News / Blog

Chair Communications

This month, the Chair’s Update is all about awards. First, I want to congratulate Assistant Professor Scott Vrieze, who was selected to receive the University of Minnesota’s McKnight Land-Grant Professorship, a two-year award designed to advance the careers of exceptional junior faculty. In the two years that Scott has been on our faculty, he has had a string of accomplishments, ranging from new grants to several highly visible publications.

 

Scott has also just received the 2019 Spence Award for Transformative Early Career Contributions. This is a major award given annually by APS. Scott is most deserving of these awards. Please join me in congratulating him!

 

I also want to congratulate Marina Bryants (Lead Research Assistant, MCTFR), Liz Gates (Grant and Contract Administrator), and Tasha Walvig (Principal Interviewer, MCTFR), all of whom have received a 2017-18 CLA Outstanding Service Award. Outstanding Service Awards are “…intended to recognize employees and work groups who make outstanding contributions to the objectives of their units and/or the college, and who consistently achieve high performance in carrying out the responsibilities of their positions.” These strong employees clearly meet the criteria of this award, and we are honored to have them as colleagues in our department. Again, please join me in congratulating them!

 

When I became chair last June, I felt it was important to develop an internal departmental process for staff awards to better recognize excellence at the local level. To that end, the Staff Recognition Committee was formed last fall. Members include Holley Locher, Penny Nichol, Rachel Satterlee, Heidi Wolff, and Donnie Wood. The Committee developed two mechanisms through which staff can now be recognized: the annual Staff Excellence Award and the Staff Spotlight. The Staff Excellence Award recognizes staff who have demonstrated excellence and professionalism in their overall performance and who have made meaningful contributions to their unit and/or the Department of Psychology. Nominations are due March 15. The Staff Spotlight, on the other hand, is a mechanism that routinely recognizes staff in real-time via a brief Google Form submission. More information about both of these awards will be shared via email and in a later edition of DATA. If you have any questions, feel free to contact Holley Locher at loche007@umn.edu.  

Jeff

 

Administrative Updates and Announcements

Welcome to Zuzanna Tajchman! On January 15, 2019, Zuzanna Tajchman started working as a lab manager/research assistant in Iris Vilares's lab. She is coming from University College London, where she recently completed her Master’s degree in Clinical Neuroscience.  

 

Awards and Accomplishments

The 2018 Scholarly Excellence in Equity and Diversity (SEED) Award was given to Jill Fish, a Ph.D. candidate in counseling psychology in the College of Liberal Arts on the Twin Cities campus focusing on how systems of oppression that impact Native American peoples can be challenged and transformed.  

 

Department of Psychology Staff Spotlight

The Department of Psychology’s Staff Recognition Committee is excited to announce the new Staff Spotlight. The Staff Spotlight is a way for members of the department to recognize a Psychology staff member for excellent performance in real time. Students, staff, or faculty may submit a Spotlight by filling out a brief Google form at http://intranet.psych.umn.edu/chair/staff-awards. The committee will then share each submission with the staff member and their supervisor. Additionally, each quarter, staff members who received a Spotlight in the previous three months will be chosen at random to receive a small token of appreciation from the department. A congratulations to the staff member chosen will be included in the DATA newsletter, along with details from the submission. 

 

Department of Psychology Staff Excellence Award

The Department of Psychology’s Staff Recognition Committee is pleased to announce the Staff Excellence Award! This annual award recognizes staff who have demonstrated excellence and professionalism in their overall performance and who have made meaningful contributions to their unit and/or the Department of Psychology. A primary nomination letter and at least one letter of support are required to nominate someone. One of the nominators must be the nominee’s direct supervisor. Nominations are due to Holley Locher no later than March 15, 2019. To learn more about it, visit http://intranet.psych.umn.edu/chair/staff-awards    

 

Upcoming Events

Save the Date: Psychology Undergraduate Celebration in May!

Psychology Undergraduate Celebration
Friday, May 3rd, 2019 from 4:00pm - 6:00pm
Campus Club - Coffman Memorial Union

Official RSVP invitations will be sent at a future date!

 

PsyIT

MY-ACCOUNT.umn.edu

The University has a self-service tool called MY-ACCOUNT that allows you to manage your UM Internet ID as well as create and manage sponsored accounts and Google groups, set reset questions for your Internet ID, manage DUO, and so on. Free nerd fact: MY-ACCOUNT is built on Oracle Identity Management and has replaced the x500 system; we now use Internet IDs rather than x500s. MY-ACCOUNT.umn.edu is where you manage your UM Internet ID.

