Newsletter Edition

Winter 2022

Published: 01/11/2022

Letter from the Chair

Cheryl Kaiser

Dear friends,

Greetings from the UW Department of Psychology! We are delighted to welcome our students back to campus for in-person learning and research, including welcoming them into the recently opened Kincaid Hall.

This fall was particularly special as we established two new gifts. With support from the Linehan family and a network of supporters, we established the Marsha M. Linehan Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT) Clinic, where the inaugural clinic director Dr. Vibh Forsythe Cox will provide our clinical graduate students with world-class training in DBT, a therapeutic approach developed by Emeritus Professor Marsha Linehan that uniquely benefits people with complex mental illness. Likewise, the gift expands access to DBT with the Life Worth Living Fund, which subsidizes treatment costs so that income is not a barrier to obtaining the treatment one needs to live a healthy and fulfilling life. The gift also establishes graduate student fellowships to support our clinical trainees, so they can devote their attention to learning DBT and working intensely with clients.

Additionally, we received a generous estate gift from Professor James Steele, a graduate student alumnus from our clinical psychology program. This transformational gift will support scholarships for both undergraduate and graduate students interested in the field of clinical psychology. This new gift will allow us to deeply invest in our students and increase access and opportunities for students to engage in research with our faculty.

This year was notable in that we have recruited a world-class cohort of new tenure-track faculty, whose research address topics including neuroscience and genetics, cross-cultural perspectives on adolescent development, and the psychology of inequity. Gifts from our community were critical in supporting the recruitment of this talented group of scholars. In this newsletter, you’ll learn about several faculty members who joined us this year.

In this new year, please consider making a gift to the Friends of Psychology fund so we can continue to advance our educational and scientific mission, and make advances that benefit our local, national, and global communities. We would be grateful for your gift, and proud to partner with you in advancing the important work – and powerful impact – of UW Psychology.

Please enjoy this edition of our newsletter to catch up with the many exciting developments happening in Psychology. If you would like to discuss how you can play a role in supporting our department, my door is always open.

Warm regards,

Cheryl Kaiser 

Department of Psychology Chair 

PS. We are delighted to annouce the return of the Allen L. Edwards Psychology Lecture Series, our annual, free public evening lecture series. Our 2022 lecture dates will feature talks on neuroscience on April 27th, 2022 and human sexuality on May 4th, 2022. We will be sending more information about the lecture series, including information about our speakers, in the coming weeks. We hope to see you there!


Featured Articles

Opening the Center for Human Neuroscience's MRI Scanner

We are excited to announce that the Center for Human Neuroscience (CHN) MRI facility is open for research scans. With the CHN-MRI, UW Psychology joins the ranks of departments that provide access to an MRI instrument that is fully compatible with current standards of open collaborative science... Read more


The Clinic Expands Community Mental Health Services

The Psychological Services and Training Center (the Clinic) provides foundational science-informed training in psychotherapy and assessment for clinical psychology doctoral students and affordable psychotherapy to the UW and larger Seattle area community... Read more


Welcoming New Faculty Members

UW Psychology is thrilled to welcome four new faculty members this fall: Jennifer Forsyth, Milla Titova, Tyler Jimenez, and Vibh Forsythe Cox. We also anticipate the arrival of Clara Wilkins and Lucia Magis-Weinberg in winter quarter. Our new additions bring cutting edge research and innovative courses and teaching methods that will advance our department’s mission. Read more


Psychology Undergraduate Mentoring Program

Established in 2020, during the especially isolating time of the global pandemic, the Psychology Undergraduate Mentoring Program aims to increase community and belonging for UW Psychology undergraduates who are members of underrepresented groups and/or for transfer students to the University of Washington. This program matches undergraduate psychology majors with faculty... Read more


Madison Truitt Named Chandler Scholar

This fall, a record number of psychology majors applied to become the 2021-22 Aric Chandler Scholar, an award that supports transfer psychology majors who plan to work with children and adolescents. This year's recipient of the Chandler Memorial Scholarship is senior Madison Truitt. Read more


Welcoming the UW Psychology 2021 Cohort!

Meet the 2021 cohort of UW Psychology graduate students, who join the department from across the country and the globe. Our thirteen first-year students are already earning awards and fellowships, including UW Top Scholar Awards, a National Science Foundation Graduate Research fellowship, and more... Read more


Research in Auditory Mechanisms of Fish is Funded by the Howard Hughes Medical Institute

Loranzie Rogers and his advisor Joe Sisneros (Animal Behavior Area) received funding from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute in support of their research on the auditory mechanisms of vocal fishes. Read more


Nationally Funded Award Seeks to Understand and Improve Treatment for Substance Use

Lauren McClain (Adult Clinical Area with Mary Larimer) receives predoctoral funding to support research on individuals with substance use disorder from the National Research Service Award (NRSA) and National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA). Read more