December 2014

Awards & Accomplishments

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Associate Professor Wilma Koutstaal has been elected as a fellow within the society for the American Advancement for the Association of Science (AAAS). The announcement went out on Friday, and details can be found here. Fellows will be honored for their contributions to innovation, education, and scientific leadership at the AAAS annual meeting in February 2015. Congratulations to Wilma on this prestigious honor!

Grants

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Associate Professor Cheryl Olman, Adjunct Professor Scott Sponheim, and Consultant Trent Jerde (previous CCS Research Assistant Professor) were awarded a $250,000 Vision Research Program Hypothesis Development Award from the Congressionally Directed Medical Research Program for the study "Frontoparietal priority maps as biomarkers of mTBI".

Visiting Scholars

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Sergio Oliveira, graduate student at the Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul (UFRGS) in Brazil has been invited by Professor Bob Krueger to visit our Department from December 2014 - November 2015. Mr. Oliveira's visit aims to improve the quality of his thesis dissertation, the UFRGS, Brazil, and Professor Krueger's labs. The visit will also promote knowledge about cross-cultural differences of personality and personality disorders between the Brazilian and American people.

November 2014

Awards & Accomplishments

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Professor Rich Lee received a Presidential Citation from American Psychological Association President Nadine Kaslow for innovative thinking in translating science into practice. Professor Lee was specifically recognized for changing the face of Asian American research in psychology through his research on the international adoption of Korean children.

Professor Traci Mann's recent study on the effect of comfort foods on our mood was discussed in the NPR article "Eating Comfort Foods May Not Be So Comforting After All".

Professor Deniz Ones commented on the increased scrutiny of workplace tests and their effectiveness in the article "Are Workplace Personality Tests Fair?" featured on the website of the Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology.

Assistant Professor Shmuel Lissek explains how evolution has impacted our threat response in the Washington Post article "It's highly unlikely that you'll become infected with Ebola. So what are you so afraid of?"

Research by Emeritus Professor Ellen Berscheid, Professor Mark Snyder, and former Psychology graduate student Allen Omoto on close relationships was featured on the Sept 29 episode of the CBS hit show "The Big Bang Theory". For more on how their research fit into the plot of the show, see http://bigbangtheory.wikia.com/wiki/The_First_Pitch_Insufficiency

Emeritus Professor Irv Gottesman was interviewed for an article on CLA's website titled "Causing ripples, making waves." His career and accomplishments are discussed.

Emeritus Professor Gail Peterson was presented a Lifetime Achievement Award by the Minnesota Northland Association for Behavior Analysis in recognition of his outstanding contributions to Behavior Analysis. He has taught groundbreaking classes in Applied Behavior Analysis to several thousand students, and his career has been responsible for initiating the careers of the largest number of behavior analysts in Minnesota.

Former Post-Doctoral Associate Nancy Segal - who served on Emeritus Professor Tom Bouchard's Twins Reared Apart project for many years - was featured in APA's Society for General Psychology newsletter The General Psychologist. An article starting on page 18 discusses Dr. Segal winning the 2013 William James Book Award for The Minnesota Study of Twins Reared Apart: The Science Behind the Fascination. Dr. Segal has now published multiple books on her experience here within the department - including Born Together: Raised Apart which staff can browse in the Central Office. The book provides an excellent summary of the early years of twin research at Minnesota.

Graduate student Emily Allen (Auditory Perception and Cognition Lab, advisor Andrew Oxenham) has been awarded a fellowship from the EU-funded Auditory Cognitive Neuroscience Network to spend 6 months in Maastricht to pursue research related to the perception and neural coding of pitch and timbre.

Graduated

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Congratulations to our September 2014 Ph.D. graduates!

Jennifer Filson Moses

Area: Social

Advisors: Mark Snyder and Marti Hope Gonzales

Dissertation Title: Social Identity in Close Relationships

Eva Susanne Gabrielsen

Area: Social

Advisor: Mark Snyder

Dissertation Title: Longitudinal Intergroup Contact Model Comparison at the Multicultural High School United World College Red Cross Nordic

Michal Reifen Tagar

Area: Social

Advisors: Eugene Borgida and Christopher Federico

Dissertation Title: Why Disagreement Obstructs Constructive Dialogue: The Role of Biased Attribution of Moral Motives

Sarah Ward

Area: CSPR

Advisor: William Iacono

Dissertation Title: Understanding Social Role Contributions to Antisocial Behavior in Adolescence and Adulthood: A Genetically Informed Approach

Visiting Scholars

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Rui Dai, graduate student at Hangzhou Normal University in China, has been invited by Professor Sheng He to visit our Department from November 2014 - May 2015. Ms. Dai's visit aims to further her training in functional brain imaging research, with a particular focus in the area of advanced brain imaging data analysis. Her current research project is on the neural plasticity in blind participants.

October 2014

Administrative Updates & Announcements

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Please welcome Matthew Ogbeifun to the department. Matthew will be working as a Student Tech for PsyIT. Matthew is an undergraduate student at the University of Minnesota pursuing a Bachelor of Science degree in Psychology. Originally from St. Paul Minnesota, Matthew enjoys listening to music, watching independent films, and volunteering/researching at the Minneapolis VA Medical Center. Matthew's work schedule will be as follows (N211 Elliott Hall):
Mondays: 8:00 a.m. - 11:00 a.m.
Tuesdays: 1:00 p.m. - 4:00 p.m.
Wednesdays: 8:00 a.m. - 11:00 a.m.
Fridays: 8:00 a.m. - 11:00 a.m.

This fall, students may withdraw from classes without instructor of College approval through the tenth week of class. The final date that students may withdraw is November 10. Previously, students could withdraw without approval through the eighth week of class. Deadlines for cancelling or adding classes are available on the One Stop website.

You want an undergraduate research assistant. You are swamped with requests from students looking for research positions. You wade through all the requests and most of them are from students who don't have what you're looking for. You spend time exchanging emails with students who did not provide enough information in the first place, only to find that they won't work out for you either. Time passes. Frustration builds. Work goes unfinished. OR...You request a copy of the Available RA List containing information from students looking for RA positions and you find all the information you want in convenient spreadsheet form. You choose an RA who has the right background and interests. Done. The list has been updated in the past few weeks with all new information. Faculty and graduate students conducting research can request a copy of the list from Mark Stellmack.

Psychology Advising is on FaceBook! This fall, an undergraduate intern will be working with Psychology Advising to raise our social media profile. Check out our page, Like us, and encourage undergraduates in your classes and labs to get connected.

Awards & Accomplishments

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Professor Gene Borgida was quoted in the St. Paul Pioneer Press on implicit racial bias in the treatment of a man accused of trespass in a public area of the St. Paul skyway system, subjected to Taser, and taken to jail - all while waiting to pick up his children. To read the article and watch the video of the incident, visit here.

