Graduate Student Recognition
NEW MASTERS PROGRAM COHORT
This year, the Department of Psychology’s Master of Arts in Applied Child & Adolescent Psychology: Prevention & Treatment welcomes their largest entering cohort! With 53 students pursuing the knowledge and skills needed to positively influence child development, we are all excited to see how this cohort ensures a brighter future for the next generation. Visit their admissions website or contact program staff to learn more.
AWARDS & FELLOWSHIPS
Barbara Sarason Endowed Fellowship in Psychology – Sameen Boparai, and Lindsey Green (pictured)
Two graduate students have been awarded the Barbara Sarason Endowed Fellowship in Psychology for summer 2024. Irwin Sarason, Barbara’s husband and Professor Emeritus of Psychology, established the fellowship in honor of the remarkable life and career of his wife, Barbara Sarason, Emeritus Research Professor of Psychology at the University of Washington. The fellowship fund provides financial assistance to graduate students in our department.
Earl Hunt Graduate Fellowship Fund – Rebecca Schachtman (pictured) and Bahar Sukran Sener
This award supports students seeking to conduct independent research. This award was created by our former faculty member, Earl “Buz” Hunt , and his wife Mary Lou Hunt, and is typically awarded to students in their final year to aid in completion.
Alcor Endowed Scholarship Fund – Jasmine Awad, Kate Conroy, and Caitlin Stavish
Three graduate students in Psychology have been selected to receive the summer fellowship funding through the Alcor Endowment in Psychology for 2024. This endowment supports students who have produced high quality work during their graduate training and have a need for support to move their project forward in a timely fashion. Pictured below (left to right): Caitlin Stavish, Shannon Dorsey, Kate Conroy, and Jasmine Awad.
Psychology Department Scholars Award (summer 2024) – Jee Hoon Han, Ella Lombard, Yuchen Zhao, and Ishika Ray
This year, UW Psychology provided summer funding for four graduate students. Students are selected for this competitive award based on need and/or who have TA’d exclusively.
Jeffrey Jaeger Fellowship in Clinical Psychology – Chelsea Mackey
The Jeffery A. Jaeger Endowed Fellowship in Clinical Psychology is a fellowship established in honor of the late Dr. Jeffrey A. Jaeger, an alum of the clinical psychology program in the Department of Psychology. It is the family’s hope that this fellowship will provide support for clinical psychology graduate students to pursue their clinical training according to their values with funds that they can use to support their learning and growth as clinician scientists who aim to improve the lives of others as Jeff did and continues to do through his lasting legacy.
Dr. Robert J Kohlenberg Psychology Research Award – Gabrielle Gauthier
This endowed research award was established to honor the late Dr. Robert. J. Kohlenberg, a former faculty member in the Department of Psychology. Dr. Kohlenberg co-conceptualized Functional Analytic Psychotherapy (FAP) in the 1980s and was instrumental in furthering the Department’s focus on evidence-based therapies and therapy-relationship work. The award will provide support for graduate student research that is focused on evidence-based therapies
Psychology Department Distinguished Teaching Awards – Nancy Gomez Juarez and Diana Kwon (pictured)
These awards are for overall career achievement, outstanding service, and distinction in teaching.
Psychology Department Graduate Student Service Awards - Jovani Azpeitia, Rachel Song, and Z Ferguson
This award honors graduate students who have consistently demonstrated service to the department as a whole and to the graduate student community, specifically. These individuals have displayed vision, steadfastness, and dedication towards the Department of Psychology and its constituents.
The Center for Human Neuroscience has been awarded $132,482 by the Student Technology Fee to acquire an fNIRS system. Students across the UW campus can submit proposals to the CHN-STF Committee to conduct research with the fNIRS system. The proposal was led by Carly Gray and Peter Kahn, with additional support from the Center for Human Neuroscience.
Carly Gray received the 2024 Excellence in Teaching Award. The award was presented to her at the Awards of Excellency ceremony on June 6. In addition to the award, Carly will receive a $5,000 honorarium.
McKenzie Hagen received a ReproNim NeuroInformatics Travel Award Fellowship for Organization for Human Brain Mapping
Ella Lombard will begin a yearlong position as a Postdoctoral Research Scientist with foundry10
Celine Lu received the 2024 Psychological Science Research Grant from the American Psychological Association of Graduate Students. Celine is mentored by Shannon Dorsey.
