Previous Department of Psychology and Neuroscience News Items
(Many of the links below may no longer work. Our apologies.)
December 2011
CU
Psychology and Neuroscience Professor Mark Whisman
(Clinical) was awarded a College Scholar Award from the College of Arts & Sciences. A panel
of the college’s professors of distinction bestow these awards in recognition of scholarly
accomplishments, and the awards allow faculty to pursue full time research.
CU Psychology and Neuroscience undergraduate major Sarah Elizabeth Whitney will receive the Chancellor’s Recognition Award at CU-Boulder’s Winter Graduation ceremony. One of only two students to be so honored, the award is in recognition of achieving straight As during her college career.
November 2011
CU Psychology and Neuroscience professor (Behavioral Neuroscience) Theresa Hernández
will receive one of Prevention magazine’s Integrative Medicine Awards for 2011.
The award is for her research on how acupressure can improve memory and attention in patients who
have suffered mild to moderate brain injuries. Read Prevention’s online article about the winners and their research.
October 2011
The research of CU Psychology and Neuroscience professor Leaf Van Boven (Social) and
colleagues was featured in a CU press release. This research, published in Organizational Behavior and
Human Decision Processes, found that people increase their charitable giving disproportionately
in response to crises that arouse their immediate emotions (e.g., the Haitian earthquake), in contrast
to more chronic crises (famine and genocide in Africa). Coauthors on the study were Van Boven students
Michaela Huber, now at Dresden University of Technology, and Laura Johnson-Graham, and CU Business School
and adjunct Psychology and Neuroscience Professor Peter McGraw. Read
the CU press release.
September 2011
Recent CU Psychology and Neuroscience PhD Laramie Duncan
(Behavior Genetics and Clinical), now at Harvard Medical School, and her advisor CU Psychology and
Neuroscience professor Matt Keller (Behavioral Genetics), received some press ahead
of their review article to be published in the American Journal of Psychiatry. In their
review of the literature, they argue that research reporting significant correlations in
gene-by-environment interactions of various psychiatric illnesses may be due to false positives and
publication bias towards positive findings. Read the Harvard Medical School press release.
CU-Boulder and the Mind Research Network of Albuquerque have joined forces to bring an fMRI scanner to Boulder. Read the CU press release about the grand opening last week. Or read the Daily Camera’s article. Or read the department’s article which also has pictures from the delivery and installation process.
CU Psychology and Neuroscience professor Sona Dimidjian (Clinical) received some
popular press with an article about her research on postpartum depression in the CU Alumni
magazine the Coloradan. Read
the article online.
August 2011
CU Psychology and Neuroscience graduate student Lindsay Anderson (Cognitive) received a Chancellor’s
Award for Excellence in STEM Education (Graduate Award). This grant, as part of the iSTEM program,
was awarded for her proposal “Understanding the components of the iClicker system that
promote learning, retention, and generalization of classroom knowledge.” (Read more
about the iSTEM program.)
CU Psychology and Neuroscience professor Tiffany Ito (Social) received a Chancellor’s
Award for Excellence in STEM Education (Faculty Award). This grant, as part of the iSTEM program,
was awarded for her proposal to examine ways to reduce the gender achievement gap in college
science courses. (Read more about the iSTEM program.)
CU Psychology and Neuroscience postdoc Ruth Barrientos (Behavioral Neuroscience) and several
colleagues in the department received some popular press for an article published in
the Journal of Neuroscience. This research demonstrated that a small amount of
running was shown to protect aging rats from long-term memory loss following bacterial
infection. Read
the CU press release,
or the abstract and full article.
July 2011
CU Psychology and Neuroscience professor Sona Dimidjian (Clinical) has been chosen to
receive one of the CU-Boulder Provost’s Faculty Achievement Awards at the Convocation Awards
Ceremony in October. She was chosen in part because of her 2010 paper in American
Psychologist entitled “How Would We Know If Psychotherapy Were Harmful?”
CU Psychology and Neuroscience
postdoc Tal Yarkoni (Cognitive) and professor Tor Wager (Cognitive)
and colleagues received some press for their recent article in Nature Methods. This paper
describes an automated brain-mapping framework that uses text-mining, meta-analysis and
machine-learning techniques to generate a large database of mappings between neural and cognitive
states. Read the CU
press release or read
the Nature
Methods article.
June 2011
CU Psychology and Neuroscience professor Matt Keller (Behavioral Genetics and Institute for
Behavioral Genetics fellow) and graduate student Laramie Duncan (Behavior Genetics
and Clinical) and a co-author won the Fulker Award for the best paper published in the
journal Behavior Genetics in 2010. The award was given at the recent meeting of the
Behavior Genetics Association. Their paper, “Are extended twin family designs worth the
trouble? A comparison of the bias, precision, and accuracy of parameters estimated in four twin
family models” provided a rigorous guide to these issues in the classical twin design and
three extended twin family designs used in human behavior genetics.
CU Psychology and Neuroscience professor Vijay Mittal (Clinical) has been awarded an R01 grant from NIH’s
Biobehavioral Research Award for Innovative New Scientists (BRAINS) program. This award program,
first launched in 2010, is designed to support the research and career development of outstanding
early-stage scientists. The award will allow the investigation of movement abnormalities as a potential
biomarker for abnormal white matter and grey matter development in the frontal-subcortical
circuits of adolescents at-risk for schizophrenia. The 5-year grant will allow his lab to
follow 150 adolescents through multiple time points during development, and to track the progression
of illness.
May 2011
CU Psychology and Neuroscience postdoc Tal Yarkoni (Cognitive) from
the Wager Lab was named one of the Association for Psychological Science’s
“rising stars.” Read about him and other promising young investigators in this month’s
issue of the APS Observer online.
CU Psychology and
Neuroscience staff member and undergraduate advisor Laurel Amsel has been promoted to Lead
Advisor for her many years of service to the department and to the college of Arts and Sciences,
as well for contributions to her field in general.
CU Psychology and Neuroscience adjunct professor Peter McGraw (Leeds School of Business) was in Wired magazine regarding an analysis he did of the New Yorker’s cartoon caption contest No. 281. Read the Wired article.
CU Psychology and Neuroscience undergraduate Zak Millman received
the “CU Gold Lasting Legacy award.” The award from
the CU GOLD program is given to someone
who has demonstrated outstanding leadership on campus and who has left a lasting legacy for students
after him- or herself. Zak’s legacy includes the new CU Psychology and Neuroscience
undergraduate research journal (see April entry below), as well as a mentorship program for
at-risk high school students at a local alternative school.
April 2011
CU Psychology and
Neuroscience undergraduate advisor Lily Board received the National
Academic Advising Association’s “Outstanding New Advisor Award,” one of only
five people to be so honored nationally. Check out
the list of winners
on the NACADA website.
CU Psychology and Neuroscience professor Sona Dimidjian (Clinical) received the
CU-Boulder Graduate School’s “Outstanding Graduate Advising Award” for 2011.
CU Psychology and Neuroscience professor (Behavioral Neuroscience) Theresa Hernández
received some popular press regarding her public service helping people who suffer traumatic
brain injury (TBI). An article appears in the latest issue of CU-Boulder’s Colorado Arts and
Sciences Magazine. Read the article online.
CU Psychology and Neuroscience professor Tor Wager (Cognitive) is coauthor on article
published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. This research
demonstrated that social rejection shares similar neural components with physical pain. Read the
PNAS
abstract (with a link to the full article). This research has generated a lot of popular press as
well, e.g., CNN,
MSNBC, and National Geographic.
