JULY, 2009
Kristin Javaras has been awarded the Academy of Eating Disorders / International Journal of Eating Disorders Early Career Investigator Award for 2009. Congrats to Java!
MAY, 2009 We are pleased to announce the most recent edition of the Psychology Department newsletter,
The Update. Click
here for the pdf version.
Honors in Teaching
Professor Chuck Snowdon and Dr. Tina Winston have been awarded the Department of Psychology Award for Excellence in Teaching. In addition, we are pleased to announce that Bryan Hendicks, Jeff Henriques, Noah Mackenzie, and Caton Roberts have been identified as Honored Instructors by University Housing. Students living in University Residence Halls identified instructors who made them want to learn more, made a difference in their college career, challenged them to think in a new way, or were simply a favorite. We are fortunate to have so many outstanding teachers supporting our pedagogical goals for our students.
Alibali Receives Faculty Fellow Award
We are delighted to announce that Professor Martha Alibali has received a Letters and Science Faculty Fellow Award. The L&S Faculty Fellow Program is made possible by a number of donors, led by George and Pamala Hamel. This award recognizes outstanding contributions in the areas of research, undergraduate mentoring and teaching, graduate mentoring and teaching, as well as outreach for scholars who received tenure within the last 10 years. The award provides $10,000 in research funding each year for 5 years. Professor Alibali’s extraordinary contributions in each of these areas made her especially deserving of recognition in the form of this award. Congratulations to Professor Alibali on this wonderful achievement!
APRIL, 2009
Graduate student, Jennifer Petersen, has won Honorable Mention in the Genevieve Gorst Herfurth Award competition this year. This award recognizes the best graduate student paper in the social sciences at UW, and it's highly competitive precisely because it goes across all the social sciences. Jenni earned honorable mention for her Developmental prelim paper, "A Meta-Analytic Review of Research on Gender Differences in Sexuality."
Ph.D. graduate Christopher Hulleman has received APA's Division 15 (Educational Psychology) Paul R. Pintrich Outstanding Dissertation Award. Chris received his degree from our department in June of 2007 with Professor Judy Harackiewicz. The title of his dissertation is "The role of utility value in the development of interest and achievement." Chris is currently a postdoctoral fellow at Vanderbilt and will take a faculty position at James Madison University in September, 2009. (Fall 2009 update: a portion of the dissertation has recently been accepted for publication in Science.)
Psychology Instructors Earn Honors
We are extremely pleased to announce that several of our colleagues have been selected as Honored Instructors by the students of the Chadbourne Residential College in recognition of their quality teaching and positive impact they have on undergraduate education here at the UW- Madison (12% of all the honorees!). The honored instructors include: Becky Addington, Christopher Coe, Bryan Hendricks, Janet Hyde, and Yuri Miyamoto. Congratulations to each of you and thank you for your ongoing efforts to provide outstanding educational experiences for our students!
Arielle Baskin-Sommers was named co-recipient of the Cheryl Wynne Hare Award for outstanding graduate student research at the conference of the Society for the Scientific Study of Psychopathy on April 18th in New Orleans. This award is a wonderful recognition of the high quality of Arielle's work! Congratulations Arielle!
MARCH, 2009
Brian Drwecki and Vera Tsenkova have each been awarded a Robert Wood Johnson Dissertation Grant. There is stiff competition for these awards and it speaks well to the quality of their dissertation research. Congratulations!
Shanta Hattikudur has been selected as a Writing Across the Curriculum TA Fellow based on her outstanding performance as a Comm-B instructor in Psychology. The session that Shanta led during TA training in late January as a result of this award was highly praised by those in attendance. Nice work Shanta!
Professors Antony Auger and Tim Rogers have been named Vilas Associates.
FEBRUARY, 2009
Congratulations to Professor Wen Li
Professor Li has received the 2009 Young Investigator Award from the Association for Chemoreception Sciences.
Saffran's Teaching Honored
Professor Jenny Saffran has received the Chancellor's Distinguished Teaching Award in recognition of her dedicated and innovative contributions to the University's teaching mission.
JANUARY, 2009
Nicole McNeil, one of our former graduate students, recently received one of the prestigious Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers (PECASE)! Nicole and the other PECASE recipients were honored in an award ceremony in December at the White House. The PECASE identifies and honors outstanding young researchers and is the highest honor that a beginning scientist or engineer can receive from the U.S. government. Selection is based on innovative research and community service as demonstrated through scientific leadership, education or outreach. Nine government agencies, including the U.S. Department of Education and the National Science Foundation, nominate candidates for the PECASE program. Nicole is currently an assistant professor in psychology and a fellow of the Institute for Educational Initiatives at the University of Notre Dame. She received her Ph D. from our Department in 2005 under the direction of Professor Martha Alibali. Building on her training with Professor Alibali, Nicole's research focuses on the cognitive mechanisms that propel and constrain the development of problem solving, quantitative reasoning and symbolic understanding. This is a wonderful honor for Nicole and by extension for Professor Alibali and our graduate training program!
