Berit T. Barthelmes is a PhD student in Psychology at the University of Illinois Chicago, working with Dr. Christine Coughlin in the Future Learning and Memory (FLAME) Lab. Her research focuses on the development of episodic memory and spontaneous future thinking in children, examining how these abilities support learning, imagination, and self-projection across time. She also investigates how mind-wandering relates to the emergence of future-oriented cognition. Before beginning her PhD, Berit earned an M.Sc. in Psychology: Development, Neuroscience, and Cognition at the University of Zurich, where her master’s work sparked a broader interest in the theoretical foundations of psychology and metascientific questions. She is excited about advancing open, transparent, and conceptually grounded approaches to developmental and cognitive science.