In Memoriam
Dr. Holly Shablack
It is with great sadness that we mourn the passing of Dr. Holly Shablack, Assistant Professor of Cognitive and Behavioral Science at Washington and Lee University, who passed away on April 14, 2026 from complications of cancer. She was 35 years old.
Holly was a PhD student in the lab from 2014-2020. She joined us from the University of Michigan, where she did her BA and was a postbacc scholar in the lab of Dr. Ethan Kross. At UNC, Holly’s graduate research focused on the role of language in emotion. She conducted some of our earliest work on the role of concept knowledge in emotion experiences. Her dissertation examined how having access to specific emotion concept knowledge shapes emotion experience and physiology during stress. She published an important meta-analysis demonstrating that having access to emotion words alters how the brain processes emotional experiences and perceptions. She also worked on studies examining how children learn emotion words, paving the way for interdisciplinary collaborations in developmental linguistics. She spent long hours collecting data from 3-5 year old children at a local museum, and showed that the linguistic context that adults use to speak about novel words shapes how children infer the emotional meanings of those words. Holly was also a star teacher and mentor. During her time at UNC, she received the Druscilla French Graduate Student Excellence fellowship, awarded to graduate students who demonstrate all the qualities of academic excellence: scholarship, excellence in teaching, and service. In her final year at UNC, she was nominated by her students and received the University-wide Tanner award for excellence in teaching. Holly loved being in the classroom, lab-based mentoring of undergraduates, and shaping the lives of students.
Holly defended and received her PhD in spring 2020, at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic. Although she did not formally get to walk in a commencement ceremony that year, the lab performed our own special hooding ceremony at the Old Well to commemorate the occasion. Holly began her first position that fall as a Visiting Assistant Professor at Oberlin College. She found her professional home a few years later at Washington and Lee University, where she was an Assistant Professor on the tenure track.
Above all, Holly was a beloved collaborator, mentor, friend, daughter, wife, and mother. During her time in our lab, she brought endless positivity, vibrance, and warmth to every project, meeting, and interaction she was a part of. She was always taking care of others, even without being asked. She will be deeply missed in our lab family and by everyone whose life she touched.