The CU Psychology and Neuroscience chapter of Psi Chi (international undergraduate honor society in psychology) received a grant from the CU Student Group Funding Board for the publication of the Colorado Undergraduate Journal for Psychological Research. The journal will publish undergraduate Psychology and Neuroscience theses at the end of the term. CU-Boulder Psi Chi chapter co-president Zak Millman spearheaded the effort to get the grant of over $1k. For more information, including how to submit your thesis for consideration, see the Psi Chi web page.
February 2011
CU Psychology and Neuroscience professor (Behavioral Neuroscience) Theresa Hernández
is being honored by the State of Colorado Department of Human Services. They have established an
annual Theresa Hernández Traumatic Brain Injury Trust Fund Community Award to honor Teri
(she will also be the first recipient) for her work helping citizens in the State of Colorado
recover from traumatic brain injury (TBI). Teri worked with Representative Todd Saliman to get
the state to pass a 2002 statute establishing the Colorado Traumatic Brain Injury Trust Fund
Program which has helped an estimated 4000 people deal with the effects of TBI.
Read more about the Colorado TBI Trust Fund.
January 2011
The research of CU Psychology and Neuroscience postdoc Tal Yarkoni (Cognitive) from
the Wager Lab was featured in the latest issue of CU-Boulder’s Colorado Arts and
Sciences Magazine. The article discusses his recent research article published in the
Journal of Research and Personality about how bloggers’ personalities influence
their choice of words when writing. His research suggests people don’t maintain separate
online and offline personalities. Read the
magazine article online.
December 2010
The research of CU Psychology and Neuroscience professor Leaf Van Boven
(Social) was featured in the latest issue of the Coloradan, the University of
Colorado alumni magazine. This research, conducted with a colleague at the Leeds School of
Business, examined how people perceive the disposable-income purchases of others. People who
make materialistc purchases are seen more negatively than people who make experiential
purchases. To learn more, read
the article
in the Coloradan.
CU Psychology and Neuroscience had several of its female members
honored by the CU Women’s
Resource Center with their “Women Who Make a Difference” award. Undergraduate
advisors Laurel Amsel and Lily Board, staff member and
Assistant to the Chair Nancy Grabowski, and Senior Instructors Diane
Martichuski, Tina Pittman Wagers and Natalie Smutzler
were all honored.
CU Psychology
and Neuroscience professors Akira Miyake (Cognitive) and Tiffany
Ito (Social) and colleagues coauthored an article in Science. Their
research examined the “gender gap,” wherein women typically do more poorly than men
in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) classes. Rather than due to differences
in ability, their study demonstrated that these effects are at least in part psychological in
nature, and can be mitigated by a simple “values affirmation” writing exercise
that requires students to reflect on and write about their own personal values such as
friends and family and gaining knowledge. This exercise raised women’s
course grades in an introductory physics class, increasing many affirmed women's course grades
from Cs to Bs. Read the article online. These findings have also received a lot of popular press, for example, a
Slate magazine article and a
Discover Magazine article. (Note: Three of the coauthors are from the
CU-Boulder Physics Department, and one is Geoff Cohen, recently of the CU Psychology and
Neuroscience Department now at Stanford.)
November 2010
CU Psychology and Neuroscience postdoctoral researcher Lisa Loram (Behavioral Neuroscience) and Distinguished
Professor Linda Watkins (Behavioral Neuroscience) received some popular
press for their research investigating a potential treatment for Multiple Sclerosis. The
research was presented at the Society for Neuroscience convention in San Diego. They
discovered that the advancement of the paralysis caused by MS could be stopped for several weeks
with a single injection of a compound called ATL313. AT 313 is an anti-inflammatory
drug being developed to treat chronic pain.
Read the CU press
release.
October 2010
CU Psychology and Neuroscience Distinguished Professor Linda
Watkins (Behavioral Neuroscience) received the 2010 Prince of Asturias Award
for Technical and Scientific Research for her research regarding the role of glial cells in
the transmission of pain. One of only three people to be so honored with this particular award, she
received it from Spanish Prince Felipe in Ovideo, Spain. Read more about the award and the honorees. This award also
garnered some national and local popular press. Read
the ABC news story
and the Colorado Arts & Sciences Magazine article.
CU Psychology and Neuroscience professor Sona Dimidjian (Clinical) received some popular
press, getting interviewed in an article for CU-Boulder’s Colorado Arts and Sciences
Magazine. The article focuses on her research examining the high incidence of depression
among women of childbearing age, particularly those who bear children. The research found
that behavioral treatment worked as well as antidepressants for more severely depressed patients.
Read the online article.
CU Psychology and Neuroscience
College Professor of Distinction Chick Judd (Social) and Professor Bernadette
Park (Social) were named co-recipients of the 2010 Thomas M. Ostrom award for outstanding
lifetime contributions to research and theory in social cognition. The award is given
at the Person Memory Interest Group (PMIG)
meeting. Read more
about the award.
CU Psychology and Neuroscience professor Mark Whisman (Clinical) has been invited to be part of
the Klaus-Grawe-Think-Tank-Meeting in Zurich, Switzerland. He will join 9 other international
experts in different specialties to discuss new concepts and procedures for improving the
prevention and treatment of psychological problems in children and their families. Read more
about the meeting.
CU Psychology and Neuroscience professor (Behavioral Genetics and Behavioral Neuroscience)
and Institute for Behavioral Genetics fellow Don Cooper and colleagues
recently published a paper in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
This research examined the important role of cAMP-cAMP response-element binding protein in
homeostatic adaptations. Read the online
abstract. He also published a paper in the journal Substance Abuse: Research and
Treatment regarding the use of cell phones to image and quantify standardized rapid
immunoassay strips as a new point-of-care diagnostic and forensics tool with health applications.
Read the online abstract.
September 2010
CU
Psychology and Neuroscience graduate student Hannah Snyder (Cognitive) and her
advisor Yuko Munakata (Cognitive) and colleagues had their research featured
in a ScienceDaily online news item. This research, published in the Proceedings of the
National Academy of Sciences, examined why people with anxiety have a difficult time making
a decision when faced with multiple options. CU-Boulder Professors Tim Curran,
Marie Banich, and Randy O’Reilly, as well as former
graduate student Erika Nyhus and undergraduate honors student Natalie
Hutchinson collaborated on the research. Read the ScienceDaily news item, and/or read
the PNAS abstract (with a
link to the full article).
CU Psychology and Neuroscience professor Tor Wager (Cognitive) and professor Sona Dimidjian (Clinical)
received a grant from the Positive Neuroscience Project to study how compassionate thinking impacts
brain function and leads to more caring behavior. Read more about
the project and see a list of awardees.
August 2010
CU Psychology
and Neuroscience graduate student Shaw Ketels (Cognitive) received the award for “Best
Student Poster” at the Ninth Annual Summer Interdisciplinary Conference (ASIC), which took place recently in
Bend, OR. Shaw conducted this research with Cognitive area faculty member Matt Jones. The
title of the poster was “Language is not always helpful: Labels do not facilitate the learning of
information-integration category structures.” Read more
about the conference.
