June 2019

Chair Communications

 

Jeff's Picture

As we head into summer, I hope that everyone will have some time to recuperate from what has been a busy and productive 2018-19 academic year.

In collaboration with several members of the department, I will be working on several initiatives this summer. They include beginning to make revisions to our 7.12 document and our Constitution, both of which require a little updating. I will also be forming an ad hoc committee that will oversee the planning and preparation for our external department review, which will take place during the 2020-21 academic year. Finally, the Executive Committee and I are currently drafting a job ad for an assistant professor position in the area of health, with an emphasis on disparities in physical health outcomes, broadly defined. We will bring candidates in for interviews in the fall.

I will not be writing a Chair Communications report over the summer, so look for my next message in September. I wish everyone a wonderful summer!

Jeff Simpson, PhD
Distinguished University Teaching Professor
Chair, Department of Psychology


Administrative Updates & Announcements

Academic Technology

Whether you would like to...

  • discuss your Canvas course
  • create a video greeting for your students; 
  • add an interactive “Clicker” tool to your lecture; or,
  • move your exams online;

...find the solution with your academic technologist!

Here are Summer Drop-in slots to meet with Silke Moeller (smoeller@umn.edu), your academic technologist.

For your reference: Instructor Canvas Guide (Ctrl-F/Cmd-F is your friend)

Research Technology

R Summer Workshop Series

Join us this summer for an R workshop series. This workshop series will teach you how to get started using R to clean, manipulate, summarize,  and visualize data as well as how to use R reproducibly with R Markdown. Each workshop will run on Thursdays from 10 a.m. - 12:00 p.m. Get help with your own R code and data in the consultation session the afternoon of the final workshop. Learn more about the workshop series and register today.

For question contact Carla Bates (cbates@umn.edu).

Awards and Accomplishments

Doctoral Dissertation Fellowship

Chloe Huelsnitz, a student of the social area, was awarded a Doctoral Dissertation Fellowship.

The Doctoral Dissertation Fellowship (DDF) gives the University's most accomplished Ph.D. candidates an opportunity to devote full-time effort to an outstanding research project by providing time to finalize and write a dissertation during the fellowship year.

The award includes a stipend of $25,000 for the academic year (September-May), tuition for up to 14 thesis credits each semester (fall & spring), and subsidized health insurance through the Graduate Assistant Health Plan.

UMN Ranked 3rd!

The Consortium of Social Science and Associations has released the 2019 rankings of College and Universities listing the University of Minnesota in 3rd place for federal research development expenditures for social sciences, psychology, law, communications, and social work. UMN was ranked 4th in the 2018 edition and ranked 5th in the 2017 edition

Graduated

Jack Kostal

Area: I/O
Advisors: Deniz Ones, Nathan Kuncel
Dissertation Title: Human Cognitive Abilities: The Structure and Predictive Power of Group Factors

Grants

Postdoctoral Associate Dr. Anahita Mehta awarded prestigious NIH grant

Dr. Anahita Mehta in the Oxenham lab has received a prestigious 5-year K99/R00 Transition to Independence award from the National Institutes of Health. The award is designed to facilitate the transition from a postdoctoral researcher to an independent faculty position.

Dr. Andrew Oxenham's NIH grant renewed for 5 years

Dr. Andrew Oxenham's R01 award from the National Institutes of Health to study auditory and speech context effects under normal and impaired hearing and with cochlear implants has been renewed for a 5-year period.

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