NOVEMBER, 2008
Alexa Romberg and Jon Willits earned predoctoral NRSA grants from the National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders (NIDCD). Congratulations on this outstanding achievement!
Congratulations Dan Acheson and Sarah Sahni!
Dan Acheson and Sarah Sahni are recipients of 2008 American Psychological Association Dissertation Research Awards.
OCTOBER 2008
Psychology Newsletter published. The most recent version of the psychology newsletter is now available. Click here to view the PDF version.
SEPTEMBER 2008
Congratulations! Professor Joseph P. Newman has been named recipient of the R.D. Hare Lifetime Achievement Award from the Society for the Scientific Study of Psychopathy “in recognition of his longstanding and outstanding contributions to the scientific study of psychopathy”. Dr. Newman will follow R.D. Hare and D.T. Lykken as the third recipient of this biennial award.
Congratulations Aaron Heller!
The Psychology department has received a generous donation from Ms. Michelle E. Davis, in memory of her late husband, James L. Davis, to support a graduate student using neuroscience methodology to advance understanding of clinical depression. This award will be presented to Aaron Heller to facilitate his research on “Neural bases of abnormalities in emotion regulation in depression.”
Davidson and Goldsmith to Receive $9.9 million Grant
Professors Richard Davidson and Hill Goldsmith received notice that they will receive $9.9 million over five years to support a center grant on the Neurobehavioral Bases of Emotion Regulation and Dysregulation in Adolescence. Project PIs also include Marilyn Essex (Psychiatry), Ned Kalin (Psychiatry) and Andy Alexander (Medical Physics and Psychiatry).
Professors Anthony Auger and Christopher Coe received a MERC award with Dr. Pamela Kling to investigate the genetic, social and medical causes of iron deficiency in infancy, “Closing the Gap in Pediatric Health Disparities.”
Ph.D. graduate, Erin Costanzo and Professor Christopher Coe received an award from the Lymphoma Forward Foundation along with Drs. Hematti and Juckett to study predictors of optimal recovery following transplantation in cancer patients.
Professor Coe has alsop received the 2008 Barchas Award for excellence in sociophysiology research from the American Psychomatic Society.
Psychology Website Gets a New Look
We are proud to unveil the new look of our Department website. The image on our home is the centerpiece of the new website design. It’s often said that a picture is worth a thousand words and the image instantly evokes a variety of reactions that capture our approach to psychological science and to the teaching and learning of psychology. At the heart of our science is the drive to discover new knowledge. To this end, our faculty and students engage in cutting-edge research. In the classroom, students continually traverse the stepping stones of knowledge acquiring the tools that will enable them to become informed and active citizens of the 21st century. With the support of our committed staff, we strive to create a balance between nurturing the intellectual curiosity of our outstanding students and the demands of furthering our science. Together we collaborate in promoting psychological science as a cumulative and unending process of discovery and together we reach new heights. In the Department’s tradition of collaboration among our faculty, staff, students, alumni, and friends, we invite you to visit our classrooms, research labs, offices and the new website to be part of the discovery.
JULY 2008
Hyde receives APA Award for Distinguished Service to Psychological Science
Professor Janet Hyde been selected as a recipient of the American Psychological Association (APA) Award for Distinguished Service to Psychological Science. This award was initiated by the APA Board of Scientific Affairs to recognize individuals who have made outstanding contributions to psychological science through their commitment to a culture of service. The award will be presented at the APA Science Leadership Conference, to be held this year on October 2-4, 2008, in Tempe, Arizona.
JULY 2008
Abramson receives APS James McKeen Cattell Fellow Award
Profoessor Lyn Abramson has been chosen to receive the Association for Psychological Science's James McKeen Cattell Fellow Award for 2008-2009. The Cattell Award is the highest honor conferred by APS. It honors distinguished APS members for a lifetime of outstanding contributions to applied psychological research.
May 2008
Ryff receives WARF appointment as Marie Jahoda Professor of Psychology
The Board of Regents has approved Professor Carol Ryff's appointment as Marie Jahoda Professor of Psychology. The professorship is funded by the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation.
