December 2015

Awards & Accomplishments

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Postdoctoral Associate Miri Forbes, who works with Professor Bob Krueger, won The Macquarie University Research Excellence Award for Excellence in Higher Degree Research. The Research Excellence Awards recognize and reward staff and higher degree research candidates for outstanding performance and excellence in research and innovation.

Grants

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In collaboration with colleagues in the Departments of Medicine and Biostatistics as well as the Minneapolis VA, Professor Alex Rothman received a 5-year grant from the National Cancer Institute to fund an intervention that uses a Sequential Multiple Assignment Randomized Trial to develop and test a treatment algorithm for the delivery of smoking cessation treatment to smokers who have participated in lung cancer screening programs.

November 2015

Awards & Accomplishments

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Professor Mark Snyder was a featured speaker at the University of Minnesota Alumni Association's Leadership Summit on September 25, 2015.  He spoke on research on the psychology of volunteerism, and shared the program with University President Eric Kaler and Alumni Association CEO Lisa Lewis.

Professor Jeff Simpson delivered the annual Lawrence Messe Memorial Lecture to the Department of Psychology at Michigan State University on October 9, 2015.  Previous speakers have included Daniel Wegner, Elizabeth Loftus, John Cacioppo, Marilynn Brewer, David Buss, and Barbara Fredrickson.

The National Institutes of Health (NIH) announced the award recipients for the second round of BRAIN Initiative awards. Of the more than $80 million set aside for BRAIN awards in 2015, CBS faculty Daniel Schmidt and Medical School Professor Mark Thomas received an award in the amount of $1.1 million over three years. Schmidt and Thomas will use their BRAIN award to create and implement engineered adeno-associated viruses that provide researchers with the ability to selectively infect specific cell or tissue types.

Associate Professor Nathan Kuncel and Professor Paul Sackett have been named the 2016 recipients of the Jeanneret Award for Excellence in the Study of Individual or Group Assessment by the Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology. The award is for their article "Resolving the assessment center construct validity dilemma (as we know it)", published in the Journal of Applied Psychology. 

Gloria Leon, Professor Emerita, received the NASA JSC Group Achievement Award for Outstanding Contributions to the "Impact of Sex and Gender on Adaptation to Spaceflight" report.  The document was subsequently published in the Journal of Women's Health.

Professor Mark Snyder's research on the psychological causes and consequences of volunteerism is featured in a Minnesota Monthly magazine article, available online here.

Graduated

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Congratulations to our Department of Psychology students who recently graduated!

Mary Petrosko Becker

Area: CSPR

Advisor: Monica Luciana

Thesis: Longitudinal Change in Cognition and White Matter Integrity in Young Adult Cannabis Users

Sheila Frankfurt

Area: Counseling

Advisor: Pat Frazier

Thesis: An Empirical Examination of Moral Injury in Combat Veterans

Grants

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Regents Professor William Iacono and Professor Monica Luciana of the Department of Psychology have received a grant from the National Institute of Health as part of a landmark study about the effects of adolescent substance use on the developing brain. The University of Minnesota is one of 11 research project sites to be supported.

The Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development (ABCD) Study will follow approximately 10,000 children beginning at ages 9 to 10, before they initiate drug use, through the period of highest risk for substance use and other mental health disorders. Scientists will track exposure to substances (including nicotine, alcohol, and marijuana), academic achievement, cognitive skills, mental health, and brain structure and function using advanced research methods.

The ABCD Study will seek to address many questions related to substance use and development that will help inform prevention and treatment research priorities, public health strategies, and policy decisions.

October 2015

Awards & Accomplishments

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Professor Eugene Borgida has been elected to serve as Member-at-Large on the Board of Directors of the Federation of Associations in Behavioral & Brain Sciences. He was elected by the FABBS Council of Representatives and will be starting in January of 2016.

Michael P. Wilmot, a graduate student in our Industrial/Organizational Psychology area, recently received 3 competitive awards for his proposed dissertation, "A Quantitative Review and Synthesis of Five-Factor Model Meta-Analyses in the Behavioral Sciences". First, from the Society for Multivariate Experimental Psychology (SMEP), he received a dissertation research grant for $3,760 to help offset direct research costs associated with conducting his dissertation research. Second, he received a Humane Studies Fellowship for $5,000 from the Institute for Humane Studies; the fellowship awards doctoral pursuits advancing ideas of liberty and peace at the highest intellectual levels. Finally, he was awarded the prestigious 2015 Meredith P. Crawford Fellowship in I/O Psychology from the Human Resources Research Organization (HumRRO); each year, the $12,000 fellowship is awarded to one dissertation-stage I/O psychology doctoral candidate nation-wide who demonstrates exceptional research skills. Congratulations to Michael, and his advisor, Deniz Ones

Graduated

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Congratulations to our Department of Psychology students who recently graduated!

