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!