July 2010
CU Psychology and Neuroscience professor (Behavioral Genetics and Behavioral Neuroscience)
and Institute for Behavioral Genetics fellow Don Cooper and colleagues
recently published a paper in Biological Psychiatry. In this paper, they
demonstrated that "knocking down" a circadian rhythm gene (called "clock") resulted in
animals with altered dopamine activity and mania/depression-like symptoms. Their
results implicate dopamine neuronal function of the transcription factor, clock, in
bipolar disorder. Read the online
abstract.
June 2010
CU Psychology and Neuroscience professor Tor Wager (Cognitive) was the subject
of an article in the New York Times regarding his research on the placebo
effect. Read the article.
May 2010
The research of CU Psychology and Neuroscience Professor Bernadette Park (Social)
was in the popular press recently. She was interviewed by Colorado Public Radio on their
show “Colorado Matters” regarding her research (conducted with her recently defended
graduate student Allegra Smith) examining gender inequities in the division of home-
and work-related tasks. Listen to the
interview (this link takes you directly to the interview).
Undergraduate Psychology major Stacy Killebrew receives the Chancellor’s Recognition Award at the CU-Boulder commencement. One of only 7 students receiving the award, it is given to those undergraduates who achieved all As in their careers.
Some recent research by CU Psychology and Neuroscience professor Leaf Van Boven
(Social) and colleagues was featured in the popular press. A recent blog post by Dr. Gupta,
CNN’s chief medical correspondent, discussed this research. The research examined materialism
vs. experientialism, and found that people who pursued experiences rather than
material goods were rated as more popular and better liked. Read Dr. Gupta’s blog
post. The studies were published recently in the Personality and Social
Psychology Bulletin, and also received some press in Boulder’s own Daily
Camera. Read the Camera’s article as well.
April 2010
CU Psychology and Neuroscience staff member Jon Roberts, CLIPR manager, won
the Chancellor’s CU-Boulder Employee of the Year Award, one of only 5 people to be
so honored.
CU Psychology and Neuroscience graduate student Rosi Kaiser (Clinical)
received the Ted Volsky Memorial Award through the Beverly Sears Graduate Student Grant
program. These competitive awards are sponsored by the Graduate School to support the
research, scholarship and creative work of graduate students from all departments.
Read more about the grant program.
CU Psychology and Neuroscience professor Tor Wager (Cognitive) received
the American Psychosomatic Society’s Paul D. MacLean Award for Outstanding
Neuroscience Research in Psychosomatic Medicine.
CU Psychology and Neuroscience postdoc Tal Yarkoni (Cognitive) from
the Wager Lab will be chairing and speaking at a symposium at the Cognitive Neuroscience
Society meeting later this month in Montreal. The title of the symposium is “Towards
a cumulative science of human brain function.” CU Psychology and Neuroscience professor
Tor Wager (Cognitive) will also be presenting as well. Read more about
the symposium.
CU Psychology and Neuroscience graduate student Rachael Ramsey
(Behavioral Neuroscience) received a 2010 Summer Research Fellowship from the
Endocrine Society. The fellowship consists of a stipend to support a research
project with her mentor Professor Bob Spencer, as well as funds for her to travel
to the Society’s 92nd annual meeting in San Diego in June.
CU
Psychology and Neuroscience Professor Bernadette Park (Social), doctoral
student Allegra Smith (Social), and Professor Sona Dimidjian (Clinical)
are featured in the popular press this month with articles about their
research appearing in CU-Boulder’s Arts & Sciences Magazine.
Park and Smith’s research concerns gender
inequities in the distribution of home- and work-related tasks. Dimidjian and
colleagues’ research concerns how
placebos may be as effective as antidepressants for treating milder forms of depression,
as mentioned in a January 2010 entry below.
March 2010
CU Psychology and Neuroscience professor Jerry W. Rudy (Behavioral Neuroscience)
gave the plenary address at the President’s
Teaching Scholars Program (PTSP) conference. The daylong lineup of presentations and
panel discussions took place on March 5, 2010, at the Anschutz Medical Campus and centered
on the topic “How Our Students Learn: Implications for Faculty.” For more
information about the conference and his talk, see
the article in the
CU Faculty and Staff Newsletter.
The research of CU Psychology and Neuroscience professor Leaf Van Boven
(Social) was featured in the latest issue of The Coloradan, the
University of Colorado alumni magazine. This research examined undergraduates’
perceived risk levels of traveling to foreign countries when given actual travel
advisories from the Department of Homeland Security. Many perceived the biggest threat to
be the country in the most recently read travel advisory, even when the threat level
was equivalent to an earlier advisory about a different country. To learn more, read
the article
in The Coloradan.
Recent CU Psychology and Neuroscience Cognitive Program PhD Michael
Frank, now an assistant professor at Brown University, was awarded one of the
inaugural Janet Taylor Spence Awards for Transformative Early Career Contributions from
the Association for Psychological Science (APS). He received his PhD under
professor Randy O'Reilly in 2004. Read more
about the
award.
February 2010
CU Psychology and Neuroscience professor (Behavioral Genetics and Behavioral Neuroscience)
and Institute for Behavioral Genetics fellow Don Cooper was
chosen to speak at the President’s Teaching Scholars Conference to be held Friday,
March 5, 2010, on the Anschutz Medical Campus. The broad topic of his talk will be
learning and brain science, how brain development influences student behavior, the
development of learning and problem solving, individual differences in learning, and
what faculty should know about how the brain works. Read
more about
the conference.
CU Psychology and Neuroscience welcomes its newest faculty member, professor Tor
Wager (Cognitive). He received his PhD from the University of Michigan in
cognitive psychology, with a focus in cognitive neuroscience, in 2003. He joined the
faculty of Columbia University as an Assistant Professor of Psychology in 2004, and was
appointed Associate Professor in 2009. His research focuses on how expectations
shape responses to pain and emotional cues in the brain and body, including work on
brain mechanisms of placebo analgesia and the cognitive regulation of emotion and attention.
CU Psychology and Neuroscience professor David Miklowitz (Clinical) was
elected to receive the 2010 Gerald L Klerman Senior Investigator Award from the
Depression and Bipolar Support
Alliance (DBSA).
This award is given to honor research contributions that support DBSA’s mission:
to improve the lives of people living with mood disorders.
CU Psychology and Neuroscience professor emeritus Michael Wertheimer
was elected to a three-year term on the APA’s Policy and Planning Board. This comes
on the heels of a three-year stint on the APA’s Board of Directors.
January 2010
CU Psychology and Neuroscience professor Sona Dimidjian (Clinical) received
some popular press this week because of a recent article that came out in the Journal
of the American Medical Association. The New York Times, among others,
ran a piece about the JAMA article which studied the efficacy of popular
antidepressants in the treatment of depression. This research indicated
that the effectiveness of the drugs varied with the severity of the depression, calling
into question whether antidepressants should necessarily be prescribed for people with mild
to moderate depression. Read the New York Times
article, or read
the original JAMA
research article.
CU
Psychology and Neuroscience College Professor of Distinction Alice Healy
(Cognitive) was awarded a College Scholar Award from the College of Arts & Sciences to
take a semester sabbatical to pursue a research project. In addition, she just received a grant
from NASA Ames to study the training of pilots and astronauts. Professor Emeritus Lyle Bourne,
Jr., will serve as a consultant on the project, and CU Psychology and Neuroscience PhD Vicki
Schneider will be a Senior Research Associate on it was well. The NASA technical officer on the
project is CU Psychology and Neuroscience PhD Immanuel Barshi.