Professor Traci Mann's research was discussed in Yahoo! News article "Obesity research confirms long-term weight loss almost impossible". Traci indicates that maintaining weight loss is highly unlikely for most individuals.

Professor Andrew Oxenham was elected to the Collegium Oto-Rhino-Laryngologicum Amicitiae Sacrum (CORLAS). CORLAS is dedicated to the pursuit of scientific advances in the broad field of Oto-Rhino-Laryngology. Membership in this international honor society is by invitation only, and is limited to 6 non-clinical members from the U.S.

Professor Jeff Simpson's research on how couples deal with insecurities was featured in The Huffington Post article "The Buffer Zone: Romance and Insecurity" and the DatingAdvice.com article "Dr. Jeffrey Simpson: The Go-To Source on Romantic Attachment Theory".

Emeritus Professor Gloria Leon was appointed Chair of the NASA Standing Review Panel, Behavioral Health and Performance Scientific Element, reviewing research progress on NASA-funded projects. We are pleased to see members of our faculty represented in the article titled "An Incomplete List of Eminent Psychologists of the Modern Era" by Ed Diener, Shigehiro Oishi and JungYeun Park published in the in the APA Archives of Scientific Psychology

Former graduate student Sandra Davis (Counseling, 1973), co-founder and immediate past CEO of MDA Leadership Consulting, was recognized by the George Family Foundation as one of 84 exceptional women leaders making remarkable contributions to building the Twin Cities in an event on Tuesday, Sept. 16. Davis and other honorees were recognized at the "Celebrating Twin Cities Women Leaders" event at the Guthrie Theater in Minneapolis. The event celebrated women in the Twin Cities who have served as CEO, board chair or president of prominent companies and organizations in the community. Of the 84 honorees, Davis is the only one to head a leadership development firm.

 

Events

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Department of Psychology Colloquium
Sponsored by the Personality, Individual Differences, and Behavior Genetics (PIB) and Biological Psychopathology (BP) Areas

Speaker: Raymond A. Mar, Ph.D.
Department of Psychology, York University

Friday, October 3, 2014 11:00 a.m. - 12:30 p.m.
Elliott Hall N639
Can Consuming Narrative Fiction Create Empathy?

Most of us engage with fictional narratives on a daily basis, be it a novel, film, or favourite television show. In doing so, we often imagine the inner worlds of others who are quite different from ourselves, which may provide an avenue for developing perspective-taking and empathy towards others. In this talk I will provide a critical overview of the available research on whether exposure to narrative fiction can improve our capacity to understand other people. This includes work based on various methodological approaches, including neuroscience, developmental psychology, cognitive psychology, and individual differences.

Department of Psychology Colloquium
Sponsored by the Social Psychology Area

Speaker: Hazel Rose Markus, Ph.D.
Department of Psychology, Stanford University

Monday, October 6, 2014 10:00 - 11:30 a.m.
Elliott Hall N639
Inequality, Social Class and Self

The U.S. is increasingly marked by inequality and divided along social class lines. The divide is evident in what eat for dinner, how we parent, how we vote, and how long we live. In this talk I integrate many of the powerful and previously unexamined psychological consequences of social class, suggesting that societal rank has its influence on behavior through one’s experience of self. In North American settings, those with higher rank (whether measured or manipulated) tend to experience themselves as independent selves—as separate from others, as expressing and promoting their own interests, choices and goals, and as influencing and controlling social interactions. Those with lower rank tend to experience themselves as interdependent selves—as connected with others, as responsive to the social situation and to others’ goals, emotions and needs, and as adjusting and deferring to others in interaction. The more unequal we become and the more different our selves become, the more societal dysfunction we will experience. Addressing inequality in health, education, and political engagement requires policies and practices that bridge these socioculturally shaped differences in self.

 

Department of Psychology Colloquium

Speaker: Brian Engdahl, Ph.D.
William L. Anderson Chair in PTSD Research & Adjunct Professor of Psychology, Neuroscience & Cognitive Sciences, University of Minnesota

Thursday, October 16, 2014 3:30 - 4:30 p.m.
Walter Library 402

Neuroimaging, PTSD, Resilience, and Posttraumatic Growth

The search is on for biological markers of mental disorders. Neuroimaging techniques that assess brain function (EEG, PET, MRI) are providing tools in this search. We are using magnetoencephalography (MEG), a unique neuroimaging technique that is simple (task free resting state), safe, short (1 minute), dynamic (based on ongoing activity collected every millisecond) and sensitive to changes in brain communication patterns. MEG allows excellent discrimination between controls and disorder-specific groups. We have studied nearly 2000 subjects. Findings on multiple select groups will be presented, highlighting neural differences in PTSD, trauma adaptation, and posttraumatic growth.

Visiting Scholars

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Marion David, Postdoc at the University of Lyon in France, has been invited by Professor Andrew Oxenham to visit our Department from November 2014 - August 2015. This will be Dr. David's second visit to our department, her first visit as a graduate student for six months earlier this year. Dr. David will continue to participate collaboratively with department researchers in the areas of human auditory perception and neuroscience with particular emphasis on auditory scene analysis.

September 2014

Administrative Updates & Announcements

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We are pleased to welcome Assistant Professor Nate Helwig to the Quantitative/Psychometric Methods area of our Department! Nate comes to us from the University of Illinois's Department of Statistics. He will be splitting his time between the Department of Psychology and the School of Statistics (Psychology will serve as his tenure home). In Elliott Hall, he can be reached at N650 (office), N612 (lab), 612-624-8363, or helwig@umn.edu. Please help us welcome Nate to the Department!

Staff member Amanda Suchy has been reassigned to administratively support the Department's CSPR and PIB programs full time (PIB support has switched from Margie Pickering to Amanda). Amanda previously split her time between the CSPR program and the Central Office. She will continue to be involved with the Central Office, as a backup when needed. Amanda will be located within CSPR's main office (in office N438E) and can be reached at (612) 625-2546 or amsuchy@umn.edu.

The Undergraduate Research Opportunities Program (UROP) provides grants of up to $1,700 for undergraduates either to work with a faculty member on her/his scholarly or creative project or to carry out a project of the student's own design in close collaboration with a faculty sponsor. UROP projects are an ideal way to bring together the University's research and teaching missions, and the program is well funded, providing over 100 grants for CLA students every year, including numerous projects sponsored by Psychology faculty members. Students submit their electronic application at www.urop.umn.edu. The due date for UROP applications for spring 2015 projects is October 6, 2014. Wendy Nicholson-Kotas serves as a resource for CLA students and faculty who have questions about the UROP program. She can be reached at nicho421@umn.edu or 612-624-4368. Questions? Holly Hatch-Surisook.

