News

Winter 2023 Newsletter

geese fly past Old Chapel with snow on roof

Learn about the latest alumni, student, and faculty news in our Winter 2023 Newsletter!

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Highlights include: 

  • The Challenges of Emergency Care for Mental Health and Substance Use Disorder Patients
  • Community Psychology in Practice and Policy, Alumni Profile: Rachel Siegal ‘16
  • Research Shows Female STEM Students Are Positively Impacted by Female Near-Peer Mentors
  • Tasneem Mohammad Receives Undergraduate Travel Award for Outstanding Research
  • How a Parent’s Experience at Work Impacts Their Kids

Community Psychology in Practice and Policy

Alumni Profile: Rachel Siegal ‘16

Rachel Siegal portrait
Rachel Siegal ‘16

Rachel Siegal ‘16 is currently specializing in Community Psychology within the Health Psychology PhD Program at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. This program has allowed her to partner with local organizations and communities on projects that have a significant impact. Through her experience as a researcher and evaluator, Siegal has witnessed first-hand how an individual’s wellbeing is shaped by their environment. A person’s family, neighborhood, and education—as well as the larger systems and policies in place within our communities—all influence health and well-being. “Not only do we want to promote well-being for all, but we want to address the disparities that currently exist for different groups,” she notes.

Tasneem Mohammad Receives Undergraduate Travel Award for Outstanding Research

Tasneem Mohammad
Tasneem Mohammad

The Graduate Diversity Committee is pleased to announce that the winner of the 2022-23 DivComm Undergraduate Travel Award is Tasneem Mohammad. She has been awarded $400 that will help her travel to present her study "An Analysis of the Effect of Racialization on the Political Polarization of Universal Healthcare Policy Attitudes in the United States" at this year's American Psychological Association's 2023 Convention.

PBS Launches Linking Employment to Academic Development (LEAD) Program at Mount Ida Campus

Mount Ida campusThe Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences (PBS) has launched a new program Linking Employment to Academic Development (LEAD) to provide real-world psychology training for UMass students. Students in the program will spend a semester at the Mount Ida Campus of UMass Amherst working at inspiring locations in the Newton and Metro-west Boston area as interns and complete courses relevant to the psychology major. 

How a Parent’s Experience at Work Impacts Their Kids

by Maureen Perry-Jenkins

father carries young son on shoulders at the beach

Many employers are increasingly cognizant of the ways in which employees’ experiences on the job can impact their lives outside of work. But what about the lives of their children? Through a longitudinal study that followed more than 370 low-wage, working-class families over more than ten years, the author found that children’s developmental outcomes were directly and significantly affected by their parents’ work lives.

Maureen Perry-Jenkins Receives 2022 Alexis J. Walker Award for Lifetime Achievement in Feminist Family Studies From the National Council On Family Relations

Maureen Perry-Jenkins and Abbie Goldberg, professor of psychology at Clark University and PBS alumna
(L-R) Maureen Perry-Jenkins and Abbie Goldberg, professor of psychology at Clark University and PBS alumna

Maureen Perry-Jenkins has received the 2022 Alexis J. Walker Award for Lifetime Achievement in Feminist Family Studies from the National Council on Family Relations (NCFR). Perry-Jenkins is a professor and current chair of the department of psychological and brain sciences.

This award recognizes her decades of contributions to feminist family scholarship, leadership, and service to NCFR. The award review committee noted her ongoing scholarship on working class families as essential to the field. Perry-Jenkins was conferred the award at the 2022 NCFR conference where she gave an address entitled "Work Matters: Lessons from Alexis Walker".

Research Findings Show Older Adults Live Longer in Counties With More Age Bias

a number of older adults pose in group photo

Findings surprise social psychologists

Older adults living in counties with greater age bias had better health outcomes than those living in areas with less age bias, according to University of Massachusetts Amherst researchers, who were surprised at the findings.

“Quite the opposite of what we expected emerged,” says Allecia Reid, associate professor of social psychology and senior author of the paper published in the journal Social Science & Medicine. “Rather than dying earlier in counties with more negative attitudes toward older adults, we found in fact that older adults were living longer in counties with more negative attitudes towards older adults.”

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