December 2009
CU Psychology and Neuroscience College Professor of Distinction Alice Healy (Cognitive) was in the popular press. Boulder Magazine has a brief profile of some of her research in its Winter/Spring 2009–2010 issue.
October 2009
CU Psychology and Neuroscience Clinical graduate student Cinnamon Bidwell has
been awarded a 2009 Young Scientist Research Fund Award from Children and Adults
with Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (CHADD), a
national non-profit organization providing education, advocacy and support for individuals
with AD/HD. Cinnamon submitted a research paper entitled “Association of DRD4, DAT1,
and 5HTT with Putative Neuropsychological Endophenotypes in Attention-Deficit Hyperactivity
Disorder.” She is currently on her clinical research internship at the Duke University
Medical Center. Read more about
the award and Cinnamon’s research.
CU Psychology and
Neuroscience professors emeriti Ken Hammond and Walter Kintsch
were both honored recently with pages on the Foundation for the Advancement of the Behavioral and
Brain Sciences (FABBS) website. FABBS is an educational
non-profit organization established to promote and enhance understanding of the behavioral,
psychological, and brain sciences. Read about
Hammond’s
and Kintsch’s career contributions
to their respective fields.
September 2009
CU
Psychology and Neuroscience professor Leaf Van Boven (Social) and
graduate student Michaela Huber’s research was featured in a
CU press release.
Their research, done in collaboration with a colleague at the University of Calgary, demonstrated that
more immediate emotions, such as perceptions of threats or risks, are viewed as more intense than
previous emotions. Some of their stimulus materials were adapted from the Department of Homeland Security.
The research was published in the August issue of the Journal of Experimental
Psychology: General. Read the online abstract.
CU Psychology and Neuroscience professor emeritus Michael Wertheimer is giving the
invited lecture at the University of Würzburg on the occasion of the opening and dedication of the
new “Adolf-Würth-Zentrums für Geschichte der Psychologie.” This is a building
that will house many archival documents from throughout the history of Psychology. Many dignitaries are
attending the ceremony, both from within and outside the field.
CU
Psychology and Neuroscience College Professor of Distinction Alice Healy (Cognitive)
and Distinguished Professor Linda Watkins (Behavioral Neuroscience) were both
in the popular press this month with separate articles about their research appearing in
CU-Boulder’s Arts & Sciences Magazine. Professor Healy’s research
concerns people’s psychological responses to terrorist attacks. Professor Watkins’ research concerns
the treatment of chronic pain.
CU
Psychology and Neuroscience business office staff member Stefanie Coltrain received
a “Catherine Core Minority Travel Award” from the National Council of University Research
Administrators to attend their annual meeting held in Washington, DC this October. Recipients of
the award will be recognized during a ceremony at the conference.
August 2009
The department welcomes Don Cooper as a new faculty member for
the Fall 2009 semester. He was hired into the Behavioral Genetics area as an Associate Professor.
He received his PhD from the Chicago Medical School in 2000. Most recently he was an assistant
then associate professor in the Department of Psychiatry at the University of Texas Southwestern
Medical Center. The long-term goals of Dr. Cooper’s laboratory are to understand information
processing in the brain motivation/reward memory circuitry and characterize the adaptations and
impaired neural memory mechanisms associated with depression, addiction and schizophrenia. Work
from his lab on cellular memory formation
was featured in CNN news
earlier this year.
CU Psychology and Neuroscience professors Tiffany Ito (Social), Akira Miyake (Cognitive) and
Geoff Cohen (Social), and Physics professor Noel Finkelstein have been awarded
a collaborative grant from NSF’s REESE program (Research and Evaluation on Education in
Science and Engineering). This program funds research looking at gender disparities in STEM
disciplines (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math). Specifically, these researchers will be
examining how identity threat impairs the performance and learning of female undergraduate students
on math and science tests, and how self-affirmation alleviates the negative impact of threat on women’s
math and science performance.
July 2009
Recent
CU Psychology and Neuroscience Cognitive Program PhD Katherine Rawson, now an
assistant professor at Kent State University, was awarded a Presidential Early Career Award for
Scientists and Engineers. Her research focuses on improving the comprehension of text and on
helping students self-regulate their learning. Only 100 awards are given, and Katherine’s is one
of only two awards funded by the Department of Education. She received her PhD under professor
(now emeritus) Walter Kintsch in 2004.
CU Psychology and Neuroscience professor and Director of the Institute of Cognitive Science
Marie Banich (Cognitive) has been selected as a fellow for the Association
for Psychological Science in recognition of her sustained outstanding contributions to the
advancement of psychological science. Her selection was made by the Board outside the
standard nomination process because of her significant accomplishments in the field.
CU Psychology and Neuroscience
graduate student Krista Rodgers and professor Daniel Barth and
colleagues at CU-Boulder including graduate student Alexis Northcutt and professors
Steven Maier and Linda Watkins (all of the Behavioral Neuroscience
Program) published an article in Brain that received some popular press. Along with recent
postdoc Mark Hutchinson (now at the University of Adelaide). These researchers found that the brain's
glial cells, which play an integral role in the body's immune system, contribute to a condition known
as “acquired epilepsy,” commonly seen in patients who have suffered traumatic brain
injury. Their results also suggest ways in which the contribution of the glial cells to this condition
can be blocked. Press accounts of these findings appeared both in Boulder's daily newspaper the
Camera and a CU press release. See either
the Camera's
article or the press
release. Or read the Brain abstract
(with link to full article).
CU Psychology and Neuroscience professor Jerry W. Rudy (Behavioral Neuroscience) was
named College
Professor of Distinction by the College of Arts and Sciences in recognition of his exceptional
service, teaching and research or creative work.
June 2009
CU Psychology and Neuroscience professors Tiffany Ito (Social) and
Akira Miyake (Cognitive) have been awarded
two collaborative grants. One grant is from the National Institute on Drug Abuse, a 5-year award
to study the genetic, neural, and social factors that explain marijuana use among adolescents. Co-PIs
include members within and outside the department, both at CU-Boulder and beyond. The other grant,
from the National Science Foundation, funds research examining the degree to which individual
differences in executive functions (EFs) — higher-order control processes that regulate thought
and action — explain variability in the expression of racial bias. This grant also has co-PIs both
at CU-Boulder and from other universities.
May 2009
The 106th annual meeting of the Society of Experimental Psychologists (http://www.sepsych.org/) was hosted by the University of Colorado at Boulder from Thursday, April 30 to Saturday, May 2 at the Boulder Marriott Hotel. The meeting was sponsored by the Center for Research on Training, the Department of Psychology and Neuroscience, the Institute of Cognitive Science, the Provost, the Graduate School, and the College of Arts and Sciences, all of the University of Colorado at Boulder. The Society of Experimental Psychologists is an extremely prestigious organization consisting of about 200 elected fellows. It was founded in 1904 by Edward Bradford Titchener. Alice Healy and Lyle Bourne organized the meeting and served as Chair of the Society this year.
April 2009
CU Psychology and Neuroscience Social Psychology professor Geoff Cohen and colleagues published
a follow-up study to their earlier article in Science. In this 2-year follow-up, the racial
achievement gap in African-Americans' GPAs compared to nonminority students was significantly reduced when the
African-American students had completed a series of brief but structured writing assignments focusing
students on a self-affirming value. Read
the abstract or
online article.
CU Psychology and Neuroscience Social Psychology professor Bernadette
Park received the CU-Boulder Graduate School’s Faculty Advising Award for 2009.