And for all instructors: MY-ACCOUNT lets you make course email lists outside of Canvas! You can create a course specific email so that you do not have to use your own Internet ID or a ‘rogue’ non-UM gmail account. These are Google Group email lists that sync with PeopleSoft (drop-outs or late sign-ups will be on this list). You can reach out to all your students and students can email you using this email. Contact Silke if you have questions <smoeller@umn.edu>, N211 Elliott.

Chair Communications

Happy New Year and best wishes to everyone as we soon begin the spring semester! I hope each of you had a safe and relaxing break and are enjoying a productive start to 2019.

Just prior to the winter break, we extended offers to two faculty candidates, one in Counseling and one in Quantitative/Psychometric Methods. Negotiations are currently underway, and I will share an update as soon as I can. I want to take this opportunity to thank the Appointments Committee, in particular Andrew Oxenham (chair) and Missy Jones (staff support), who expertly shepherded our two faculty searches this fall. The candidates they helped to recruit and court are excellent, and the recruitment process ran very well.

As I mentioned in my December update, we are putting the finishing touches on our Three-year Budget Plan, which we will submit to the college on January 15. After that, we plan to dive into longer-term departmental strategic planning. Thus far, we have identified four strategic goals: 1) improve our science by becoming leaders in the development, adoption, and dissemination of open science best practices; 2) enhance diversity and inclusion by increasing our number of underrepresented students, faculty, and staff and by improving the department’s diversity climate; 3) improve the undergraduate and graduate student experience/training by enhancing opportunities with mentoring, research, engagement, and advanced methodologies; and 4) increase collaboration within the department to foster more partnerships with research, grants, projects, and teaching. This spring, we will identify strategies and specific action plans to help us achieve these goals. I will be soliciting input from faculty, staff, and students, so please watch for ways in which you can be involved in this important process. 

For now, enjoy the rest of winter break prior to the start of spring classes!

Jeff

 

Announcements

Psychology Undergraduate Advising created a new video to help students better learn about our final Capstone Course. Those who watch the video will learn more specifics about the Psychology Capstone Course. This video, which highlights the differences between the three capstone track options (3901W-Research, 3902W-Individual Interest, 3903W-Community Engagement) and explains how the course is set up & what are class expectations, is now housed on the undergraduate website. Please feel free to share it. Vimeo link.

 

Awards and Accomplishments

Professor Robert Krueger is listed on the Clarivate Analytics Highly Cited Researchers list for 2018. Clarivate Analytics describes the list as follows: "This list recognizes world-class researchers selected for their exceptional research performance, demonstrated by the production of multiple highly cited papers that rank in the top 1% by citations for field and year in Web of Science."

 

Jill Fish (Counseling Psychology - Graduate student) gave a TEDxTalk on “Honoring Indigenous Cultures and Histories”. This took place at the TEDxMinneapolis in August 2018. Here you may find more information on Jill's work and her talk may be viewed here.

 

Mindy Westlund Schreiner (CSPR Graduate Student) received the UofM’s Nomination for the Midwestern Association of Graduate Schools’ (MAGS) Annual Distinguished Master’s Thesis Competition for her master's thesis titled "Resting-State Functional Connectivity of the Precuneus Associated with Suicidality in Adolescents with Major Depressive Disorder", which she defended in July 2016. Congratulations, Mindy and best of luck in the MAGS competition!

 

Ummul Kathawalla (Counseling Psychology - Graduate Student) has been selected as the Graduate Student Representative to the Society for the Improvement of Psychological Science (SIPS). SIPS brings together scholars working to improve methods and practices in psychological science. More information. 

 

The Sharon Borine Award, given each semester to acknowledge undergraduate seniors whose final submissions for their major project course are of the highest quality. Congratulations to these Fall 2018 award winners!

1. Sydney Hosley (Interrogative Techniques and the Formation of False Memories and False Confessions)
2. Linda Lu (The Relationship Between Physicians’ Nonverbal Behaviors and Patients’ Perceptions of Empathy) and
3. Kelly Ochocki (Personality, depression and affective experience across the transition to parenthood).

 

PsyIT

Start the New Year with Google Calendar

View this short video clip [38 sec] to see how easy it is to schedule an event with multiple people without emails or Doodles. This works best if all of us use Google Calendar for work (you can sync your Work calendar with other calendars like iCal or Fantastical).