Awards & Accomplishments

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Emeritus Professor Tom Bouchard's award-winning twin research continues to make the news. His research was discussed in an article on livescience.com titled "Twins Separated at Birth Reveal Staggering Influence of Genetics", which was featured at Yahoo! News this month.

Assistant Professor Chun Wang received two significant awards during the summer months. In May she was selected to be a National Academy of Education Spencer Postdoctoral Fellow for the 2014-2015 academic year. With the generous support of the Spencer Foundation, the Academy created this program to encourage outstanding researchers at the postdoctoral level to pursue critical education research projects. The program provides her with a full teaching release for the 2014-2015 academic year to pursue her research program on the development of IRT models and methods for longitudinal measurement. Dr. Wang's second award resulted from an international competition sponsored by the International Association for Computerized Adaptive Testing (IACAT). As a result of that competition, she was selected to receive the Early Career Researcher Award, which will be presented to her at the IACAT conference in early October, where she will present a plenary address on her research on identifying statistically significant intraindividual multivariate change.

Graduated

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Congratulations to our July 2014 Ph.D. graduate!

Jennifer Ann Fillo

Area: Social 

Advisor: Jeff Simpson and Alex Rothman

Dissertation Title: Examining the Nature, Origins, and Health Consequences of Attachment-Related Individual Differences in the Emotion Regulation Process

Visiting Scholars

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Song Chang, graduate student in the School of Psychology at South China Normal University, has been invited by Professor Sheng He to visit our Department from September 2014 - September 2015. Ms. Chang will join Professor He's Vision and Attention Laboratory with her research focused on investigating the contents of visual imagery based on fMRI activities in the visual cortex. 

August 2014

Administrative Updates & Announcements

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The University of Minnesota will be hosting CoSMo 2014 (Summer School in Computational Sensory-Motor Neuroscience) from 8/3/14 - 8/17/14. Associate Professor Paul Schrater is a co-organizer, with financial support provided by the College of Liberal Arts and College of Science & Engineering. The goal of the summer school is to provide cross-disciplinary training in mathematical modelling techniques relevant to understanding brain function, dysfunction, and treatment. The summer school is directed at graduate students and post-doctoral fellows from multi-disciplinary backgrounds, including Life Sciences, Psychology, Computer Science, Mathematics and Engineering. Also accepted are highly motivated outstanding under-graduate students. More information on the program can be found here.

Summer Grades - Faculty who are sponsoring summer undergraduate RAs or Honors Thesis students must submit those class grades through Rachel Goeller. Summer Research Assistant and Thesis courses do not have assigned instructors, which means faculty cannot submit grades online. Please send the following information to Rachel Goeller by August 25th.

• Student Name
• Student ID#
• Term - Course Number
• Grade

Questions? Contact Rachel Goeller or Holly Hatch-Surisook.

Awards & Accomplishments

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Emeritus Professor Tom Bouchard will be receiving the American Psychological Foundation (APF) Gold Medal Award for Life Achievement in the Science of Psychology at the APA convention this year. The award will be presented to Tom on Friday, August 8, 2014 at 4:00 p.m. The award recognizes distinguished and enduring records of accomplishment in four areas of psychology: the application of psychology, the practice of psychology, psychology in the public interest, and the science of psychology.

Adjunct Professor Scott Sponheim (Minneapolis VA Medical Center) was awarded a 4-year grant entitled "Quantitative Modeling of Visual Perception Endophenotypes in Schizophrenia". Associate

Professor Cheryl Olman is a primary co-investigator, and the research will involve using paradigms she has developed in her laboratory in order to better understand the basis of visual perceptual abnormalities in psychosis. Emeritus Professor Irv Gottesman and Professor Dan Kersten are consultants on the project.

Former Graduate Student Stephanie Pituc (Counseling Ph.D., 2013) is the recipient of the 2014 APA Committee on Ethnic Minority Affairs' (CEMA) Jeffrey S. Tanaka Memorial Dissertation Award in Psychology. The CEMA Selection Sub-committee determined her dissertation research titled, Foreigner Objectification, Bicultural Identity, and Psychological Adjustment in Asian American College Students (University of Minnesota, 2013), to be the most outstanding. The APA CEMA will be hosting a reception and a brief awards ceremony at the APA 122nd Annual Convention in Washington, DC to present Dr. Pituc with an award to honor her efforts.

Graduated

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Congratulations to our June 2014 Ph.D. graduate!

Katrina Archambault

Area: CAB 

Advisor: Chad Marsolek

Dissertation Title: How Stimulus Similarity Impacts Spacing and Interleaving Effects in Long-term Memory

July 2014

Administrative Updates & Announcements

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Faculty - Please keep the Chair's Office updated with your emergency contact information via intranet form located here. If you already provided this information to the Chair's Office via Google form as a result of our recent request, you do not need to provide it again (only when your information changes).

Awards & Accomplishments

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Professor Alex Rothman was elected President-Elect of American Psychological Association's Division 38 (Division of Health Psychology). He will serve as President of the Division during 2015-2016.

Professor Richard Lee was interviewed for Gazillion Voices, an online magazine for their podcast which will also be broadcast on KFAI in the near future.

Emeritus Professor Bruce Overmier has been selected by APA's Board of Education Affairs (BEA) as one of two winners of the Outstanding Graduate Teaching of Psychology as a Core STEM Discipline Award for 2014. This is the inaugural year for this new award. According to the APA, the award "recognizes the contributions of a graduate-level professor whose teaching contributions exemplify psychology as a core science among the Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) disciplines. Teaching contributions include excellence in mentoring of graduate students, outstanding teaching both within the university and beyond in the broader community of psychological scientists, and effective leadership roles that foster the educational mission of advancing psychology as a core STEM discipline at the doctoral level. Also considered were the candidate's own scientific contributions to psychology, and how they have affected the production of psychological scientists who have pursued scholarship in basic psychological science."

Emeritus Professor Irving Gottesman was named one of the 30 most influential psychologists working today by website Best Masters in Psychology.

Two undergraduate majors were selected as recipients for the Summer 2014 Donor Awards for Psychology Undergraduate Engagement. This recognition comes with a $500 monetary award. Nicole Kaegi will be volunteering with Walker's Point Youth and Family Center in Milwaukee, WI in their Runaway and Crisis Teen Program and Shelter. Nicole will be working as a counselor assistant and a positive adult role model for the teenagers in the shelter. Lauren Zima will be observing Occupational Therapy sessions in an inpatient rehabilitation setting through MarionJoy Rehabilitation Hospital in Wheaton, IL. Lauren will use this opportunity to better inform herself about the OT profession and serve as a source of support for patients.