CU Psychology and Neuroscience Social Psychology professor Bernadette Park gave the invited Donald W. Fiske Distinguished Lecture this month at the University of Chicago discussing her research on gender roles and work-family conflicts. Read more about the lecture series.
CU Psychology and Neuroscience Behavioral Genetics professor and Institute for Behavioral Genetics
fellow Al Collins has been awarded the 2009 Boulder Faculty Assembly
Faculty Excellence Award for Excellence in Research, Scholarly and Creative Work.
Read more about the award.
March 2009
CU
Psychology and Neuroscience Cognitive Psychology professor Yuko Munakata and
graduate student Christopher Chatham had their research on toddlers’
memories featured in an article in the Boulder newspaper the Daily Camera. Read
the online
article.
CU Psychology and Neuroscience Behavioral Genetics professor and Institute for Behavioral
Genetics fellow Matt Keller had his research on the genetics of mental
disorders highlighted in the March 2009 issue of Colorado Arts and Sciences Magazine. Read
the online
article.
CU Psychology and Neuroscience Clinical graduate student Debbie
Boeldt has been awarded a Beverly Sears Graduate Student Grant. These competitive
awards are sponsored by the Graduate School to support the research, scholarship and creative work
of graduate students from all departments.
February 2009
CU Psychology and Neuroscience professor Randy O’Reilly has been awarded the
newly created CU-Boulder College Scholar Award. It is a prestigious honor, intended to
provide sabbatical support for creative and accomplished scholars.
CU Psychology and Neuroscience professor emeritus Michael Wertheimer
has been awarded the American Psychological Association Division
24 Award for Distinguished Theoretical and Philosophical Contributions to Psychology. The award
was established in 1998 and is the Division’s highest honor, bestowed in recognition of
life-time scholarly achievement. As part of the award, Dr. Wertheimer will be giving an invited
address at the APA’s convention in Toronto in August.
January 2009
The Department of Psychology has received formal approval from the Board of Regents (14 January 2009) to change its name. We are now the Department of Psychology and Neuroscience. This change reflects the growth of faculty interest and involvement with neuroscience methods and the changing nature of the field of Psychology. More than 60 percent of our faculty are using neuroscience techniques in their research: techniques ranging from brain-slice assays in rats to whole-brain imaging in humans, to genetic analyses. The department is in the final stages of creating a second undergraduate major in Neuroscience. Our new name more accurately reflects the true nature of our research and educational goals and mission.
December 2008
CU Social Psychology professor Irene Blair was recently awarded a grant from
the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute to study the degree to which healthcare providers'
ethnic/racial attitudes relate to the treatment and control of hypertension among patients of
different ethnic/racial groups. Along with a team of physician collaborators, Dr. Blair will be working
on this research project in Denver area health systems over the next three years.
November 2008
CU Social Psychology professor Leaf Van Boven’s research on happiness was
highlighted in the CU online publication "INSIDE CU." Read
the article online.
October 2008
CU Psychology Behavioral Neuroscience Distinguished Professor Steven Maier has been
awarded the American Psychological Association’s Distinguished
Scientific Contribution Award for 2009. This is one of the highest honors bestowed by the APA.
Here is a list of all the former recipients of the
award, including the Department’s own Professor Emeritus Walter Kintsch.
CU Clinical Psychology Professor Mark Whisman has obtained a NIMH Program of Excellence training grant in scientifically validated treatments of mood disorders for the clinical program. The focus of this 5-year research education training grant is to develop, evaluate, and disseminate curricula materials for training in measurement and assessment, intervention, and evaluation for cognitive therapy, behavioral activation, and family-focused therapy as treatments for mood disorders.
August 2008
CU Psychology Behavioral Genetics professor and Director of the Institute for Behavioral Genetics
John Hewitt received the Dobzhansky Award for outstanding lifetime
research accomplishment in the field of behavioral genetics. The award was conferred at the Annual
Meeting of the Behavior Genetics Association in Louisville, Kentucky, June 2008.
CU Psychology Behavioral Genetics Professor Greg Carey received the James Shields Award
for outstanding contributions to twin research. This award is conferred by the Behavior Genetics
Association and the International Society for Twin Studies in honor of James Shields, a pioneering
researcher in human behavior genetics. The award recognizes both methodological and substantive
contributions to the study of twins and is the premier scientific award for twin research.
July 2008
CU Psychology Behavioral Neuroscience Professor Linda Watkins
received a K05 Senior Scientist Award from the National Institute on Drug Abuse. The Senior Scientist
Award (K05) provides stability of support to outstanding scientists who have demonstrated a sustained,
high level of productivity and whose expertise, research accomplishments, and contributions to the
field have been and will continue to be critical to the mission of the particular NIH center or institute.
The award provides salary support for award periods of up to five years as a means of enhancing the
individual recipient"s skill and dedication to his/her area of research. The Senior Scientist Award
(K05) permits NIH institutes and centers to identify and support exceptionally talented investigators
who are well established in their field of research.
CU Social Psychology professor Leaf Van Boven was in the popular press recently.
He and his collaborator Peter McGraw from CU’s Leeds School of Busines were quoted in a public radio
segment on KUNC (NPR station based in Greeley, CO) regarding the link between money and happiness.
The radio
segment can be heard on the KUNC website.
June 2008
CU Psychology Behavioral Neuroscience professor Jerry W. Rudy has recently published a
new textbook, The Neurobiology of Learning and Memory, which integrates findings and concepts from
studies of synaptic plasticity, systems neuroscience and psychology to provide a modern understanding
of how the brain learns and remembers. Visit
the publisher’s website for more information.
May 2008
CU Clinical Psychology professor David Miklowitz received two separate awards
recently. One award was the Clinical Research Award given out annually by Emory University to a
psychopathology researcher in the US. The other award was the
Monica Fooks Memorial Lectureship of Sommerville
College, Oxford University.
April 2008
CU
Psychology Behavioral Neuroscience professors Susan Patterson and
Bob Spencer, and Behavioral Genetics professors Mike Stallings
and Matt McQueen were awarded research grants from the CU-Boulder Vice Chancellor for
Research’s Innovative Seed Grant Program. This competitive program was instituted “to
involve new initiatives and take investigators in creative, and sometimes high-risk/reward directions;
and, have tangible payoffs in terms of future funding, scholarly or artistic impact, and development
of new collaborations.”
CU Psychology graduate students Lee Altamirano and Holen Katz (Cognitive and Social areas, respectively) were named two of the recipients of the 2008 Beverly Sears Graduate Students Grants Award. The monetary award is given on a competitive basis every spring to assist students with their research.
CU
Cognitive Psychology Professor Akira Miyake and CU Psychology Senior Instructor
Brett King were named two of the recipients of the
2008 CU Parents Association’s
Marinus G. Smith Recognition Award. The award recognizes faculty, instructors and staff who have made a
significant impact on the lives of one or more undergraduates.
March 2008
CU Clinical Psychology professor David Miklowitz and his former CU Psychology
graduate student now Boulder psychologist Elizabeth George have co-authored a book on
helping parents deal with bipolar disease in teens, whether diagnosed or not. Read the
CU press release
for more information.
January 2008
The Department welcomes a new faculty member this Spring. Matt Jones
was hired into the Cognitive area. Read a little more about Matt.
December 2007
CU Cognitive Psychology Professor Yuko Munakata was awarded a Faculty
Fellowship by CU-Boulder’s Council on Research & Creative Work
(CRCW).