To hear more about features and best practices of Google Calendar, Drive and Docs, join the next D2T (Driven to Teach) lunchtime meeting on February 7, 2019.

For questions, please contact Silke Moeller <smoeller@umn.edu>, N211 Elliott.

Upcoming Events

Save the Date: Psychology Undergraduate Celebration in May!

Psychology Undergraduate Celebration
Friday, May 3rd, 2019 from 4:00pm - 6:00pm
Campus Club - Coffman Memorial Union

Official RSVP invitations will be sent at a future date!

 

Latest Events:

Pictures from our ugly DEPARTMENTAL sweater meeting December 14, 2018 are found here.

***NEW***

Chair Communications

"With a new chair comes new traditions.” Starting with this edition of DATA, I will be including a chair’s update so that I can keep you informed on some of the happenings and initiatives in the department. Currently, we are well underway with interviews for two open assistant professor positions in Counseling and Quantitative and Psychometric Methods. The applicant pool was remarkably strong and we invited seven candidates for on-campus interviews. I look forward to updating you on the results of these searches in the near future.

Additionally, faculty and staff are engaged in two department-wide initiatives: developing our Three-year Budget Plan and addressing strategic planning. Budget planning occurs every three years in conjunction with the College of Liberal Arts (CLA). It is the official consultative process through which departments align priorities and resources with those of the College and University over the next three fiscal years. Dr. Monica Luciana first led the department through this process in 2016, successfully gaining several significant allocations from CLA. We hope to repeat that success in this second round.

Strategic planning, on the other hand, is much broader than budget planning, even though the two aligned, somewhat interlocking processes. Through strategic planning, we are seeking to identify decisions and actions that can both shape and guide what our department is, what we do, and why we do it in the coming years. We are still in the early stages of strategic planning, which will also inform a formal department review organized by CLA, which will occur in 2020-21. I will continue to share updates about our progress both department-wide initiatives ad they unfold.

Jeff Simpson (Department Chair)

 

Administrative Updates and Announcements

Nominations for the 2019 U of M Outstanding Community Service Awards are due December 21st

The Office for Public Engagement is accepting nominations for the 2019 University of Minnesota Outstanding Community Service Awards. Nominations are due Dec. 21. Established in 1999, the awards recognize faculty, staff, students, and University-affiliated community members who have made significant, demonstrable contributions to the public good through research, teaching, and/or public service. See nomination details and more.

 

Welcome to Faiza Mohamed the newest student worker in Psychology's Main Office. Faiza joined us mid-November and works predominately on Tuesdays and Thursdays. When you have a chance, stop by and say hello to her!

 

Awards and Accomplishments

Professor Mark Snyder Speaks on the Psychology of Helping

As part of the celebration of the 50th anniversary of Normandale Community College (Bloomington, MN), Professor Mark Snyder presented a lecture on "The Kindness of Strangers (and of Friends): Reflections on the Psychology of Helping and Being Helped". In his lecture, Professor Snyder reflected on the puzzles and paradoxes of when and why people help/don't help others in need.

 

Research Assistant Professor Sylia Wilson was awarded an R21 grant from NIH to examine the effects of alcohol on brain morphometry in a large sample of adult twins from the Minnesota Center for Twin and Family Research and adult twins/nontwin siblings from the Human Connectome Project (co-investigators Bill Iacono, Matt McGue, Steve Malone, and Angus MacDonald).

 

Research Assistant Professor Sylia Wilson was awarded a NARSAD Young Investigator Award from Brain & Behavior Research Foundation to examine the effects of alcohol and cannabis on brain functional connectivity in a large sample of adult twins from the Minnesota Center for Twin and Family Research and a subsample of their young, substance-naive children (co-investigators Bill Iacono and Kelvin Lim).

 

Graduated

Congratulations to our recent Department of Psychology PhD Graduates!

Brent Carpenter

Area: CAB

Advisor: Dan Kersten

Dissertation Title: Measuring the Detection of Objects under Simulated Visual Impairment in 3D Rendered Scenes

 

Craig Marquardt

Area: CSPR

Advisors: Shmuel Lissek, Scott Sponheim

Dissertation Title: N-back Performance with Trauma-Relevant Visual Distractors: Associations with Posttraumatic Stress Symptomatology

 

Psy Academic Technology

Grading season is approaching fast!

Canvas Tip 1: As the semester ends, a good way to motivate students as they reach the “finish line”, is to share how they can predict their final grade and their standing in class, using the Canvas gradebook [video clip 3:43 min].