Susan D’ Mello

Area: I/O

Advisor: Paul Sackett

Thesis: An Investigation of the Predictors and Moderators of Climate Strength

Christiaan Sean Greer

Area: Counseling

Advisor: Pat Frazier

Thesis: An Internet-Based Mindfulness Intervention for College Student Stress and Anxiety

Alison Wen-Hsin Hu

Area: Counseling

Advisor: Rich Lee

Thesis: Cultural Socialization in Transracial, Transnational Adoptive Families: A Seven-Year Follow-Up

Rachel Klein

Area: I/O

Advisor: Deniz Ones

Thesis: Employee Motives for Engaging in Environmentally Sustainable Behaviors: A Multi-Study Analysis

Grants

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Professor Eugene Borgida (Psychology), Irina Stepanov (Masonic Cancer Center, Division of Environmental Health Sciences), Barbara Loken (CSOM, Marketing Dept.), and Dorothy Hatsukami (Psychiatry) have been awarded $310,368 for 2015-16 by the NIH National Cancer Institute (NCI) to conduct research on "Consumer perceptions of smokeless tobacco constituents as a function of public display format." 

In collaboration with Columbia University, Assistant Professor Shmuel Lissek received an R01 from the NIH to study neural signatures of over-generalized fear in trauma survivors.

September 2015

Administrative Updates & Announcements

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We regret to announce that Robin Peterson, Graduate Student Services Coordinator, has decided to leave the department. Her last day was Monday, August 17, 2015. In order to provide temporary coverage, we have contracted the services of Lindsey Jendraszak to help us during this critical period. Lindsey's most recent employment was with the Indiana University systems where she worked as an Academic Advisor. She also has experience working as a DGS Assistant. Please take the time to stop by and welcome Lindsey to the department! 

We are Happy to announce that we have hired Michael Houlahan as Associate Director of Undergraduate Studies. Michael's starting date was Monday, August 10, 2015. Michael comes to us via Illinois where he worked as the Student Support Services TRIO Coordinator at Oakton Community College, Skokie, IL for the last three years, and as and Advisor since 2008. Please stop down in the advising office to welcome Michael to the department!

Awards & Accomplishments

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William Robiner, Ph.D., ABPP of the Departments of Medicine and Pediatrics in the Medical School, who is also the Psychology Internship Director at the Medical School, was awarded the Joseph D. Matarazzo Award for Distinguished Contributions to Psychology in Academic Health Centers by the Association of Psychologists in Academic Health Centers (APAHC) (Division 12, Section VIII).

Graduated

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Congratulations to our Department of Psychology students who graduated this summer!

Andrea Miller

Area: Social

Advisors: Christopher Federico and Eugene Borgida

Thesis: The Separate Spheres Ideology in the Workplace: Implications for Work-Life Conflict and Gendered Disparities

Ann Schissel

Area: CSPR

Advisor: Monica Luciana

Thesis: The Serotonin Transporter Polymorphism (5-HTTLPR) and potential interactions with adverse life events leading to Major Depressive Disorder: An approach addressing inconsistencies in the literature

Rachel Clark 

Area: BP

Advisor: Colin DeYoung

Thesis: Neuroticism and its Associations with Higher Cognitive Functions

Shane Hoversten

Area: CAB

Advisor: Wilma Koutstaal

Thesis: The Royal Road to Semantic Cognition: Untangling Semantic Components in Temporal Lobe

Ji Eun Lee

Area: Quant

Advisors: David Weiss and Aaron Rendahl

Thesis: Hypothesis Testing for Adaptive Measurement of Individual Change

Shin Ho Cho

Area: CAB

Advisors: Sheng He and Daniel Kersten 

Thesis: Spatio-Temporal Integration of Object's Surface Information in Mid-Level Vision: The Role of Awareness and Time Course

Leah Jappe

Area: CSPR

Advisors: Bonnie Klimes-Dougan and Monica Luciana

Thesis: Fronto-limbic Neural Activity in Response to Basic Emotion Cues in Adults and Adolescents with Anorexia Nervosa: An fMRI Study

Alexander Maki 

Area: Social 

Advisors: Mark Snyder and Alexander Rothman 

Thesis: The Spread of Behavior: When, How, and For Whom Do Proenvironmental Behaviors Spread to Other People and Other Behaviors?