Chao Qin will start a Postdoctoral Scholar position in the University of Groningen, Environmental Psychology Lab upon completion of his Ph.D. in Psychology: Data Science in Summer 2024. Advised by Susan Joslyn.
Mira Reichman received a 36-month, $143,082 NRSA Training grant from the NIH National Center for Complementary & Integrative Health. Award title: Mind-Body Peer Support for Family Caregivers to Patients with Severe Acute Brain Injuries. The study aims to lay the foundation for the development of a mind-body peer support intervention for severe acute brain injury caregivers. Through conducting preliminary quantitative and qualitative work, and adapting existing interventions with stakeholder-engaged methods. Mira’s faculty sponsor is Katherine Foster.
Katherine Seldin will start as a Postdoctoral Scholar at the University of Illinois, Chicago in August 2024.Advised by Kevin King
Kirstyn Smith-LeCavalier received a $20,000 grant award from the University of Washington, Addictions, Drug & Alcohol Institute for her work titled: Measurement and Modeling of Within-Person Variability in Cannabis Protective Behavioral Strategies: A Novel Approach Using Scale Development, Daily Data, and Machine Learning Methods. Mary Larimer is Kirstyn’s mentor.
Zachary Trevorrow received a fellowships through the NSF Graduate Research Program for a longitudinal study of copy number deletions on cognitive development and neurodevelopmental deviation in the Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development (ABCD) beginning, Autumn 2024.
Noah Triplett will start as an Assistant Research Professor in the Department of Psychology and Global Mental Health and Addiction Program at the University of Maryland in August 2024. Advised by Shannon Dorsey.
Laila Volpe won three awards from the Research Society on Alcohol (RSA): a Poster Award, a Student Merit Award, and a Travel Award. As part of the poster award, she was invited to present her work entitled “Under what circumstances do pregnant women use cannabis and alcohol? The contributions of risk perception, depression, anxiety, and suicidality" at the RSA Sex & Gender & Alcohol Satellite Meeting in Minneapolis, MN in June. Laila also received an NRSA F31 grant for her work titled “Using Advanced Methodologies to Investigate the Effect of Social Influences on Alcohol Use across Development.” Laila will be studying the impact of social influences on alcohol use across developmental periods, social contexts, and person-to-person variation. Kate Foster is Laila’s advisor.
Liying Wang will start a tenure track Assistant Professor position at the College of Nursing at Florida State University in August 2024
Congratulations to Ray Almeyda and Nikita Nerkar, students in the Master of Arts in Applied Child and Adolescent Psychology program, for receiving the 2024 Seattle Seahawks Mental Health Matters Award for their contributions as mental health providers to youth in underserved communities. Both students were given their awards in a ceremony at the Seahawks training facility in Renton on May 10th. Ray, Nikita and program faculty enjoyed a tour of the facility and meeting Jake Bobo and Blitz. The Master’s program leadership (Lynn Fainsilber Katz, Georganna Sedlar and Lili Lengua) wishes to thank the Seattle Seahawks for recognizing the importance of serving the mental health needs of youth in historically underserved groups.
PUBLICATIONS
Jovani Azpeitia was first-author on" 'It’s easy to feel alone, but when you have community, it makes [college] a lot easier': First-generation students’ academic and psychosocial adjustment over the first year of college" in Journal of Adolescent Research and co-author on "Does the follow-your-passions ideology cause greater academic and occupational gender disparities than other cultural ideologies?" in Journal of Personality and Social Psychology with Sapna Cheryan. Jovani Azpeitia is advised by Sapna Cheryan.
https://doi.org/10.1177/07435584231170040
https://doi.org/10.1037/pspi0000421
Mahnoor Hyat was lead author of “A Network Analysis of Psychopathology in Young Black Children: Implications for Predicting Outcomes in Adolescence." You can read it here: pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/38211758/. Mahnoor Hyat is mentored by Jen Forsyth.