Canvas Tip 2: On October 29, 2018 the Course “Analytics Beta” tool was released. This Canvas tool provides instructors feedback and insights about how students are doing overall in their class [video clip 1:00 min].

For questions, please contact Silke Moeller (smoeller@umn.edu), N211 Elliott.

 

Administrative Updates and Announcements

Nominations for the 2019 U of M Outstanding Community Service Awards are due December 21st

The Office for Public Engagement is accepting nominations for the 2019 University of Minnesota Outstanding Community Service Awards. Nominations are due Dec. 21. Established in 1999, the awards recognize faculty, staff, students, and University-affiliated community members who have made significant, demonstrable contributions to the public good through research, teaching, and/or public service. See nomination details and more.

Nominations for the Department of Psychology Distinguished Alumni Awards are due November 12th.
The Department of Psychology at the University of Minnesota is pleased to invite nominations for its Distinguished Alumni Awards. The two awards will honor distinguished alumni from our undergraduate and graduate programs, respectively. We made our first two awards in 2018 academic year, and we anticipate making two awards in 2019 (and annually thereafter).

For questions, please contact Missy Jones by phone at 612-626-3171 or by email at psyawards@umn.edu. Please see the Distinguished Alumni Awards for additional information.

Grants

Professor Alex Rothman along with colleagues in the School of Journalism and Mass Communication, the School of Public Health, and the Masonic Cancer Center have been awarded a grant from NIH to examine whether prior exposure to conflicting health information affects how people respond to information a novel, unrelated health issue.

Professor Alex Rothman along with colleagues at the University of Southern California, Northeastern University, and the University of Illinois-Chicago have been awarded a grant from NIH to examine the micro-temporal processes (within person) that underlie the initiation and maintenance of patterns of sleep, physical activity, and sedentary behavior.  The project is part of an NIH consortium, "The Intensive Longitudinal Health Behaviors Network".

 

Awards and Accomplishments

Professor Andrew Oxenham is a co-PI of a new NIH-funded initiative to develop a new type of auditory implant. Along with PI Hubert Lim in the Department of Biomedical Engineering, collaborators in the Department of Neuroscience, as well as other sites in the US and Germany, the team will work towards the goal of implanting the first humans with an auditory-nerve implant to restore hearing.

Professor Deniz Ones has an article titled On “New" Personality Types in the Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology: Science for a Smarter Workplace.

Professor Traci Mann is quoted in The Washington Post about a new Weight Watchers program that critics say is ‘diet culture’ in disguise.

Emeritus Professor James Butcher is quoted in Scientific American about the accuracy of personality tests. The article can be found here.

IO graduate student Jeff Dahlke has been awarded the Meredith Crawford Dissertation Fellowship by the Human Resource Research Organization. This fellowship is awarded annually to the student from an IO or closely related doctoral program with the strongest research record heading into the dissertation year. Jeff is advised by Professor Paul Sackett and Associate Professor Nathan Kuncel. Of the 22 awardees to date he is the 8th from the University of Minnesota.

 

Graduated

Congratulations to our recent Department of Psychology PhD Graduates!

Brittany Marcus-Blank

Area: I/O

Advisors: Paul Sackett, Nathan Kuncel

Dissertation Title: Using a Situational Judgement Test to Develop Professionalism and Interpersonal Skills Among Medical Residents

Laura Wallace-Johnson

Area: I/O

Advisor: Aaron Schmidt

Dissertation Title: Investigating Organizational Counterproductivity: The Structurally Oppressive Situations Scale

 

Psy Academic Technology

Canvas Tips:

Around 75% of students report using the Canvas Student App. with almost half of those students report being in the app several times a day. To find out how students are experiencing your Canvas course site, use the app yourself. This short video [2 min] shows how the Canvas Student App provides instructors with valuable feedback about how students will navigate a site. Canvas also provides a Teacher App for Android and iOS devices.

Questions?

For questions or requests regarding academic technology, Moodle/Canvas, media, or recordings, please contact Silke Moeller, N211 Eliott, smoeller@umn.edu

 

Administrative Updates and Announcements

Please welcome Athena Lasco and Teeara Williams, who joined the Department of Psychology this week.  

Athena Lasco, our new student worker, joined the main office team and is working Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Fridays. She is working towards her Bachelors of Science in Child Psychology. 

