Announcements
- fMRI Scanner Delivered to Neuroscience Annex
- Psychology welcomes new faculty member
- Michael Alessandri Wins Champion for Children Award
- Helping Children Cope after Hurricanes
- Neil Schneiderman wins ISBM Lifetime Achievement Award
- Michael McCullough wins Cooper Fellowship
- Rita Goldstein wins Psychology Alumna of the Year
- Neuroscience Building Groundbreaking
- Alexandra Quittner wins Provost Award for Scholarly Activity
- Charles S. Carver receives Jack Block Award
- Psychology Grad Student Represents Clinical Science
- Graduate Student Wins NSF Fellowship
- Becky Espinosa selected as White House Agente de Cambio
- Psychology Welcomes New Faculty, Jennifer Britton
- 2012 Graduate Student Awards
fMRI Scanner Delivered to Neuroscience Annex
Today marked a major milestone for the College of Arts and Sciences, the Psychology Department and for the UM Coral Gables Campus with the delivery of the University's first 100% research dedicated fMRI magnet for human brain imaging. The GE 750 3T magnet was delivered to the construction site of the newly built Neuroscience Annex adjacent to the Cox Science Building. On hand were Drs. Jennifer Britton, Fred Pattany, Amishi Jha and Rod Wellens, Chair of the Psychology Department. Within a few hours the 26,000 pound 3 Telsa active shield magnet was hoisted into place and positioned within a specially shielded room on the first level of the Neuroscience building. Construction of the Neuroscience Annex was made possible through a National Institutes of Health (NIH) $14.8 million grant funded by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) and is scheduled to be operational later this summer.
Psychology welcomes new faculty member
The Department of Psychology is pleased to announce that Dr. Lucina Q. Uddin will be joining our faculty as an Assistant Professor beginning in January, 2014. Dr. Uddin is interested in the relationship between brain connectivity and cognition in typical and atypical development. Within a cognitive neuroscience framework, her research combines functional connectivity analyses of resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging data and structural connectivity analyses of diffusion tensor imaging data to examine the organization of large-scale brain networks supporting attention and social cognition. Her current projects focus on understanding dynamic network interactions underlying social information processing in neurodevelopmental disorders such as autism.
Michael Alessandri Wins Champion for Children Award
Dr. Michael Alessandri is the 2012 recipient of the Children's Trust, David Lawrence Jr. Champion for Children Award for a lifetime of achievement and dedication to children. Dr. Alessandri has worked with individuals with autism and their families for nearly 30 years. In addition to his role as executive director of the University of Miami - Nova Southeastern University Center for Autism and Related Disabilities (UM-NSU CARD), he leads the Division of Community Outreach and Engagement at the University of Miami's Department of Psychology, where he is a clinical professor of Psychology. Under his direction, CARD was named National Autism Program of the Year in 1999 by the Autism Society of America.
Helping Children Cope after Hurricanes
Children are a vulnerable population in the aftermath of hurricanes and other natural disasters. Dr. Annette La Greca and her colleagues have studied children's reactions to natural disasters and the factors that put children at risk for stress reactions. La Greca and colleagues also developed materials to help children cope with the stressors associated with disasters and their aftermath. These include a manual for parents and children and a professional book for researchers and clinicians. After the Storm is a guide for parents to help their children cope with the aftermath of disasters.
Neil Schneiderman wins ISBM Lifetime Achievement Award
The International Society of Behavioral Medicine (ISBM) awards the Lifetime Achievement Award to Dr. Neil Schneiderman. As one of the founders of the field of Behavioral Medicine and a founding member of the ISBM, Dr. Schneiderman has served on its Board since 1990 (currently Chair of the Strategic Planning Committee), was twice Program Chair of the ICBM (1994, 2004), served as founding Editor of the International Journal of Behavioral Medicine (1994-1998), was President of the ISBM (1998-2000), and wrote the initial Program Guidelines for the ICBM (2004). In 1996 he co-edited a volume with Kristina Orth-Gomér titled Behavioral Medicine Approaches to Cardiovascular Disease Prevention, based on an ISBM educational seminar held in Högberga, Sweden. His scholarly collaborations continue until this day.
Michael McCullough wins Cooper Fellowship
On May 1 Prof. Michael McCullough was awarded a Cooper Fellowship by the College of Arts & Sciences in recognition of his scholarly productivity and achievements. McCullough has been a faculty member at UM since 2002; he is currently Professor of Psychology and Religious studies, and he coordinates the Evolution & Behavior emphasis within the psychology department's PhD Health Division and directs the department's Evolution and Human Behavior Laboratory. So far in his career he has produced over 100 scholarly journal articles and book chapters plus a series of scholarly volumes and trade books based on his research interests. He has had consistent research support for more than 15 years and has received recognition for his research nationally.
Rita Goldstein wins Psychology Alumna of the Year
Dr. Goldstein is a Scientist at the Brookhaven National Laboratory and Affiliate, Psychology and Biomedical Engineering, SUNY at Stonybrook. Her primary research interest lies in studying the interplay between the cognitive-emotional-behavioral and neurobiological changes that accompany cocaine addiction with the goal of understanding the mechanisms that underlie the recurring nature of addiction to drugs. Her research embraces a multidisciplinary approach, translating into patient-oriented clinical research settings the principles of non-invasive techniques to measure brain function such as functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), positron emission tomography (PET), event-related potential (ERP) recordings, and neuropsychology.
