Winter 2023 Newsletter | Awards and Updates

Doctoral Dissertation Defenses

Se Min Suh, Examining Shifts in Racial Attitudes as an Aftermath of 2020 BLM Protests, Advisor: Brian Lickel

Stylianos Syropoulos, On the Importance of Perceived Safety: Antecedents and Consequences of Living A Subjectively Safe Life, Advisor: Evelyn Mercado

Eli Zaleznik, Assessing potential cognitive precursors to math anxiety: non-symbolic operations and symbolic ordinality in adults, Advisor: Joonkoo Park

Master's Thesis Defenses

Diego Barcala-Delgado, Father Involvement in Low-Income Families: The Role of Workplace Characteristics and Gender Roles, Advisor: Maureen Perry-Jenkins

Madison (Bracken) Eamiello, When Looking Up Leads to Feeling Down: Situational Moderators of the Effects of Upward Social Comparison on Social Media, Advisor: Allecia Reid

Awards and Honors

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". Read more

Christopher MartellChristopher Martell has been awarded third place in the American Journal of Nursing Book of the Year Awards in the Psychiatric and Mental Health Nursing category for his book Behavioral Activation for Depression: A Clinician’s Guide, Second Edition.

Liora MorhayimLiora Morhayim, a second-year grad student in the Psychology of Peace and Violence program, became one of the six recipients of the Fall 2022 Clara Mayo Grant that is awarded by the Society for the Psychological Study of Social Issues. The Clara Mayo Grant program was set up to support masters’ theses or pre-dissertation research on aspects of sexism, racism, or prejudice. Liora will use this grant to support her research on buffering effects of negative intergroup contact through complex social identities.

Joe Dwyer Wins NSB Golden Neuron Award

Joe pictured with NSB professors Meg Sratton and Heather Richardson

The Golden Neuron Award celebrates an exciting new finding from any PhD or MA student in the NSB program. Joe Dwyer used viral circuit mapping and whole brain imaging and found over 50 brain regions that synapse onto aromatase neurons in the medial amygdala. Read more

Greg Pearson Wins Two Awards to Attend Society for Neuroscience Conference

Greg PearsonThe NSB program is happy to announce that Greg Pearson (3rd year PhD student in the Karatsoreos Lab) has won a Trainee Professional Development Award (TDPA) to attend the Society for Neuroscience (SfN) conference in San Diego. The competitive TPDA recognizes undergraduate and graduate students and postdoctoral fellows who demonstrate scientific merit and excellence in research.

We are also excited that Greg’s SfN abstract, exploring how the circadian clock alters the impact of viral inflammatory stimuli that access the brain via the intranasal route, was chosen for a NanoString Technologies Travel Grant.

Alumni Updates

Sungha KangSungha Kang is a graduate student working with Dr. Lisa Harvey, currently completing her clinical psychology internship at the University of Illinois at Chicago Department of Psychiatry. Following the completion of internship, she will be staying in Chicago as a tenure-track assistant professor in the Department of Psychology at Loyola University Chicago. At Loyola, she is excited to develop a program of research on how childhood externalizing behaviors are identified, diagnosed, and treated for children of color, with the ultimate goal of reducing racial inequities in the mental healthcare system and subsequent social-emotional outcomes for systemically oppressed children. Employing community participatory research methods, she is looking forward to partnering with schools, community mental health clinics, and other child-serving agencies throughout Chicagoland to better serve children and families who have been marginalized by the current systems of care. 

Jasmine DixonJasmine Dixon has accepted a postdoctoral fellowship offer in the Aging and Alzheimer's Research Track at the Harvard Partners Consortium in Clinical Neuropsychology. The position comprises 75% research experiences at the Center for Alzheimer's Research and Treatment at Brigham and Women's Hospital and on the Harvard Aging Brain Study at Massachusetts General Hospital as well as 25% clinical rotations at Brigham and Women's Hospital Division of Cognitive and Behavioral Neurology. The postdoctoral fellowship starts September 1, 2023. 
 

Alice CoyneAlice E. Coyne, PhD, an alumnus of the PBS clinical psychology program, has accepted a tenure-track Assistant Professor position at American University in Washington DC. Her appointment begins with the fall 2023 semester, after she completes her postdoctoral fellowship at Case Western Reserve University.

Mike BroggiMike Broggi has been matched for a clinical neuropsychology postdoctoral residence at VA Maine.