Clara Johnson was lead author on “Uncovering determinants of perceived feasibility of TF-CBT through coincidence analysis.” Appearing in Implementation Research and Practice, 5. Clara Johnson is advised by Shannon Dorsey. Read it here: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/26334895231220277?icid=int.sj-abstract.similar-articles.7
John Kruper was lead author of “Convolutional neural network-based classification of glaucoma using optic radiation tissue properties” appearing in the April issue of Communications medicine. https://www.nature.com/articles/s43856-024-00492-0. John Kruper is mentored by Ariel Rokem.
John Kruper and McKenzie Hagen are co-authors of "Tractometry of the Human Connectome Project: Resources and Insights" accepted to Frontiers in Neuroscience. Both are advised by Ariel Rokem.
Ella Lombard was co-author with her advisor Sapna Cheryan on “Does my work matter? Reduced sense of mattering as a source of gender disparities.” appearing in Social and Personality Psychology Compass. https://compass.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/spc3.12907
Adjunct Associate Professor in Psychology, Gregory Bratman, co-authored a paper for Cognition and Emotion, called “Associations of Nature Contact with Emotional Ill-Being and Well-Being: The Role of Emotion Regulation.” Grad student, Katie Malloy Spink, who is mentored by Kate Foster, was also a co-author in the paper. The UW Center for Studies in Demography & Ecology posted about it on their CSDE News & Events page. You can read about it here: https://csde.washington.edu/news-events/nature-contact-and-emotional-health-is-the-focus-of-new-research-by-bratman-and-co-authors/
Maylayka Mottarella (advised by Chantel Prat) was lead author of a book chapter “Using quantitative electroencephalography (qEEG) to investigate second-language ability” appearing in K. Morgan-Short, & J. van Hell (Eds), The Routledge Handbook of Second Language Acquisition and Neurolinguistics (1st ed.). Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003190912
Rebecca Schachtman (advised by Cheryl Kaiser) was first or co-author on 3 publications this year, “Bystanders’ thresholds for intervention in Black vs. White women’s sexual harassment” in PloS one,“The delegitimization of women’s claims of ingroup discrimination” in Sex Roles, and “Gender Prototypes Hinder Bystander Intervention in Women’s Sexual Harassment” in Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, OnlineFirst. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0296755
https://doi.org/10.1007/s11199-024-01463-4
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/01461672231203290
Katherine Seldin was first author on ” State Perceived Stress Is Concurrently, but Not Prospectively, Associated With State Impulsivity in Youths” in Clinical Psychological Science. https://doi.org/10.1177/21677026231221794 Katherine Seldin is advised by Kevin King.
Kirstyn Smith-LeCavalier (advised by Mary Larimer) was first author on “General and Domain-Specific Perceived Risk Demonstrate Unique Associations with Cannabis Use, Negative Outcomes, and Motivation to Change Among College Students” appearing in Cannabis. https://publications.sciences.ucf.edu/cannabis/index.php/Cannabis/article/view/194
Noah Triplett with two first author publications in 2024, “Supervisory alliance as a moderator of the effects of behavioral rehearsal on TF-CBT fidelity: results from a randomized trial of supervision strategies.” in Administration and Policy in Mental Health and Mental Health Services Research. and “Applying Theatre-Based Training Methods to Address Anti-Black Racism in Community-Based Mental Health Services: A Pilot Feasibility Study.” in Cognitive and Behavioral Practice. Noah Triplett is advised by Shannon Dorsey. Read the articles here:
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10488-023-01334-2
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1077722923000184
Liying Wang was lead author of “Behavioral Modeling and its Association with PrEP and ART Use in Ugandan HIV-Serodifferent Couples” in AIDS Behav. You can read it here: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10461-024-04286-2. Liying Wang is mentored by Vibh Forsyth-Cox.
MASTERS DEGREES AWARDED
Ariel Li (Neural Systems and Behavior with Jeansok Kim): Winter 2024
Katie Malloy Spink (Child Clinical with Kate Foster): Spring 2024
Sharon Wang (Adult Clinical with Bill George): Winter 2024
DOCTOR OF PHILOSPHY DEGREES AWARDED
Holly Hake (Interdisciplinary Neuroscience Ph.D. Program with Andrea Stocco): Spring 2024
Speed of Forgetting: A Computational Biomarker and Early Indicator for Memory Impairment