Thursday, January 1, 2015
Monday, December 1, 2014
December 2014
Awards & Accomplishments
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
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
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.
Saturday, November 1, 2014
November 2014
Awards & Accomplishments
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
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
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.
Wednesday, October 1, 2014
October 2014
Administrative Updates & Announcements
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.
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
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
Department of Psychology Colloquium
Sponsored by the Personality, Individual Differences, and Behavior Genetics (PIB) and Biological Psychopathology (BP) Areas
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
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?
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
Sponsored by the Social Psychology Area
Speaker: Hazel Rose Markus, Ph.D.
Department of Psychology, Stanford University
Department of Psychology, Stanford University
Monday, October 6, 2014
10:00 - 11:30 a.m.
Elliott Hall N639
Inequality, Social Class and Self
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
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
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
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.
Monday, September 1, 2014
September 2014
Administrative Updates & Announcements
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
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
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
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.
Friday, August 1, 2014
August 2014
Administrative Updates & Announcements
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
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
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
Tuesday, July 1, 2014
July 2014
Administrative Updates & Announcements
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
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
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."
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