Graduated

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Congratulations to our May 2014 Ph.D. graduate!

Rachel Burns

Area: Social 

Advisor: Alexander Rothman

Dissertation Title: Can We Pay People to Act Healthily? Testing the Relative Effectiveness of Incentive Dimensions and Underlying Psychological Mediators

Bo-Yeong Won

Area: Cognitive and Brain Sciences 

Advisor: Yuhong Jiang

Dissertation Title: Visual statistical learning and its impact on spatial attention."     

June 2014

Administrative Updates & Announcements

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We were saddened to learn of the passing of Harrison Gough on May 4th. Please view his obituary for more information. Harrison made many outstanding contributions to our department and to the field. He will be greatly missed!

We are pleased to welcome a new staff member to our Central Office - Missy Jones. Missy is replacing Kate Klosterman, who's now with the School of Statistics. Missy will be occupying Kate's former desk (625-1537, jonesmk@umn.edu). Stop by when you can, and help us welcome Missy to the Department!

If you are looking for an undergraduate research assistant, check out the Available RA Database. The database contains information about undergraduates who are interested in conducting research in the department. You can examine students' interests, backgrounds, and previous experience to find someone who is a good fit for your research. The database contains only names and information collected since the end of the spring semester, so the information is up-to-date. Contact Mark Stellmack to obtain a copy of the database.

Elliott Hall's building hours have recently changed. Below is the current schedule. For questions, please contact the Central Office (N218, 612-625-2818, psymain@umn.edu).

Elliott Hall is open/unlocked. 

Monday: 7 a.m. - 7 p.m.

Tuesday: 7 a.m. - 7 p.m.

Wednesday: 7 a.m. - 7 p.m.

Thursday: 7 a.m. - 7 p.m.

Friday: 7 a.m. - 7 p.m.

Elliott Hall is locked. Doors may be opened by swiping your U Card. You do not need to have the Central Office add this access - any U Card will open the doors.

Monday: 6 a.m. - 7 a.m., 7 p.m. - 10 p.m.

Tuesday: 6 a.m. - 7 a.m., 7 p.m. - 10 p.m.

Wednesday: 6 a.m. - 7 a.m., 7 p.m. - 10 p.m.

Thursday: 6 a.m. - 7 a.m., 7 p.m. - 10 p.m.

Friday: 6 a.m. - 7 a.m., 7 p.m. - 10 p.m.

Elliott Hall is locked. Doors may be opened by swiping your U Card. This access must be added to your card by the Central Office. If you already have Elliott Hall building access on your card, you do not need to have it added again (access remains the same as before the building hour change). 

Monday: 10 p.m. - 6 a.m.

Tuesday: 10 p.m. - 6 a.m.

Wednesday: 10 p.m. - 6 a.m.

Thursday: 10 p.m. - 6 a.m.

Friday: 10 p.m. - 6 a.m.

Saturday: All day

Sunday: All day

PLEASE NOTE - A few doors at various Elliott Hall entrances will now be locked at all hours, allowing you to exit from them only. These are doors that are not connected to a card reader. These doors will have signs posted to alert you.

Awards & Accomplishments

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Professor Mark Snyder is the 2014 recipient of the Distinguished Service Award of the Society for the Psychological Study of Social Issues. The award is to be presented to him at the June 2014 meetings of the Society in Portland, Oregon. Previously, the Society has honored Professor Snyder's research and scholarly accomplishments with its Kurt Lewin Memorial Award and its Gordon Allport Intergroup Relations Prize.

Professor Rich Lee has been awarded an Arthur "Red" Motley Exemplary Teaching Award for the 2013-14 year. This award is sponsored by a gift from the family and friends of College of Liberal Arts alumnus Arthur Motley and other alumni of the college. It recognizes CLA faculty who are outstanding teachers of graduate and undergraduate students, who are approachable, show a strong level of caring for the success of individual students, and who facilitate an active learning environment in their classrooms. Rich was nominated for this award by his current and former students. Congratulations to Rich on this well-deserved honor!

Graduate students Craig Marquardt (Advisors Shmuel Lissek & Scott Sponheim) and Merav Silverman (Advisor Bob Krueger) - of the Clinical Science & Psychopathology Research area - have received National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowships. National Science Foundation's Graduate Research Fellowship Program helps ensure the vitality of the human resource base of science and engineering in the United States and reinforces its diversity. The program recognizes and supports outstanding graduate students. More information about the NSF Graduate Fellowship can be found here.

We are pleased to announce the following Department of Psychology graduate students have received The Doctoral Dissertation Fellowship (DDF) for 2014-15.

Shinho Cho (Cognitive and Brain Sciences Area, Advisors Daniel Kersten and Sheng He)

Nayla Hamdi (Clinical Science and Psychopathology Research Area, Advisor William Iacono)

Liza Meredith (Counseling Area, Advisor Patricia Frazier)

Ian Ramsay (Clinical Science and Psychopathology Research Area, Advisor Angus MacDonald)

NingYuan Wang (Cognitive and Brain Sciences Area, Advisor Andrew Oxenham)

This program gives the University's most accomplished Ph.D. candidates an opportunity to devote full-time effort to dissertation research and writing during the academic year. More information about the DDF can be found here.

We are also pleased to announce the following Department of Psychology graduate students have received a National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship.

Merav Silverman (Clinical Science and Psychopathology Research Area, Advisor Robert Krueger)

Craig Marquardt (Clinical Science and Psychopathology Research Area, Advisors Shmuel Lissek and Scott Sponheim)

National Science Foundation's Graduate Research Fellowship Program helps ensure the vitality of the human resource base of science and engineering in the United States and reinforces its diversity. The program recognizes and supports outstanding graduate students. More information about the NSF Graduate Fellowship can be found here.

Please be sure to congratulate Shinho, Nayla, Liza, Ian, NingYuan, Merav and Craig when you have an opportunity!

Staff members Carla Bates (20 years), Amy Kranz (20 years), Jennifer Donnelly (25 years), Irene Elkins (20 years), and Micah Hammer (20 years) will be honored for their years of service in the Department at a recognition event in June at Eastcliff for Civil Service and Labor Represented employees who are celebrating milestone work anniversaries between 20 and 50 years.

Graduated

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Congratulations to our April 2014 Ph.D. graduate!

Michael Natali

Area: Industrial/Organizational Psychology 

Advisor: John Campbell

Dissertation Title: Level Up: The Dynamic Nature of Leadership and Management

Past Events

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The 2014 Psychology Undergraduate Celebration held Friday, May 9th, was a huge success! What a wonderful occasion to congratulate students for their accomplishments and recognize our graduating seniors. This year was marked by record attendance, including over 40 Spring 2014 Bachelor of Arts and Bachelor of Science graduates. Faculty, staff, students and guests viewed award-winning student posters; enjoyed delicious Campus Club food; answered psychology trivia questions for door prizes; and listened to the inspiring words of Dr. Gail Peterson. Thank you to all who contributed to making this a very special event for our undergraduate students!