A research article by recent CU Psychology Behavior Genetics hire
Matt Keller and collaborators was chosen by the American Journal of
Psychiatry’s editors as “particularly interesting and important” in the
journal’s
end-of-year editorial
(look for “Adverse Life Events...” on this page). You can also read the full
research article.
November 2007
CU Psychology undergraduate advisor Patty Berger was honored by the CU Women’s Resource Center as one of several “Women Who Make a Difference” at CU for 2007.
October 2007
The National Science Foundation has named CU (all three campuses) as the third-highest-ranked public institution in terms of federally financed research in psychology among 150 universities. Across all disciplines CU remained in the top 10 percent, a position it has held for the past six years. Read the CU press release.
September 2007
CU Psychology Senior Instructor Brett King was named a Grand Marshal of
this weekend’s Homecoming parade. This honor was bestowed on Brett because he recently received
the 2007 Teacher Recognition Award, one of very few faculty awards given by students. Read the
CU press release.
CU Clinical Psychology professor David Miklowitz’s research received some
popular press. An article in Boulder’s Daily Camera newspaper describes how Miklowitz
and a colleague at Stanford will examine the extent to which early identification and treatment of
children and teens at high risk for developing bipolar disorder can minimize future impairment. The
study is funded by a $600,000 grant from NIMH. Read
the online article.
The Department welcomes one new faculty member this Fall. Matthew Keller was hired into the Behavioral Genetics area. Read a little more about Matt.
August 2007
CU Cognitive Psychology and Behavioral Neuroscience Professor Randy O’Reilly and Clinical
Psychology and Behavior Genetics Professor Soo Rhee were selected to receive one of the new
Provost Faculty Achievement Awards. The awards will be presented at CU’s Fall Convocation in October.
July 2007
CU Clinical Psychology and Behavior Genetics Professor
Erik Willcutt received the APA’s Division 53 (Child and Adolescent Clinical
Psychology) Early Career Research Award, to be presented at
the APA annual meeting in August.
CU Cognitive Psychology graduate student Brendan Depue and
Cognitive Psychology Faculty members Tim Curran and Marie Banich
published an article in Science. The research concerns the suppression of emotional
memories. They found support for the hypothesis that not only can this type of suppression occur,
but also that it appears to be under the control of two different prefrontal cortical regions.
Read the Science article
online. The article has also gotten a large amount of popular press, including CBS News
online and the Denver Post.
June 2007
CU Psychology Professor Emeritus Ken Hammond was featured in an article in the Rocky Mountain News (and syndicated in the Boulder Camera). The article describes how Ken published his 12th book a few months ago, and recently turned 90. Read the article online.
CU Social Psychology Professors Bernadette Park and Chick
Judd and Psychology Instructor Melody Sadler’s research was featured
in an article in the New York Times, as well as in an interview with Bernadette which
was broadcast on Colorado Public Radio. Lead author of the research study mentioned in these news
stories was Josh Correll, who got his PhD recently at CU. Ex-CU postdoc Bernd Wittenbrink was also
an author. (Both Josh and Bernd are now at the University of Chicago.) Read a PDF of
the Times article. You can listen to
the Colorado
Public Radio interview as well. (Look for the “Testing for Racial Bias” link.)
CU Social Psychology Professor Leaf Van Boven’s research
received some popular press, with articles appearing in both the Boulder Camera and
the Denver Post. His research indicates that people are happier when they spend money
on experiential purchases such as going on a vacation versus material goods. Read the
Camera’s article online.
April 2007
CU Psychology Professors Alice Healy (Cognitive) and
Charles “Chick” Judd (Social) were named College Professors of Distinction
by the College of Arts and Sciences in recognition of their exceptional service, teaching and
research or creative work.
CU Clinical Psychology professor David Miklowitz recently published a
couple of important studies of his work regarding bipolar depression. The first study, published
in the Archives of General Psychiatry (and also the subject of a
NY Times online article),
demonstrated that people with bipolar depression are more likely to get and stay well if they receive
intensive psychotherapy in conjunction with medication (read
the online version).
The second study, published in the New England Journal of Medicine, showed that antidepressants
do not add to the efficacy of mood stabilizing medications in hastening recovery from an episode
of bipolar depression (read
the online version). This study,
involving a large number of researchers across the U.S., was the largest federally funded research
program ever conducted for bipolar disorder.
March 2007
CU Social Psychology professor Angel Bryan had some of her
exercise and mental health research mentioned in the current issue of Newsweek. Though
Angela is never mentioned by name (nor is any other researcher whose work is referred to in the
article), the University of Colorado is, and trust us, it’s her research. Read the
online version of the article.
CU Clinical Psychology professor Sona Dimidjian was awarded a Junior Faculty Development Award by CU-Boulder’s Council on Research and Creative Work (CRCW). More info upcoming.
December 2006
Graduating Senior Megan Lipsett was named the Outstanding Graduate from the College of Arts and Sciences for the Fall 2006 graduation. She graduated Summa Cum Laude with a degree in psychology. Her honors thesis was completed under the direction of Tim Curran. There is more information on the CU-Boulder Honors Program page.
CU Psychology Behavioral Neuroscience Professor Linda Watkins
has been named a CU system Distinguished Professor, one of the rarest University of
Colorado honors. Check out the
CU press release.
November 2006
CU Social Psychology Professor Charles “Chick” Judd received
an honorary degree, Docteur honoris causa, from the Université catholique de Louvain
in Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium. Check out
the official announcement and
a picture from the ceremony.
CU Cognitive Psychology Professor Tim Curran was awarded a Faculty Fellowship for the 2007–08 academic year. The fellowships were created to acknowledge research excellence and allow faculty to devote a year to research projects as an alternative to sabbatical semesters. These fellowships are given to a select number of faculty members annually by the Graduate School’s Council on Research and Creative Work (CRCW).
October 2006
CU Cognitive Psychology Professor Randy O’Reilly is the sole author of an article published in Science. The article discusses how biologically based computational models can inform our understanding of high-level cognitive processes, in part by integrating the information resulting from analog vs. digital forms of computation. Read the article online.
September 2006
CU Cognitive Psychology Professor and Director of ICS, Marie Banich, has been awarded a Fulbright Senior Research Award to collaborate with researchers in Italy examining the neural architecture and time course of how people focus their attention. Read more about the research and the award in the CU press release.
Newly hired CU Social Psychology Professor Geoffrey Cohen was the lead author on an article published in Science. The research addressed how reducing the stress resulting from negative stereotypes narrowed significantly the racial achievement gap between African-Americans and nonminority students. Read the article online.
August 2006
The Department welcomes four new faculty this semester. Geoffrey Cohen was hired into the Social area, and Sona Dimidjian was hired into the Clinical area. Matthew McQueen was hired into the Behavior Genetics area and will have a home at IBG. Albert Kim was hired into the Cognitive area and will have a home in ICS. Read more about our new faculty.
CU Cognitive Psychology Professor Emeritus Michael Werheimer was elected to serve a three-year term as one of the two member-at-large seats on the APA Board of Directors. Dr. Wertheimer will formally begin serving on the board in January of 2007.
May 2006
Recent CU Psychology graduates Elizabeth “Libby” Pelican and Tatsuko Go Hollo received the prestigious Jacob Van Ek award. The recipients were honored this month for outstanding academic achievement and contributions to the university and Boulder communities. The faculty members the students named as mentors also were recognized. Libby and Tatsuko were mentored by CU Psychology Professors Mark Whisman and Tim Curran, respectively. Read the CU press release.