April 2008
Department welcomes new faculty
We are delighted to announce the recent decision of three exciting young researchers to launch their independent careers at Wisconsin. Dr. Wen Li is currently a postdoctoral fellow at Northwestern University. Her research centers on psychological and neural mechanisms underlying emotional processing and emotion-cognition interactions in anxiety. A current example of her work is highlighted in the adjacent news item. Dr. Kristin Schutts is currently a postdoctoral fellow at the Mind, Brain, & Behavior Institute at Harvard University, where she studies the development of social categories and intergroup bias. Dr. Vanessa Simmering is completing her graduate training at the University of Iowa, in the Spatial Planning and Memory laboratory of John Spencer. She studies cognitive development within the framework of the dynamic field theory.
Gooding receives the Van Hise Outreach Award
Psychology Professor Diane Gooding was honored at this year's 2008 Faculty Distinguished Teaching Awards Ceremony and Reception on Tuesday, April 22 at the Fluno Center for Executive Education. Professor Gooding received The Van Hise Outreach Award.
Study shows compassion meditation changes the brain
Can we train ourselves to be compassionate? A new study suggests the answer is yes. Cultivating compassion and kindness through meditation affects brain regions that can make a person more empathetic to other peoples' mental states, say Prof. Richard Davidson and first author Antoine Lutz. Read more
Negligent, attentive mouse mothers show biological differences
In mice, child neglect is a product of both nature and nurture, according to a new study co-authored by Prof. Anthony Auger. As a possible model for human child neglect, these mice offer a valuable opportunity to investigate the biological and behavioral bases of naturally occurring maternal neglect.
More accolades for Wisconsin clinical psychology
In US News and World Report’s latest ranking of Best Graduate Schools, the University of Wisconsin-Madison shares a 3-way tie for top-ranked program in clinical psychology.
"Emotion Makes Nose a Sharper Smeller"
Dr. Wen Li, who will join our faculty later this year, has recently published a remarkably sophisticated investigation of the neural basis of learning about aversive stimuli. For more details, see the full article at Science Magazine.
February 2008
“Psychology gets undergraduate research down to science”
“Choices, choices. In every undergraduate major, a time comes around a student’s junior year to explore different academic specialties within a degree program, moving up the pyramid from general education to refined focus. But in the Department of Psychology, those choices aren’t limited to the classroom.” Click here to see story in Wisconsin Week.
January 2008
John Curtin to receive Distinguished Scientific Award
John Curtin has been selected to receive the 2008 American Psychological Association (APA) Distinguished Scientific Award for Early Career Contribution to Psychology in the area of psychopathology.
November 2007
"Study pinpoints factors for early sex"
A study by graduate student Myeshia Price and Professor Janet Hyde indicates that there's a "recipe" that raises the odds of a teen starting sex early, and the more risky ingredients in a child's life - for example, not feeling close to parents, low self-esteem and lots of TV - the more likely he is to be sexually active by age 15. The results of the study, presented at the recent conference of the Society for the Scientific Study of Sexuality, were featured in this story in USA Today.
October 2007
Madison Magazine names Professor Richard Davidson "Person of the Year"
"Richard Davidson has known all along this is what he wanted to do. Years before he came to Madison. Years before there was such a thing as an MRI. Years before he'd been chosen as one of Time magazine's one hundred most influential people or had been summoned to present his work to the Nobel Committee. Years before any of these things, a very young Richie Davidson knew he wanted to understand what goes on in our heads". Click here to see the full article.
September 2007
Over a decade at #1
The just-released data from the National Science Foundation's report on "Total and federally financed R&D expenditures in psychology ... ranked by FY 2004 total " (the most current data available), ranks the UW-Madison's Department of Psychology where it as been in these rankings since 1995 -- #1. In 2004 our total R&D expeditures of over $29 million topped all other departments of psychology by a factor approaching 2.0 (with the exception of Penn State, all campuses, with $18.5 million), as did the figure of $22.9 million corresponding to the federally financed portion (NYU and Penn State come in next at around $12 million). This ranking is all the more remarkable when one considers that it is accomplished with a faculty of only half the size or less that most of the remainder of the top 25 in this ranking. The full data can be found in table #58 of the NSF's report on Academic Research and Development Expenditures.
May 2007
Dept. celebrates alumnus and honorary degree recipient Dr. Leslie Hicks.
Dr. Leslie Hicks did his graduate training in the laboratory of Professor Harry Harlow and received his Ph.D. from the Dept. of Psychology in 1953. For the ensuing 50+ years he has been a scientist, educator, graduate mentor, and administrator at Howard University where, among many accomplishments, he initiated the first accredited doctoral program in clinical psychology at an historically black university. See photos and read citation for Dr. Hicks's Honorary Doctor of Science degree.