Gail Peterson with a gift from the department thanking him for his years of service.

Thank you to all who participated in our Recognition of 2014 Ph.D. Graduates event on May 1st at the Campus Club!

In case you missed them... Many of our Spring 2014 Colloquiums were videotaped and can now be viewed here.     

May 2014

Awards & Accomplishments

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Professor Bob Krueger was just named a Distinguished McKnight University Professor! Bob was one of six candidates selected for this prestigious award from across the entire University. The award honors the University's highest-achieving mid-career faculty who have relatively recently attained full professor status and whose work brings renown and prestige to Minnesota. Recipients are honored with the title Distinguished McKnight University Professor, which they hold for as long as they remain at the University of Minnesota. The grant associated with the Professorship consists of $100,000 over five years. We are very proud of Bob and his accomplishments. This is a well-deserved honor.

Assistant Professor Chun Wang has received the 2014 Jason Millman Promising Measurement Scholar Award in recognition of her contributions to the field as an early career scholar, exemplified by innovative and mathematically sophisticated research in multidimensional item response theory, computerized adaptive testing, cognitive diagnosis, and longitudinal measurement. A description of the award can be found here. Chun was presented with the award at a meeting in the Phillipines. Congratulations to her on this well-deserved honor!

Past Events

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The Multi-Sensory Perception Laboratory Open House on April 18 was a success! Thank you to Professor Andrew Oxenham and lab members Dorea Ruggles and Andrew Byrne for their tours of this state-of-the-art research facility in Elliott Hall!

 

Upcoming Events

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Dr. Oliver P. John, University of California, Berkeley
"Personality, The Number Five, and Everyday Life"
Friday, May 9, 2014
1:00 – 2:30 p.m.
N639 Elliott Hall

Abstract:
Personality matters! Over the past twenty years, we have learned that our personality traits influence our lives: whether we get good grades in school, what kind of work we choose and how successful we are at it, whether we are happy and satisfied with our lives, and whether we remain healthy in old age. At the core of this exciting research is the emergence of the Big Five as a consensual taxonomy for personality traits, and the field of personality research has changed remarkably. I will review research findings that have challenged and changed my views on five fundamental issues: (1) the origin of personality traits in nurture and nature, (2) the continuity between human and animal personality, (3) the development of personality in terms of stability and change, (4) the consequences of personality traits for adaptation and life outcomes, and (5) the importance of the socio-cultural context in which personality traits are expressed. Click here to view all Department of Psychology spring 2014 colloquiums.

 

2014 Psychology Undergraduate Celebration
Friday, May 9, 2014
4:00 – 5:30 p.m.
Campus Club, Coffman Memorial Union

Please mark your calendars and plan to attend the annual recognition celebration for psychology undergraduate students. This annual event recognizes our outstanding undergraduate achievements and graduating seniors. Those recognized will include:

Spring 2014 Degree Applicants
Mortensen Scholarship & Award recipients
Donald G. Paterson Scholarship Award
Select CLA, University and National Scholarship recipients
Outstanding achievement in the Major Project: The Sharon Borine Award
Sharon Borine Thesis Award
2013-14 UROP recipients
Donor Awards for Psychology Undergraduate Engagement recipients
2013-14 Psi Chi Inductees

Please forward any questions to Holly Hatch-Surisook hhatch@umn.edu. RSVP instructions will be distributed via email. Thank you for your support of our undergraduate students! 

April 2014

Awards & Accomplishments

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Professor Emeritus Tom Bouchard has just won the American Psychological Foundation (APF) 2014 Gold Medal Award for Life Achievement in the Science of Psychology. This award recognizes Tom's distinguished career and enduring scientific contributions to our field. More information about the award can be found here. The award will be conferred at this year's annual meeting of the American Psychological Association in Washington, D.C. Congratulations to Tom on this well-deserved honor!

Professor Tom Brothen will receive the 2014 Walter D. Mink Outstanding Undergraduate Teacher Award from the Minnesota Psychological Association (MPA). The Award will be presented at the 2014 MPA Annual Convention on Saturday, April 12. Tom's greatest interest and passion has been Introductory Psychology, which he first taught as an instructor in the University of Minnesota's General College in 1971. He proceeded to teach the course more or less continuously for 43 full years! He currently serves in the role of faculty director of our Introduction to Psychology course (Psy 1001). Taken by approximately 2,400 students every year, this is by far the largest course offered at the University. Tom has also re-introduced a course on the History of Psychology. One of Tom's greatest contributions to the field has been his pioneering use and relentless promotion of on-line teaching. These efforts have been nationally recognized by organizations such as the APA and NSF. Tom has also been devoted to the instruction of students with disabilities. Tom has published 84 papers, most of them on the teaching of Psychology. Many publications have appeared in the journal dedicated to this subject, Teaching of Psychology. Many have been co-authored with undergraduate students, who clearly have a great respect and admiration for Tom. Tom's efforts as a teacher and mentor have already been recognized by the University of Minnesota. In 1984 he received the Morse-Alumni Award for Outstanding Contributions to Undergraduate Education. In 1998, he was elected to membership of the University of Minnesota's Academy of Distinguished Teachers. These present the two most prestigious teaching honors bestowed by the University to its faculty. Congratulations to Tom on his outstanding dedication and performance as a teacher of psychology and for this continued recognition of that dedication!

Professor Steve Engel's research was featured on the U of M's Discover website. He has discovered that, with practice, areas of the brain that perform some of the earliest processing of visual signals can rewire themselves to amplify their responses to images.

Professor Bill Iacono has been selected to receive the John Neale Mentorship Award for 2014 from the Society for Research in Psychopathology (SRP). Bill has a sustained record of training productive clinical scientists, and this award honors him for this outstanding achievement. Bill is the 4th recipient of this highly selective award. Information about SRP and the award description can be found here (http://www.psychopathology.org/awardwinners). Congratulations to Bill and to the CSPR program! Mentorship is one of our most important roles as faculty members. It is heartening for one of our own to be recognized in this way!

Associate Professor Nathan Kuncel was named a Fellow of Division 14 of the American Psychology Association - the Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology (SIOP). This is the society's highest honor. Announcement of the award will be made May 16 at SIOP's annual conference in Honolulu, Hawaii. "SIOP Fellows have distinguished themselves by their outstanding contributions to the field," Dr. Tammy Allen, president of the 8,000-member society, said. "It is a significant honor granted to only a small percentage of industrial-organizational psychologists." SIOP was established in 1982 and its members are dedicated to applying psychology to people in the workplace. Their field of psychology brings understanding and measurement to human behavior in order to improve employees' satisfaction in their work, employer's ability to select and promote the best people, and to generally make the workplace better of the men and women who work there.

