CU Psychology and Neuroscience Department News
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 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.