Several CU Psychology undergraduate majors were honored at CU’s Spring commencement. Jeffrey Plumer and Alyssa Schlenz received the Chancellor’s Recognition Award for having earned all As in their undergraduate careers, and Elizabeth “Libby” Pelican was named the outstanding graduate in the College of Arts and Sciences. Read the CU press release.
April 2006
CU Cognitive Psychology Professor Alice Healy received the Rocky Mountain Psychological Association’s Distinguished Service Award for 2006 at the recent RMPA convention in Park City, UT. This is the second year in a row someone from CU Psychology has won this award, since Senior Instructor Diane Martichuski won this honor last year. Diane was also the program chair for this year’s convention.
March 2006
CU Psychology staff member Laurel Amsel was one of 10 people to receive the CU-Boulder Parents Association Marinus G. Smith Recognition Award for 2006. The award recognizes CU-Boulder faculty, staff, and instructors who have made a significant impact on the lives of one or more CU-Boulder undergraduates, based on nominations from students and parents.
CU Cognitive Psychology Professor Emeritus Michael Werheimer was voted to receive Distinguished Member status by the Psi Chi National Council. Distinguished members must have national or international reputations because of contributions made to psychology and Psi Chi in the areas of research, service, and/or teaching. Only 25 people have been named distinguished members of Psi Chi since the award’s inception in 1970, a list that includes some of the most eminent members of the field. Dr. Wertheimer will receive the award at the APA convention in New Orleans in August.
The CU Psychology chapter of Psi Chi was one of three recipients of the 2005–2006 Psi Chi website award. Check out the Psi Chi website and read more about the award on the national Psi Chi site.
February 2006
CU Social Psychology Professor Angela Bryan received the APA’s “Distinguished Scientific Awards for Early Career Contributions to Psychology” for 2006 in the Health Psychology category. The award will be presented at the annual meeting of the APA in New Orleans, August 13–16. Read the CU press release.
January 2006
CU Cognitive Psychology Professor Alice Healy and recently retired long-time staff member Mary Ann Tucker, along with several other women in the CU community, were recognized by the CU Women’s Resource Center as “Women Who Make a Difference” for 2006. Check out the pictures.
November 2005
CU Psychology Behavioral Neuroscience Professor Linda Watkins received some popular press in the Denver Post. The Denver newspaper has an article describing her research on chronic pain and its management. Check out the online article (the article has since been removed).
October 2005
CU Social Psychology Professor Richard Jessor, received some popular press in the Rocky Mountain News. An article describing the long-time CU professor’s illustrious career was the lead article in the newspaper’s Spotlight section. Check out the online article (the article has since been removed).
CU Social Psychology Professor Richard Jessor was named a CU Distinguished Professor, the highest honor CU bestows on its teaching faculty. Read the CU press release.
September 2005
CU Psychology Behavioral Neuroscience Professor Steve Maier, received some popular press on ABC News. He was interviewed for his views on why some people cope with the stress of natural disasters better than others. (Maier studies the neurochemistry of stress.) Read the online version of the interview.
CU Cognitive Psychology Professor Alice F. Healy, was awarded the 2005 Women in Cognitive Science Mentorship Award. One of only four researchers to receive the award, it will be presented to Alice at the anuual WiCS meeting in Toronto in November, immediately preceding the Psychonomic Society meeting. The WiCS Mentorship Award recognizes individuals who have demonstrated sustained, effective mentorship of female students and who have also served as a research advisor or supervisor to one or more female students during the academic year immediately preceding the nomination.
August 2005
CU Cognitive Psychology postdoctoral student Michael Frank, Cognitive Psychology Professor Tim Curran, and Psychology research assistant Brion Woroch authored a paper in the current (August 18, 2005) issue of the journal Neuron examining the brain signals that predict learning biases. The signals predict whether people are biased to learn more from positive than negative outcomes of their decisions. For more information, see the online version of the article.
July 2005
CU Psychology Behavioral Neuroscience Professor Linda Watkins was chosen to receive the Norman Cousins Memorial Research Award from the PsychoNeuroImmunology Research Society. The award recognizes outstanding contributions in basic or clinical research in psychoneuroimmunology, which is the study of how the brain and the immune system interact. The award will be presented in June 2006 at the society’s next national meeing in Florida. For more information, read the CU press release.
May 2005
CU Psychology Senior Lecturer Brett King was named a recipient of the Teacher Recognition Award for 2005 from The Herd (the student arm of the Alumni Association) and the Director’s Club of the Alumni Association.
April 2005
CU Cognitive Psychology Professor and Director of ICS Marie Banich received the Justine and Yves Sergent Award for 2005. The award is given annually to a female researcher who has made significant contributions to the field of cognitive neuroscience with particular emphasis on cognitive neuropsychology and functional brain imaging. To read more about the award, see the University of Montreal’s web site, from which the award originates. (Brush up on your Français first.)
CU Social Psychology Professor Gary McClelland received the Boulder Faculty Assembly’s Excellence in Teaching award for 2004–2005. To read more about the award and view past recipients (including several other CU Psychology Professors), check out the BFA’s web site.
Retired CU Cognitive Psychology Professor Emeritus Michael Werheimer gave an invited address at this year’s Rocky Mountain Psychological Association (RMPA) convention in Phoenix, AZ, entitled “Challenges, pleasures, and pangs: Reflections on a half century of teaching.” This was also the first year for the Annual Portenier-Wertheimer Pre-Convention Conference on Teaching, in honor of the late Lillian Portenier of the University of Wyoming, and the not-yet-late Dr. Wertheimer. For more information, see the RMPA web site.
The Department of Psychology was one of only 5 units on campus to be honored with a 2004 Buff Energy Star Award, given by CU-Boulder’s Office of Energy Conservation and the Environmental Center. Accepting the award on behalf of all occupants of Muenzinger Psychology was Psychology staff member and building proctor Beth Smith. For more information about the award and to see the other recipients, visit the Environmental Center’s web page.
March 2005
CU Cognitive Psychology Professor Yuko Munakata received some popular press for her research. She was interviewed for a segment on Colorado Matters on Colorado Public Radio regarding her research on infant intelligence. Check out the CPR Colorado Matters web site (use the calendar to go to the Friday, March 4 entry).
February 2005
CU Cognitive Psychology Research Professor Tom Landauer received the 2005 Lifetime Achievement Award from the Association for Computing Machinery’s Computer Human Interaction Division (CHI). The award will be presented at the 2005 CHI annual meeting in Portland, Oregon, in April. Read more about the award.
CU Clinical Psychology Professor and Chair Ed Craighead received the APA’s Division 12 Florence Halpern Award for Distinguished Professional Contributions to Clinical Psychology. The award will be presented at the APA’s annual meeting in Washington D.C. in August.
CU Psychology Behavioral Neuroscience Professors Steve Maier and Linda Watkins, Research Associates José Amat and Sondra Bland, and graduate student Michael Baratta had some of their research published as the lead article in the journal Nature Neuroscience. The research examined how a stressor’s controllability influences various brain regions. Of particular note is how the medial prefrontal cortex is implicated in this research. See the advance online version of the article.
December 2004
CU Cognitive Psychology Professor Yuko Munakata received some popular press. An article about her research and lab was published in the Denver Post. See the online article.