Graduate student Rachael Grazioplene's research on personality and schizotypy was featured in the College of Liberal Art's print and online publication Reach in an article titled "Organizing Chaos: Creativity or Psychosis?"

Graduate student Brenton Wiernik's global research on the shortage of highly skilled industrial workers in developed economies, even in the face of high unemployment, was featured in the College of Liberal Art's print and online publication Reach in an article titled "Skilled Labor for the Developing World."

Undergraduate student Madeline Babel, Peer Advisor in Undergraduate Advising, was selected to receive the President's Student Leadership & Service Award. This award recognizes the accomplishments and contributions of outstanding student leaders at UMNTC. Maddie is also among the small number of PSLSA recipients who will interview for both the Alumni Association award (8 recipients) and the Donald Zander Award (2 recipients). Maddie is graduating in May, but sadly, has already completed her employment in the Department as of Friday, March 21st. Hennepin Theater Trust, where Maddie has been interning since January, quickly recognized her many talents and scooped her up for a full time position in their Development unit. Maddie will be graduating in May from CLA with a full time, professional job underway! Congratulations & best wishes to Maddie (who can still be reached at babe0032@umn.edu)!

Grants

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Professor Gordon Legge's project, Designing Visually Accessible Spaces (DEVA), has been renewed through 2019. This $2.9 million dollar grant from the National Eye Institute will allow Gordon and his interdisciplinary team in vision science, computer science and lighting design to continue to create tools to enable the design of safe environments for the mobility of low-vision individuals and to enhance safety for the elderly and others who may need to operate under low lighting and other visually challenging conditions.

Upcoming Events

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Dr. Eli Finkel, Northwestern University
"The Suffocation of Marriage"
Thursday, April 3, 2014
4:00 - 5:00 p.m.
N639 Elliott Hall

Colloquia in Interpersonal Relationships Research (IREL) Co-sponsored by the Department of Psychology and the Institute of Child Development

Abstract:
This presentation distills insights from historical, sociological, and psychological analyses of marriage to develop the suffocation model of marriage in America. According to this model, contemporary Americans ask their marriage to help them fulfill their physiological and safety needs much less than in the past, but they ask it to help them fulfill their esteem and self-actualization needs much more than in the past. These changes require increased investment of time and psychological resources to foster the relational bond, but most Americans are investing less in their marriage, not more. As a result, mean levels of marital quality and personal well-being are declining. On the other hand, those marriages that are successfully meeting the esteem and self-actualization demands spouses are placing on the marriage are spectacularly fulfilling-more so than the best marriages of previous eras. The suffocation model seeks to explain this sharp bifurcation in marital outcomes, and it suggests several promising options for bolstering those marriages that are struggling. Discussion explores the implications of the suffocation model for understanding dating and courtship, sociodemographic variation, and marriage beyond American's borders.

 

Kenneth S. Kendler, MD Virginia Institute for Psychiatric and Behavioral Genetics
"Psychiatric Genetics: A Current Perspective"
Friday, April 25, 2014
9:00 – 10:15 a.m.
402 Walter Library

Clinical Science and Psychopathology Research's (CSPR) Research Day in conjunction with the Biological Psychopathology (BP) & Personality, Individual Differences, and Behavior Genetics (PIB)
Programs Presents:
Special Guest and Invited Speaker: Kenneth S. Kendler, MD
Rachel Brown Banks Distinguished Professor of Psychiatry
Professor of Human Genetics
Director, Psychiatric Genetics Research Program
Director, Virginia Institute for Psychiatric and Behavioral Genetics

Dr. David Lubinski, Vanderbilt University
"Forty Years Later: What Happens to Mathematically Precocious Youth Identified at Age 12?"
Wednesday, April 30, 2014
3:00 – 4:00 p.m.
N119 Elliott Hall

Abstract:
Findings from the first midlife follow-up of 1,650 participants from the Study of Mathematically Precocious Youth's (SMPY's) two oldest cohorts will be presented. During 1972-1974 and 1976-1978, participants were identified at age 12 as in the top 1% in mathematical reasoning ability. They were surveyed from January 2012 to February 2013 on their accomplishments, families, and personal well-being. Particular attention will be devoted to their occupational attainments, creative accomplishments, and mate preferences, as well as how they invest their time currently and plan into the future. Sex differences in occupational preferences, personal views, and life values will be reviewed and placed in a broader theoretical context. The presentation will conclude with a discussion of participants' satisfaction with their careers, personal relationships, and lives in general.

Dr. Greg Miller, Northwestern University
"The Biological Residue of Early Life Adversity"
Thursday, May 1, 2014
12:00 – 1:00 p.m.
N119 Elliott Hall

Colloquia in Interpersonal Relationships Research (IREL) Co-sponsored by the Department of Psychology and the Institute of Child Development

Abstract:
Children who are exposed to social and economic adversity in the early years of life show increased susceptibility to chronic diseases of aging, like heart disease, when they reach their 50's and 60's. These findings raise a difficult mechanistic question: How does early adversity "get under the skin" in a manner that is sufficiently persistent to affect vulnerability to diseases that arise many decades later? In this lecture I will discuss findings from our ongoing research, which suggest that early adversity gets embedded in cells of the immune system at the level of the genome, resulting in a pro-inflammatory tendency that probably contributes to the chronic diseases of aging.

Dr. Oliver P. John, University of California, Berkeley
"Personality, The Number Five, and Everyday Life"
Friday, May 9, 2014
1:00 – 2:30 p.m.
N639 Elliott Hall

Abstract:
Personality matters! Over the past twenty years, we have learned that our personality traits influence our lives: whether we get good grades in school, what kind of work we choose and how successful we are at it, whether we are happy and satisfied with our lives, and whether we remain healthy in old age. At the core of this exciting research is the emergence of the Big Five as a consensual taxonomy for personality traits, and the field of personality research has changed remarkably. I will review research findings that have challenged and changed my views on five fundamental issues: (1) the origin of personality traits in nurture and nature, (2) the continuity between human and animal personality, (3) the development of personality in terms of stability and change, (4) the consequences of personality traits for adaptation and life outcomes, and (5) the importance of the socio-cultural context in which personality traits are expressed. Click here to view all Department of Psychology spring 2014 colloquiums.

