Dr. Sarah L.

Before pursuing a PhD, Dr. Leckey earned dual bachelor’s degrees in psychology and neurobiology, physiology, and behavior from the University of California, Davis, where she was inducted into the Phi Kappa Phi Honors Society. After graduating, she worked as a Junior Specialist in the Memory and Development Lab, contributing to several longitudinal behavioral and MRI studies. She then completed her PhD at the University of California, Davis, where her research examined the neurological mechanisms and developmental trajectory of memory and metacognition from toddlerhood through adulthood.

Following the completion of her PhD, Dr. Leckey began working as a research scientist across multiple universities, including R1 institutions such as UC Davis and the University of Texas at Austin, as well as HBCUs, including the University of the District of Columbia and Morgan State University. Her work focuses on how students’ beliefs, learning environments, and psychological experiences influence academic achievement and long-term college success. She currently serves as Lead Research Scientist at UC Davis. 

Dr. Leckey has authored publications in peer-reviewed journals, including Nature Communications, Nature Human Behaviour, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), Child Development, and NeuroImage, and has presented her work at national and international conferences such as the Society for Research in Child Development (SRCD), the American Educational Research Association (AERA), and the International Congress of Psychology. Her research spans cognitive psychology, neuroscience, education, and applied data science. She has extensive experience using tools such as R, Mplus, and survey platforms to analyze complex real-world datasets, and she has led and contributed to multi-year longitudinal studies involving thousands of students. Her work includes designing studies, cleaning and analyzing large datasets, interpreting results, and communicating findings through publications, reports, and presentations for both academic and public audiences.

With nine years of mentorship experience, Dr. Leckey has supported high school, undergraduate, and graduate students through every stage of independent research—from developing research questions and conducting literature reviews to designing studies, analyzing data, and preparing written and oral presentations. Students she has coached have successfully completed independent projects, gained confidence as researchers, and have been admitted to their chosen academic programs. 

As a mentor, Dr. Leckey takes a collaborative and personalized approach, offering encouraging support while maintaining high academic rigor. She believes students learn best when they feel invested in topics, so she helps them refine ideas they genuinely care about while teaching structured research methods that make ambitious projects achievable. Dr. Leckey explains ideas in multiple ways, adapts explanations to each student’s learning style, and breaks intimidating research tasks into manageable steps. By combining clarity with enthusiasm, she helps students develop strong reasoning skills, clear writing, and confidence with data, ensuring they leave with a completed project and transferable scientific and critical-thinking skills.

Dr. Leckey is passionate about mentorship because she believes research empowers students to ask meaningful questions about the world and discover their academic identity. She enjoys helping students realize that research is not reserved for experts—it is a learnable process that rewards curiosity, persistence, and creativity.