Spring 2020 Newsletter | Awards and Updates

Master's Thesis Defense

Michael Broggi, Associations between Cumulative Concussion and Academic Success in University Students
Joel Ginn, Getting the Message Across: Flexitarians as Messengers for Meat’s Climate Change Impacts​
Diego Guerrero Lopez, Recursion in language and number: Is there a relationship?
Lauren Haliczer, An Experimental Investigation of How Peer Criticism and Praise Affect Urges for Self-injury
Sanna Lokhandwala, Slow Wave Sleep in Naps Supports Episodic Memories in Early Childhood
Se Min Suh, Understanding Shame and Guilt in Chinese Culture
Sandarsh Pandey, Hierarchical Ensemble Representations: Forming ensemble representations across multiple spatial scales
Eli Zaleznik, Counting Sequences are Processed Across Multiple Levels of Cortical Hierarchy

Doctoral Dissertation Defense

Mamatha Chary, Father Knows Best: The Interactive Effects of Fathering Quantity and Quality on Child Self-Regulation
Rachel Herman, A Co-Parent Intervention to Reduce Prenatal Depression in Low-Income Couples: A Pilot Study
Gregory Larsen, Really, You Should Be Thanking Us: Paternalism and Gratitude Expectations
Matheus Macedo-Lima, Seyed Nima Orazani, Shadows of the Past: The Effects of Movements' Past Strategy on Third-Parties' Support for its Current Strategy

Awards and Honors

Tammy Rahhal was awarded the UMass Amherst 2020 Manning Prize for Excellence in Teaching.

Maureen Perry-Jenkins has been appointed the CNS Associate Dean of Faculty Development, also UMass Amherst has nominated Perry-Jenkins for the ADVANCE Mentoring Award in the College of Natural Sciences and the 2020 Distinguished Community Engagement Award for Teaching.

Linda Isbell has been awarded the inaugural Feldman-Vorwerk Family Term Professorship in Social Psychology.

Clockwise from top-left: Kirsten Helmer (Wendy's wife), Sungha Kang, Sarah McCormick, and Evelyn Mercado

Graduate students Sarah McCormick and Sungha Kang were chosen as the recipients of this year’s Wendy Helmer Graduate Student Award. Sarah’s and Sungha’s fellow graduate students recognized their important contributions in PBS and in the broader community. They have been strong advocates for inclusion and social justice and for supporting their fellow students. 
Also assistant professor Evelyn Mercado was named the Faculty and Staff Ally to Graduate Students. These awards recognize passionate individuals who challenge the status quo and actively contribute to an environment that embraces inclusion, community, collaboration, mentorship, and social justice.

The Center for Teaching and Learning (CTL) has announced the selection of the 2020-21 Lilly Fellows for Teaching Excellence including Rosemary Cowell.

Rebecca Ready named 2020 Public Engagement Project Fellow.

David Moorman received a College of Natural Sciences Seed Fund Award.

Michael Constantino, clinical psychology, was awarded the 2020 Mid-Career Award for Distinguished Contributions to the Advancement of Psychotherapy by Division 29 (Society for the Advancement of Psychotherapy) of the American Psychological Association (APA). This award, to be given at the forthcoming APA Convention, recognizes outstanding contributions made through one’s mid-career to the advancement of psychotherapy research, practice, training, and theory, as well as to the Society.

Alice Coyne, a graduate student in clinical psychology, was awarded the 2020 Distinguished Student Scientist-Practitioner Award in Clinical Psychology by the Society of Clinical Psychology (SCP) and the Council of University Directors of Clinical Psychology Programs (CUDCP). SCP-CUDCP is recognizing Coyne for her outstanding contributions to the integration of science and practice in clinical psychology. She will be presented with a certificate, honorarium, and travel award to the forthcoming American Psychological Association Convention.

Cierra Abellera, graduate student in social psychology, was awarded a Yale Ciencia Academy Fellowship.

Matheus Macedo-Lima '20PhD won this year's Golden Neuron Award from the Neuroscience and Behavior Program (NSB). 

Andrea Silva-Gotay received the NSB Vincent Dethier award.

Emily Rothwell, a postdoc in the Lacreuse lab, was awarded a Society for Behavioral Neuroendocrinology travel award and Mélise Edwards, NSB graduate student (Lacreuse lab), was awarded an NSF GRFP honorable mention and an NSB Early Career Award.

Hadiya Williams named a UMass Amherst 21st Century Leader

Graduate student Brooke Burrows has received a Graduate Research Fellowship from the NSF. Over the next year, together with Berni Leidner at UMass and Gilad Hirschberger at IDC, Brooke will study people's reactions to the public recounting of large-scale trauma in the US and Israel.

Graduate student Annabelle Flores-Bonilla, neuroscience, has also received a NSF Graduate Research Fellowship, as well as a UMass Amherst Spaulding-Smith Award. She will begin her first year in the NSB doctoral program this coming fall.

Mélise Edwards, Gorana Gonzalez, and Elinor Waite have been accepted into the Center for Research on Families (CRF) 2020 Graduate Grant Writers Program. Read more

CRF has also issued the following awards: Mélise Edwards, travel award, Sarah McCormick and Merika Sanders, dissertation award, and Christina Rowley, methods scholarship. Read more 

Future Plans

Matheus Macedo-Lima '20PhD will be beginning a postdoctoral fellowship alongside Melissa Caras at the University of Maryland.

Four clinical psychology students matched at excellent APA-accredited internships:
Hallie Brown is going to Metrohealth Medical Center in Cleveland, OH.
Alice Coyne is headed to Charleston Consortium Internship in South Carolina.
Brien Goodwin was accepted at to attend the Institute of Living/Hartford Hospital in Connecticut.
Molly Mather is attending the University of Chicago Medicine in Illinois.