 

2014 Psychology Undergraduate Celebration
Friday, May 9, 2014
4:00 – 5:30 p.m.
Campus Club, Coffman Memorial Union

Please mark your calendars and plan to attend the annual recognition celebration for psychology undergraduate students. This annual event recognizes our outstanding undergraduate achievements and graduating seniors. Those recognized will include:

Spring 2014 Degree Applicants
Mortensen Scholarship & Award recipients
Donald G. Paterson Scholarship Award
Select CLA, University and National Scholarship recipients
Outstanding achievement in the Major Project: The Sharon Borine Award
Sharon Borine Thesis Award
2013-14 UROP recipients
Donor Awards for Psychology Undergraduate Engagement recipients
2013-14 Psi Chi Inductees

Please forward any questions to Holly Hatch-Surisook hhatch@umn.edu. RSVP instructions will be distributed via email. Thank you for your support of our undergraduate students! 

March 2014

Administrative Updates & Announcements

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Kate Klosterman, administrative staff member in the Department's Central Office, has accepted an administrative position with the School of Statistics. As she starts her appointment in Statistics, she will continue to assist Psychology in the Central Office until her replacement is hired. We thank Kate for her service and wish her well in her new appointment.

Awards & Accomplishments

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Professor Emeritus Irv Gottesman will receive the Joseph Zubin Award on March 6 in New York City. The award is granted by the American Psychopathological Association (APPA) and is awarded to psychologists who have made seminal contributions to psychopathology research and who have stimulated the work and thinking of others. A description of the award can be found on the APPA's website: http://www.appassn.org/awards.html. A list of past winners can be found here. Congratulations to Irv on this prestigious honor!

An upcoming article in Psychological Science by Graduate Student Michal Reifen Tagar, Associate Professor Christopher Federico, alum Steven Ludeke, and Associate Professor Melissa Koenig was reviewed in the Huffington Post.

Graduated

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Congratulations to our January 2014 Ph.D. graduates!

Cornelia Iucha

Area: Clinical 

Advisor: William Iacono

Dissertation Title: Risk of Adolescent Depression in Youth with ADHD: a Longitudinal Twin Investigation.

Upcoming Events

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Dr. Kory Floyd, Arizona State University
"The Importance of Being Prosocial: Communication, Health, and Well-Being"
Monday, March 24, 2014
1:00 - 2:00 p.m.
N639 Elliott Hall

Abstract:

This presentation explains the connection between interpersonal communication and the health of individuals and relationships. Dr. Kory Floyd of Arizona State University has spent several years exploring how prosocial communication, such as the expression of affection, benefits physical and mental health and the stability of close relationships. He will describe how positive, intimate communication leads to personal and interpersonal wellness and how individuals can use this information to maximize well-being in their own lives and relationships.

Dr. Patricia Frazier, Department of Psychology, University of Minnesota
"Control Your Stress!"
Thursday, March 27, 2014
4:00 - 5:00 p.m.
402 Walter Library

Abstract:

This talk with provide an overview of Dr. Frazier's translational program of research on the role of perceived control in coping with stressful life events from initial theoretical work to the recent development of an online intervention to increase perceived control. Much of the talk will focus on the online intervention, which has now been tested with more than 1,000 students and found to be effective in reducing perceived stress and symptoms of depression and anxiety.

Dr. Eli Finkel, Northwestern University
"The Suffocation of Marriage"
Thursday, April 3, 2014
4:00 - 5:00 p.m.
N639 Elliott Hall

Abstract:

This presentation distills insights from historical, sociological, and psychological analyses of marriage to develop the suffocation model of marriage in America. According to this model, contemporary Americans ask their marriage to help them fulfill their physiological and safety needs much less than in the past, but they ask it to help them fulfill their esteem and self-actualization needs much more than in the past. These changes require increased investment of time and psychological resources to foster the relational bond, but most Americans are investing less in their marriage, not more. As a result, mean levels of marital quality and personal well-being are declining. 

February 2014

Administrative Updates & Announcements

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Nate Helwig has accepted the offer to join our faculty. He will be joining us as an Assistant Professor in the Fall of 2014, splitting his time between the Department of Psychology and the School of Statistics. Psychology will serve as his tenure home. If you would like to contact Nate, his email address is: nhelwig2@illinois.edu. We are thrilled at this very positive outcome! Thank you to everyone who participated in the search and hiring process. Special thanks to Niels Waller, Chris Federico, and Paul Sackett, who were Psychology's representatives on the search committee.

Psychology Undergraduate Advising is pleased to welcome a new staff member for Spring Semester 2014! Rima Ali, a junior psychology honors major, will be joining our team as a Student Office Assistant. Welcome, Rima!

Available RA Database

If you are looking for an undergraduate research assistant, check out the Available RA Database. The database contains information about undergraduates who are interested in conducting research in the department. You can examine students' interests, backgrounds, and previous experience to find someone who is a good fit for your research. The database contains only names and information collected since the end of the Fall 2013 Semester. Contact Mark Stellmack (stell006@umn.edu) to obtain a copy of the database.

Awards & Accomplishments

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Professor Paul Sackett and his collaborator Professor Filip Lievens, of the University of Ghent, Belgium, have been selected as the 2014 recipients of the Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology's Jeanneret Award for Excellence in the Study of Individual or Group Assessment for their paper "The validity of interpersonal skills assessment via situational judgment tests for predicting academic success and job performance", published in the Journal of Applied Psychology.

Graduate students Jack Kostal and Brenton Wiernik, and Professor Deniz Ones, received the Best International Paper award from the Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology. Their paper is entitled, "Developing cross-cultural personality norms: Which grouping method is appropriate?". The paper was written in collaboration with Minnesota Ph.D. alumna Dr. Joy Hazucha.

Graduate students Jack Kostal and Brenton Wiernik received the John C. Flanagan award for best student paper from the Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology. Their paper is entitled, "Developing cross-cultural personality norms: Which grouping method is appropriate?" The paper was written in collaboration with Professor Deniz Ones and Minnesota Ph.D. alumna Dr. Joy Hazucha.

Graduated

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Congratulations to our December 2013 Ph.D. graduates!

Adam Beatty

Area: Industrial/Organizational 

Advisor: Paul Sackett

Dissertation Title: A Critical Review of Empirical and Rational Strategies for Item Selection and Keying for Biographical Data Inventories.

Stephanie Cantu

Area: Social

Advisor: Jeffry Simpson & Traci Mann

Dissertation Title: When are women especially attracted to attractive men?: Human mate preferences in a pathogen prevalent ecology.

Steven Nydick 

Area: Quantitative/Psychometric Methods

Advisor: Niels Waller

Dissertation Title: Multidimensional Mastery Testing with CAT.

Grants

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Congratulations to Associate Professor Yuhong Jiang who was recently awarded funding by the National Institute of Mental Health for her project, "Attentional guidance by implicit learning and explicit goals."