Working part-time, Teeara Williams, is assisting with area support for I/O and CAB. She is located in N211 and will be with us for the next 3 months. Teeara has a solid background in customer service at St. Paul College and at TCF Bank. 

 

Nominations for the College of Liberal Arts' Outstanding Service Awards are due Friday, October 26, 2018. These awards recognize outstanding service to the college by civil service, labor-represented and academic professional and administrative employees and work groups.

CLA welcomes and encourages peer nominations. Further information, including nomination guidelines and the cover page, can be found on The Neighborhood or contact Angie Plambeck (plambeck@umn.edu; 5-1805) with any questions.

 

Undergraduate Research Assistant List - At the end of spring 2018, undergraduate students who were looking to work as research assistants, completed a form with their interests, experience, previous coursework, goals, etc. This information has been compiled into a spreadsheet and is now available to Psychology faculty and grad students, in order to identify students who may be best suited for research projects. For access to this spreadsheet, please send Professor Mark Stellmack (stell006@umn.edu) an email. (All information in the spreadsheet is deleted/updated with new students each semester)

 

Awards and Accomplishment​s

Listed on the American Psychological Association (APA) Monitor, Professor Richard Lee is ranked among 33 of the most influential psychologists of our day! His research seeks to identify ways to improve the lives of racial and ethnic minorities. That article is located here.

 

A medium-scale neuromodulation trial is being conducted by Professor Angus MacDonald's TRiCAM lab. The study will build on results suggesting subtle transcranial electrical stimulation improves the rate at which patients benefit from and generalize cognitive training. In a collaboration with Kelvin Lim, this BRAINS initiative-funded R01 study will conduct a triple-blinded, placebo-controlled trial in both psychosis patients and healthy community members.

 

A new multi-site NSF grant studying the relationship between musical training and enhanced neural coding and perception of sound, will be led by Professor Andrew Oxenham. He will undertake a large-scale reproducibility study of some of the neural and perceptual effects that have been associated with formal musical training, which include enhancements in the ability to understand speech in noisy backgrounds. Former graduate student, Dr. Kelly Whiteford, will coordinate the two-year study.

 

Heather J. Peters, a former student of our graduate program and an Associate Professor with a Psychology Discipline at UofM Morris, has won the Charlotte Striebel Equity Award. This October, she will be honored at the Celebrating Changemakers Awards Program (formerly titled Celebrating the University Women)  

 

Graduated

Congratulations to our recent Department of Psychology Ph. D graduates!

Alex Ajayi 

Area: Counseling

Advisor: Moin Syed

Dissertation Title: Racial Ideology and Psychosocial Implications among African Americans: Integrating Variable-Centered and Person-Centered Approaches

 

AnnaMarie Vu

Area: Counseling

Advisor: Pat Frazier

Dissertation Title: Randomized Controlled Trial of Pacifica, a CBT and Mindfulness-based App for Stress, Depression, and Anxiety Management with Health Monitoring

 

Kelly Jordan

Area: Counseling

Advisor: Jo-Ida Hansen

Dissertation Title: Factor Structure of Career Adaptability and Vocational Identity Development and Relationship to Vocational Interests

 

Katie Broadwell

Area: CAB

Advisors: Chad Marsolek, Randy Fletcher

Dissertation Title: Handedness and Motivational Asymmetries as Precursors to Personality and Political Ideology

 

Merav Silverman

Area: CSPR

Advisor: Bob Krueger

Dissertation Title: Operationalizing Neuroticism Using Task-Based FMRI and Psychological Measures in a Large Sample

 

Alex Rautu

Area: PIB

Advisor: Colin DeYoung

Dissertation Title: Toward a Structurally-Sound Model of Uncertainty-Related Personality Traits

 

William Johnson

Area: Social

Advisors: Mark Snyder, Jeff Simpson

Dissertation Title: Associations between birth weight/gestational age and social/cognitive functioning across development: Do differences endure?

 

Upcoming Events

Mark your calendars…The Department of Psychology will be hosting two events for the Community Fund Drive. The Community Fund Drive (CFD) is the University of Minnesota’s annual charitable giving campaign where employees donate through payroll deduction or a one-time gift to the causes they care about—ending hunger, curing diseases, helping students pay their college tuition, preserving the environment, sheltering the homeless, or supporting the arts. Please consider donating!

Bake Sale on October 10th from 11-1 Room N230 

Chili/Soup cook off on October 24th from 11-1 Room N219

If you would like to participate by bringing in goodies for either event please email (Lisa Keith) lkeith@umn.edu.