Neuroscience Building Groundbreaking
Nearly 100 administrators, faculty, students, and alumni gathered at a ceremonial groundbreaking on April 26 to celebrate the construction of a facility that will launch a new era for collaborative neuroscience research at the University of Miami. The new 37,700-square-foot neuroscience building will create an interactive hub for interdisciplinary research based on neurological imaging and health research adjacent to the Cox Science Center on the University of Miami’s Coral Gables campus.
Alexandra Quittner wins Provost Award for Scholarly Activity
Alexandra Quittner is among this year's recipients of the Provost's Award for Scholarly Activity. This award is given to a select few each year from across all schools and colleges at the university.
Quittner is a pioneer in the application of psychological science to the care of children with cystic fibrosis and asthma, including research on the conceptualization, definition, and measurement of treatment adherence. A recipient of several multimillion-dollar grants from the National Institutes of Health (NIH), Quittner also conducts research on the impact of deafness on child development. She is a co-principal investigator on a multisite NIH study evaluating the effects of cochlear implants on deaf children's cognitive, behavioral, and linguistic outcomes. Her recent co-authored publication in JAMA showed that severely and profoundly deaf children benefit more from a cochlear implant if the surgery is performed by 18 months of age.
Charles S. Carver receives Jack Block Award
Charles S. Carver, Distinguished professor of psychology at the University of Miami, received the Jack Block award given by the Society for Personality and Social Psychology (SPSP), the largest organization of social and personality psychologists in the world. The honor is in recognition of his research accomplishments over the past thirty years which have shaped modern personality psychology. The award was presented to Carver at the Thirteenth Annual Meeting of the Society for Personality and Social Psychology on January 26, 2012, in San Diego, California.
Psychology Grad Student Represents Clinical Science
Hallie Bregman, a Ph.D. student in the Department of Psychology's Child Division working in Dr. Kristin Lindahl's lab, was elected as the national representative for Clinical Science for the American Psychological Association's Science Student Council (2010-2012) and was then elected to serve as the Chair of the SSC for a one-year term, 2011-2012. Hallie and the SSC participated in a day of advocacy on Capitol Hill, where each SSC representative met with staff members of their local Senators and Representatives to lobby for National Institute of Health (NIH) funding. Additionally, Hallie chaired two of the six symposia offered by the SSC at the 2011 APA Convention, including a program on nontraditional career options for science-oriented students and a program on the role of advocacy in the dissemination of research findings. Hallie attends two SSC meetings each year in Washington, D.C. to discuss ideas and implement plans.
Graduate Student Wins NSF Fellowship
Eric J. Pedersen, a Ph.D. student in the Department of Psychology's Evolution and Behavior emphasis and a researcher in Professor Michael McCullough's Evolution and Human Behavior Laboratory, has won a highly competitive Graduate Research Fellowship (GRF) from the National Science Foundation. According to the NSF, Pedersen's selection for the NSF Fellowship was based on his outstanding abilities and accomplishments, as well as his potential to contribute to strengthening the vitality of the US science and engineering enterprise. The stipend for the 2011-2012 Fellowship Year is $30,000.
Becky Espinosa selected as White House Agente de Cambio
Psychology senior Becky Espinosa was selected as a White House Agente de Cambio (Agent of Change) to participate in a roundtable discussion with senior Obama Administration officials this past fall. Said Ms. Espinosa, "Each Agente de Cambio has his or her own story and interests, but we are all working together toward one goal- educating and preparing students for a better and brighter future."
Psychology Welcomes New Faculty
Jennifer Britton, Ph.D.- We are pleased to announce that Jennifer Britton, Ph.D., will be joining the faculty as an Assistant Professor of Psychology beginning this August. Jennifer Britton, Ph.D., comes to us from her position as a Research Fellow at NIMH, in the Section on Development and Affective Neuroscience. In 2005, she received her Ph.D. in Neuroscience from the University of Michigan (her bachelor's degree is from Vanderbilt in Biomedical and Electrical Engineering). This was followed by research and teaching positions at Massachusetts General Hospital and McClean Psychiatric Hospital, and then a 2-year postdoctoral fellowship in the NIMH intramural program. She has been in her current position since 2010.
- Dr. Britton's research deals with behavioral and neural correlates of anxiety in pediatric populations, and more specifically she examines threat/safety discrimination using fear learning and extinction paradigms, and threat biases across development in healthy and anxious individuals. Her research uses fMRI, and she has taught imaging methodology and analysis at both Mass General and NIMH. In 2010, she was awarded a 5-year K99/R00 grant from NIMH entitled "Neuroimaging of extinction recall in development and adolescent social anxiety", and she received a 2-year NARSAD young investigator award entitled "Novel treatment strategy in adolescent anxiety: implications for depression."
2012 Graduate Student Awards
- Outstanding Teaching Assistant Award:
- Kayla Gurak and Adam Smith
- Kirk R. Danhour Memorial Award:
- Catherine D'Avanzato, Elizabeth Bell, and Katie Chipungu
- Dr. Carol Alson-Finement Award:
- Alex Queen
- Bertha Weber Award:
- Crystal Noller
- Peter Mundy CARD Award for Clinical Research in Autism:
- Christine Ghilain
- Keith Scott CARD Award for Developmental Research in Autism:
- Devon Gangi
- S.T. Calvin Award:
- Veronica Fernandez