November 2004
CU Psychology Behavior Genetics Professor Al Collins co-authored a paper in Science regarding the discovery of specific nicotinic receptor subtypes sufficient for explaining nicotine-induced reward, tolerance, and sensitization. For more information, see the online version of the article.
CU Cognitive Psychology graduate student Michael Franks and Cognitive Psychology and Behavior Neuroscience Professor Randy O'Reilly and a colleague authored a paper in the online version of Science regarding differential effects on learning from positive and negative reinforcement situations in patients with Parkinson's disease. This outcome was predicted by the authors' biologically-based computational model. For more information, see the online version of the article.
October 2004
CU Clinical Psychology Professor Mark Whisman received some popular press for his recent publication in the October issue of Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology regarding the toll depression takes on marriages. Read some of the popular press reports of the research on CBS news or the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
CU Social Psychology Professor Charles “Chick” Judd was selected to be the next editor of the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, to begin his 6-year term in 2006. Read more about the announcement on the JPSP web site.
September 2004
CU Social Psychology Professor Angela Bryan received two separate grants, one for $1.5 million from NIH/NCI to study “Mediators and moderators of exercise behavior change,” and one for $1 million from NIH/NIDA to study “Marijuana use, gender, and adolescent HIV sexual risk.”
CU Clinical Psychology Professor Don Weatherley was one of a select few CU-Boulder Professors to receive the “Best Should Teach Gold Award” in recognition of his teaching and academic leadership. Read about the award and see the full recipient list in the Daily Camera's article (a local newspaper).
CU Cognitive Psychology Professor Tim Curran was selected to be an associate editor of the journal Memory & Cognition, to begin his 4-year term in 2005.
August 2004
CU Psychology Behavioral Neuroscience Professor Linda Watkins received the 2005 Frederick W. L. Kerr Basic Science Research Award from the American Pain Society. This is the most prestigious award in the pain field. To quote from the award letter, “The award recognizes individual excellence and achievements in pain scholarship and is presented to a pain professional whose total career achivevements have made outstanding contributions to the field of pain research.” The award will be presented at the April 2, 2005, meeting of the APS.
July 2004
CU Psychology Behavioral Neuroscience Professor Steve Maier received the prestigious D.O. Hebb Distinguished Scientific Contribution Award at this year's APA conference. This award recognizes a psychologist who has made distinguished theoretical or empirical contributions to basic research in behavioral neuroscience or comparative psychology.
April 2004
CU Clinical Psychology Professor Erik Willcutt announced the opening of a new specialty assessment clinic for the assessment and treatment of learning disabilities, ADHD, and related emotional and behavioral difficulties.
CU Psychology Instructor Joe Berta was one of three Boulder campus faculty to receive the 2004 Teaching Recognition Award from the Directors Club of the Alumni Association. Read the press release.
March 2004
CU Behavioral Neuroscience Professor Theresa Hernández received a K01 Research Development Award for 5 years from NIH to assess the neurobehavioral and physiological consequences of a novel treatment strategy in chronic stroke patients. This research will be done in collaboration with researchers in the departments of Integrative Physiology and Speech Language and Hearing Sciences, as well as Psychology.
CU Social Psychology Professor Chick Judd was named a recipient of the Boulder Faculty Assembly's Excellence in Research, Scholarly, and Creative Work Award for 2003–2004. Read the press release.
February 2004
CU Behavioral Neuroscience Professor Daniel Barth was acknowledged as a (CU) “President's Teaching Scholar.” This is a rare university honor, bestowed on only a few professors system–wide each year. Dan joins Linda Watkins as the other teaching scholar from the department. Read more about the President's Teaching Scholar Program.
January 2004
CU Psychology undergraduate advisor Laurel Amsel received CU's “Community Brick Builder” Award. The Community Builder Brick Award is given to students, faculty, staff, or campus groups that have made a positive contribution to the campus. Recipients receive an engraved sandstone award (like the bricks used to build our buildings on campus) to symbolize the contribution that they have made to building community on campus. Check out past winners of the award.
CU Cognitive Psychology Professor Alice Healy has been elected president-elect of the APA's Division 3 (Experimental Psychology) for 2004–2005. See the list of presidents past and present (including two other CU Cognitive Psychology Professors, Lyle E. Bourne and Walter Kintsch).
December 2003
CU Behavioral Neuroscience Professor Linda Watkins is overseeing a technology transfer partnership between the Department of Psychogy, CU's Center for Neuroscience, and national biotech company Avigen. This technology transfer involves Avigen's licensing the rights to the treatment of chronic pain using anti-inflammatory cytokines, including interleukin 10 (IL-10), from CU. Read the CU press release.
October 2003
CU Social Psychology Graduate Student Courtney Rocheleau received the “Best Should Teach” silver “flame of enlightenment” award. This award was bestowed by the Graduate Teacher Program at CU.
June 2003
CU Clinical Psychology Professor Mark Whisman has co-edited a book for professionals entitled “Treating Difficult Couples.” See the Guilford Press web site for more information.
March 2003
CU Social Psychology Professor Bernadette Park received CU's Dorothy Martin Faculty Award. This award was bestowed on Bernadette for her “academic excellence; awareness and activism concerning women's issues; and openness to life and true diversity of interests.”
February 2003
CU Cognitive Psychology Professor Peter Polson was elected to the CHI Academy, an honorary group of individuals who have made substantial contributions to the field of human-computer interaction. Read more about the award on the SIGCHI web site.
August 2002
CU Cognitive Psychology Professor Yuko Munakata received the Boyd McCandless Award from Division 7 of the APA. This award goes to young investigators who have made a distinguisted contribution to developmental psychology. Read more about the award.
July 2002
New CU Social Psychology Professor Leaf Van Boven has received the Fourth Martin E.P. Seligman Award for outstanding dissertation research in positive psychology. Now in its fourth year, the Seligman award seeks to recognize talent and promise among young researchers exploring topics in the emerging field of positive psychology. Read more about the award and Van Boven's research.
April 2002
CU Psychology Professor and Department Chair Jerry Rudy received the 2002 BFA (Boulder Faculty Assembly) award for excellence in service. Here are this year's winners.
February 2002
CU Psychology professor Al Collins received the 2003 Langley Award from the Society for Research on Nicotine and Tobacco. The award honors scientists who have made ground-breaking advances in basic nicotine research in pharmacology, neuroscience, or genetics. Read more about the award.
A CU interdisciplinary research team, including CU Psychology Professors Walter Kintsch and Dick Olson, has received an $8.4 million grant to put reading software into Colorado schools. The Colorado Literacy Tutor project includes two parts: interactive books with a set of cartoon-like tutors that build the literacy skills of K-6 readers and a software program called Summary Street that emphasizes comprehension and learning from text for older students. Read the CU press release.
January 2002
Psychology staff assistant Mary Ann Tucker was presented with the “Community Builder Brick Award.” The Community Builder Brick Award is given to students, faculty, staff, or campus groups that have made a positive contribution to the campus. Recipients receive an engraved sandstone award (like the bricks used to build our buildings on campus) to symbolize the contribution that they have made to building community on campus. Check out the pictures from the award ceremony.
December 2001
CU Psychology and Theater graduate Siobhan Barros was named the “outstanding graduate for the College of Arts and Sciences” at CU's fall 2001 commencement. Read the CU press release.
October 2001
CU Psychology Professor Steven F. Maier awarded title of Distinguished Professor, a very rare University honor. Read the CU press release.
