Endowed Awards Provide Crucial Support for Grad Students
The Psychology Department is fortunate to have endowments that provide much needed support to our deserving graduate students. We're delighted to announce this year's recipients of the Alcor and Hunt Graduate Student Fellowships.
The Alcor Endowed Scholarship
The Alcor Endowed Scholarships were created by a bequest from Harry and Claire Garlick Peterson to the College of Arts & Sciences in order to support graduate students in Psychology and Music programs. Both Seattle locals, Harry was as a psychologist and Claire was a professional bassoonist for the Seattle and Vancouver Symphonies. Alcor refers to one star which is very close to another star (Mizar), making them appear to be one star, in the Big Dipper constellation. Harry and Clare were amateur astronomers and had also named their boat Alcor.
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| Annie Fast | Ashley Ruba | Lindsey Nietmann |
Annie Fast (Developmental Area with Kristina Olson), Ashley Ruba (Developmental Area with Betty Repacholi), Rosemary Meza (Child Clinical Area with Shannon Dorsey), and Lindsey Nietmann (Animal Behavior Area with Renee Ha) are our 2018 Alcor Fellows. The endowment is supporting a wide variety research - generosity in children, children's recognition of facial expressions, habitat behavior of crows, and mental in children in low- to middle-income countries.
The Hunt Endowed Fellowship
In 2006, the Earl "Buz" and Mary Lou Hunt Endowed Fellowship for Graduate Students in Psychology was created by Professor Emeritius Earl "Buz" Hunt and his wife Mary Lou. The award supports students who are pursuing their passions, conducting research independent from their advisors. In 2010, we were able to dispense the first award and it has since supported 16 psychology graduate students who were nearing graduation.
Katy Fladeboe (Developmental Area with Lynn Fainsilber Katz) and Lizzy Karp (Child Clinical Area with Wendy Stone) are this year's Hunt fellows. Katy's research seeks to understand how pediatric cancer diagnosis affects the well-being of children and their families and how to promote healthy adjustments for all family members. Lizzy's research seeks to improve the lives of caregivers to children who have autism spectrum disorder.
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| Katie Fladeboe | Lizzy Karp | Megan Ramaiya |
The Wagner Endowed Fund
The Ned Wagner Travel Fund was created shortly after Professor Ned Wagner's passing. He served as the Director of Clinical Training in the Psychology Graduate Program in the 1980s. Last fall, several of our clinical psychology graduate students attended one of the largest national psychology conferences, the Association for Behavioral and Cognitive Therapies (ABCT) in San Diego, California - made possible by the Ned Wagner Fund. All were appreciative to be able to attend with this financial support to distribute their research widely.
In particular, from Megan Ramaiya (Adult Clinical Area with Jane Simoni):
"I was fortunate to receive Wagner funding to support my research on emotion regulation, suicide prevention, and treatment engagement in Nepal. Thanks to departmental funding, I was able to travel to San Diego to attend the annual Association for Behavioral and Cognitive Therapies convention and present a symposium with other pre-doctoral colleagues in Clinical Psychology, which focused on understanding issues of engagement in CBT among hard-to-reach populations using culturally informed approaches."
These endowments are so incredibly valued, as they help expand and disseminate the important work our graduate students do. You can support UW Psychology graduate students by contibuting to the Alcor Endowed Scholarship Fund, Earl Hunt Graduate Fellowship Fund, and Ned Wagner Memorial Endowment.
Supplemental Reading:
- Extended introduction to the Alcor Fellowship. Past Alcor Fellows mentioned in Graduate Accomplishments (2005, 2006-2007,2008, 2009, 2011, 2015, 2016, 2017)
- Earl Hunt Graduate Fellowship Fund provides support to graduate students conducting independent research (individual research spotlight articles: year 1, year 2, year 3, year 4, year 5, year 6 was included as part of Graduate Accomplishments), year 7 (as part of the retrospective on Professor Hunt and past recipients of the award), and year 8 featured its recipients (Valerie Tryon and Brianna Yamasaki) separately because they had accomplished so much while in the program!