Emily Chen

About

Emily Chen writes about how memory actually works and what to do with that knowledge if you have an exam in three weeks. She trained as a cognitive psychologist (Ph.D., Northwestern) and worked in a memory lab for four years before pivoting to study-skills coaching and writing.

Her SimpleQuizMaker pieces translate the cognitive psychology literature — retrieval practice, spaced repetition, the Feynman technique, interleaving — into protocols that fit into a normal student week. She is opinionated about the difference between "studying" (often unproductive) and "active recall" (consistently productive), and most of her articles are some variation of that conviction.

Emily has coached over 300 students one-on-one — mostly pre-med and law school applicants prepping for the MCAT, LSAT, and bar exam — and the techniques she writes about are the ones that have survived contact with real students under real pressure.