languages and English.

Prior to her current work, Rachael served as the laboratory manager of Dr. Laura-Ann Petitto’s Cognitive Neuroscience Laboratory for Language and Child Development at Dartmouth College where she was involved in several national studies of bilingual children’s language and literacy.  Rachael graduated magna cum laude from Dartmouth College in 2004 as a Presidential Scholar with a double major in Psychology and Linguistics.  She studied voice with Erma Mellinger and performed with the Dartmouth Chamber Singers for five years, including a tour of Japan in 2002, and currently sings with the La Jolla Symphony Chorus.

Rachael has taught Introduction to Psychology at the University of California, San Diego and Palomar College and has been a teaching assistant for courses including Developmental Psychology, Eating Disorders, Psychology of Sport, Child Psychological Disorders, Criminology, and Social Cognition.  Her love of teaching also carries over into her volunteer activities, which include engaging families in hands-on science at the Reuben H. Fleet Science Center in San Diego and reading to bilingual elementary school students through Rolling Readers. 

She will be teaching The Psychology of Music at Chapman during the fall semester, 2009.