For his whole life, Kirby Deater-Deckard has been an avid people watcher. Thus, he said, it was no surprise to his friends and family that he chose to study psychology.
“I’ve always been fascinated by the variety of people you see no matter where you are in the world,” said Deater-Deckard, professor in the Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences (PBS) at UMass Amherst.
Each summer, PBS faculty mentor students who are part of specialized programs designed to broaden participation in undergraduate research and give students the tools they need to lead successful careers.
I am a social psychologist and the founder of the Institute of Diversity Sciences at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. For the past two decades, my research has focused on evidence-based solutions: How do we create learning and work environments that fulfill young people’s feeling of belonging, nurture self-confidence and connect their academic and professional pursuits to purpose and meaning? I’m particularly interested in the experiences of girls and women, students of color and working-class college students.
Nilanjana Dasgupta, Director of the Institute of Diversity Sciences (IDS), and Graduate Student John Vargas featured in this video showing how IDS is making a difference!
Working across colleges at UMass Amherst, IDS promotes research in science, technology, and engineering that aims to advance equity in areas such as health, learning, work, and climate change mitigation. IDS helps to match up researchers for cross-disciplinary collaborations.
Maureen Perry-Jenkins is interviewed about her new book, “Work Matters: How Parents’ Jobs Shape Children’s Well-Being,” which proposes ways to reimagine low-wage work to sustain families and their childrens’ development. Perry-Jenkins says her research for the book tried to understand how, within a group of families that held low-wage jobs, some families thrive and some don’t.
This summer, members of the Computational Memory and Perception Lab (Associate Professor Rosie Cowell, Graduate Students Natasha de la Rosa-Rivera and Anna McCarter, and Neuro Track Junior Aisling Finnegan) hosted scholars from the Girls Inc. Eureka! Program for a workshop on how our taste, vision, and memory can be deceived. Scholars rated a variety of foods on their sweetness before and after trying Miracle Fruit, a substance that makes sour foods taste sweet.
UMass Amherst faculty and alumni recently published a study focused on the intersections of gender diversity and neurodiversity among youth. Scott Greenspan (PhD, School Psychology ’20), Samuel Carr (B.S. Psychology ’19), Ashley Woodman (faculty member in PBS), Amy Cannava, and Yena Li explored school and community-based protective factors that relate to psychological well-being and life satisfaction among 31 transgender and gender diverse autistic youths between the ages of 13 to 17.
Psychologist awarded NIH grant to develop at-home tracking of young kids’ outbursts
A University of Massachusetts Amherst psychologist will use a newly awarded, two-year, $428,000 grant from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to further develop and test mobile health devices worn by parents and young children that track – and perhaps can help predict – preschoolers’ tantrums.
The technology may also one day be able to identify “clinically significant tantrums,” assessing kids at high risk for mental illness, says Adam Grabell, assistant professor of psychological and brain sciences, who studies early childhood development in his Self-regulation, Emotions and Early Development (SEED) Lab.
The Office of Faculty Development has announced Tammy Rahhal, senior lecturer II and associate chair of teaching and chief undergraduate advisor of psychological and brain sciences, as a recipient of a Chancellor’s Leadership Fellowship for the 2022-23 academic year.
Provost and Senior Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs Tricia Serio says “I am thrilled to work with and learn alongside the Chancellor’s Leadership Fellows this year. Their projects integrate their expertise and knowledge of our campus with a new context to advance both their leadership development and our mission in new and creative ways.”
For his whole life, 
I am a social psychologist and the founder of the Institute of Diversity Sciences at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. For the past two decades, my research has focused on evidence-based solutions: How do we create learning and work environments that fulfill young people’s feeling of belonging, nurture self-confidence and connect their academic and professional pursuits to purpose and meaning? I’m particularly interested in the experiences of girls and women, students of color and working-class college students.
Maureen Perry-Jenkins is interviewed about her new book, “
UMass Amherst faculty and alumni recently published a study focused on the intersections of gender diversity and neurodiversity among youth. Scott Greenspan (PhD, School Psychology ’20), Samuel Carr (B.S. Psychology ’19), Ashley Woodman (faculty member in PBS), Amy Cannava, and Yena Li explored school and community-based protective factors that relate to psychological well-being and life satisfaction among 31 transgender and gender diverse autistic youths between the ages of 13 to 17.