Assistant Professor Moin Syed, faculty member in the Counseling Area, was chosen to receive a 2014-15 Imagine Fund Annual Award in the amount of $5,000. The Imagine Fund awards were established to provide competitive financial support for faculty in the arts, design, and humanities, but social scientists are also able to apply. Congratulations to Moin on this achievement!

The Minnesota Center for Twin and Family Research recently received a 5-year renewal of their R37 grant from NIH. This grant supports the MCTFR's longest-running longitudinal study entitled A Twin/Family Study of Vulnerability to Substance Abuse, which began in 1987. The award is over $3.5 million which will be implemented through the end of 2018. The award will be used expand this longitudinal study to include both males and females who will undergo a MRI scan at the U's CMRR, and the renewal will also be used to continue the use of psychophysiology lab and interview protocols.

The Undergraduate Research Opportunities Program (UROP) provides grants of up to $1,700 for undergraduates either to work with a faculty member on her/his scholarly or creative project or to carry out a project of the student's own design in close collaboration with a faculty sponsor. UROP projects are an ideal way to bring together the University's research and teaching missions, and the program is well funded, providing over 100 grants for CLA students every year. CLA's UROP contact is Wendy Nicholson-Kotas (nicho421@umn.edu or 612-624-4368), who is willing to speak with groups of faculty and/or students about this program and can serve as a resource to answer questions. Students submit their electronic application at www.urop.umn.edu. The due date for UROP applications for summer and fall 2014 projects is February 24, 2014.

Upcoming Events

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Assistant Professor Moin Syed will present a talk titled "The Cultural Psychology of Storytelling" at CLA's "A Brighter U" alumni event on Saturday 2/22/14 at Coffman Memorial Union. This year's signature alumni event will open with a lunch buffet and three of CLA's superstar faculty in a panel discussion on human rights. Guests will then attend two small group sessions, selecting from an array of intriguing topics. Professor Syed will discuss how we explore the form and content of the stories that people tell about their lives, and how these culturally grounded stories are indicative of the psychologies of the individuals, groups, and societies who produce them. Register online by Friday 2/14/14.

This year's Welcome Weekend will be February 27th - March 1st, 2014. We are excited to be inviting 45 students to visit our campus. Our visiting students will be hosted by current Ph.D. students and faculty. This is a great opportunity for visiting students to experience what it's like to live in Minnesota, and get to know all that the Department of Psychology and Twin Cities have to offer. Our visitors will spend all of Friday, February 28th on campus visiting faculty, students and labs. In the evening, students will take the visitors out on the town for dinner.

January 2014

Administrative Updates & Announcements

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Instructions - Psy 5993 Undergraduate RAs

Faculty/graduate students sponsoring undergraduates for credit-bearing research experience should be aware of the registration procedures posted at this link http://psych.umn.edu/ugrad/researchcontract.html. These instructions apply to undergraduates only (graduate students registering for Psy 5993 are not required to complete a contract). Questions may be directed to Holly Hatch-Surisook, hhatch@umn.edu.

Recruit Research Participants at the 2014 Minnesota State Fair 

The University is excited to announce the launch of a new research facility on the Minnesota State Fairgrounds with support from the Office of the Vice President for Research, the School of Public Health, the School of Medicine, and the College of Food, Agricultural and Natural Resource Sciences. The "Driven to Discover" Building will be a University-wide resource for both faculty and student researchers who wish to recruit research subjects from among the fair's 1.7 million yearly visitors. The request for brief, two-page applications to use the space can be found online.

Awards & Accomplishments

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Professor Gene Borgida was named a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS). Gene was the only University of Minnesota - Twin Cities faculty to achieve this honor and the only social psychologist in the United States within this year's round. In all, the AAAS Council elected 388 members as Fellows across scientific disciplines. These individuals will be recognized for their contributions at the Fellows Forum to be held on 15 February 2014 during the AAAS Annual Meeting in Chicago, Illinois. Congratulations to Gene on this much-deserved honor!

Professor Rich Lee recently accepted an invitation to serve as the next Editor for Cultural Diversity and Ethnic Minority Psychology, which is the official journal for APA Division 45 (Society for the Psychological Study of Culture, Ethnicity, and Race). It is considered the premier psychology journal for ethnic studies. Rich will begin his editorial duties on January 1, 2014.

Professor Jeff Simpson has been elected incoming president of the International Association for Relationship Research (IARR). His 2-year term begins in July of 2014.

Assistant Professor Michael Burman from the University of New England (Department of Psychology CAB area Ph.D., 2006), at the invitation of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, participated in 'Super NEUROScience Saturday' on November 23, 2013 at the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History in Washington, D.C. Through demonstrations and hands-on activities, Super NEUROScience Saturday aimed to foster a better understanding of the brain and how it functions, improve student study skills, promote improvements in neurological health, and boost general science literacy among young people. Attendees included students as well as legislators, policymakers and scientists. See this website for details.

An article on the "Name Letter Effect" by graduating senior Max Hui Bai and staff member Kate Briggs that was published in Sentience, the Department of Psychology's undergraduate journal, has been cited in the New Yorker Magazine's "Elements" blog. The blog covers science, technology, and "the things that make up our world." To read the blog. To read Bai and Brigg's article in Sentience.

Staff members Orbe Stricherz and Esther Maruani have been selected to receive CLA Outstanding Service Awards for 2012-13. This recognition includes a monetary award and a certificate of appreciation. Orbe and Esther will be honored at the CLA Staff Appreciation Ceremony on Wednesday, January 22, 2014.

Graduated

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Congratulations to our November 2013 Ph.D. graduates!

Marianna Gasperi

Area: Clinical

Advisor: William Iacono

Dissertation Title: Child Maltreatment and Adult Psychopathology: Elucidating the Relationship Though Developmental and Biometric Research

Jana Lynn Higdem

Area: I/O

Advisor: Nathan Kuncel 

Dissertation Title: Making Feedback Compelling: Examining the Format of Written Development Feedback to Promote Feedback Insight and Retention.

Grants

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Associate Chair Jonathan Gewirtz, Professor Richard Lee, and Assistant Professor Moin Syed are Fall 2013 Grant-in-Aid Award Recipients.

Grant-in-Aid Information Session

The spring deadline for the Grant-In-Aid is February 10, 2014. Please join us on Tuesday, January 14, 2014 from 1:00 to 2:30 p.m. in Room 101 Walter Library for a discussion of the requirements and review process of the Grant-in-Aid program for general (i.e. non-medical) proposals. Any questions about the event can be directed to Anna Brailovsky, CLA Grant Coordinator for the Social Sciences, abrailov@umn.edu. If you are planning to apply for the GIA this spring and plan to attend the information session, please fill out the form.