Newsletter Article

Department Recognition

Retirements, Promotions and Staff Milestones

The Department would like to recognize the incredible impact that Drs. Mike Beecher, Tony Greenwald, Lee Osterhout, John Palmer, Ron Smith and Frank Smoll have had in their stellar careers. We congratulate them on their retirements during 2020-2022 and wish them all the best.

We also congratulate Drs. David Gire, Renee Ha, Tabitha Kirkland, Susan Joslyn, Chantel Prat and Ariel Rokem on their promotions during 2020-22. We are proud to call you our colleagues!

Our staff make the incredible work that we do possible, and we want to congratulate Kim Arbios, Cy Delgado, Michele Jacobs, Doug Kalk, William Kaplan, Jeneil Lagasse, Amanda Patrick, Carrie Perrin, Tu Tong, and Catherine Zeigler for reaching UW Milestone Years of Service (recognized every 5 years) during 2020-2022.

 

Fellowships & Awards

Faculty

Dr. William George & graduate student Neil Gleason received a one year, $20,000 research award from UW Addictions, Drug & Alcohol Institute for their work titled "A Mixed-Methods Examination of HIV Risk in Men Who Have Sex with Men: Effects of Alcohol and Sexual Compulsivity." 

Dr. Wendy Stone & graduate student Shana Attar received an eight-month award from the UW Population Health Institute, Tier 1 Pilot Grant Program for their research titled "My Toddler's Social Communication: Examining the Cultural Sensitivity of a New Pictorial Screening Tool for Identifying Toddlers at Risk for Autism in Diverse Cultural, Ethnic, Racial and Linguistic Settings."

Dr. Jane Simoni & graduate student Liying Wang received an eight-month ward from UW Population Health Institute, Tier 1 Pilot Grant Program for their research titled "Turning to Sunshine: Developing a CBT-Based Depression and Adherence mHealth Intervention for HIV-positive Men Who Have Sex with Men (MSM)in China Using a Community-based Participatory Approach." 

Dr. Angela Fang was awarded the Association of Women in Science Award for Early Career Achievement in STEM. Dr. Fang was nominated by Dr. Lori Zoellner.

Dr. Shannon Dorsey & Jeanny Mai were awarded the GSEE Graduate Excellence Award (GEA) from the UW Office of Graduate Student Equity & Excellence. The GEA is a three-quarter merit-based research assistantship that is awarded to individual departments based on departmental diversity, equity, inclusion and justice (DEIJ) efforts.

Dr. Shannon Dorsey was awarded a four-year NIH P50 Subaward from Kaiser Permanente Washington Health Research Institute for her work titled "Optimizing Evidence-Based Practice Implementation for Clinical Impact: the IMPACT Center."

Dr. Jeansok Kim received a 12-month UW Royalty Research Fund Award for his research titled "Real-time Monitoring of How Stress Alters Hippocampal Neuronal Activities."

Dr. Angela Fang received a 12-month UW Royalty Research Fund Award for her research titled "Oxytocinergic Mechanisms of Social Safety Learning in Women with Social Anxiety Disorder."

Dr. Jennifer Forsyth received a $183,338 K08 Grant from the NIH National Institute of Mental Health for her research on schizophrenia titled "From Genotypes to Phenotypes in Schizophrenia: A Developmental Functional Genomics Approach."

Dr. Ariel Rokem was awarded a five-year competitive renewal grant from the NIH for his work titled "Summer Institute in Neuroimaging and Data Science." This grant will support and annual summer institute at the University of Washington for early-career researchers in neuroscience and cognate fields to learn data science methods. Dr. Rokem also received a NIH Diversity Supplement to support a post-bac researcher to pursue a career in biomedical research, as well as 2 NIH subawards for collaborative projects with Stanford University and the University of Texas. The Stanford University award is titled "NIPreps: Integrating Neuroimaging Preprocessing Workflows Across Modalities, Populations, and Species." The University of Texas award is for a project titled "A Community-Driven Development of the Brain Imaging Data Standard (BIDS) to Describe Macroscopic Brain Connections."

Dr. Sheri Mizumori was awarded a five-year, $1.3M competitive renewal grant from the NIH National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke for her project BRAINS: Broadening the Representation of Academic Investigator in the Neurosciences -- A National Program to Increase the Advancement of Neuroscience Researchers from Diverse Backgrounds.

Dr. Wendy Stone was selected as a 2022 International Society for Autism Research (INSAR) fellow. 

Dr. Chantel Prat was honored by graduate students in the Department with the Davida Teller Distinguished Graduate Mentor Award. 

Dr. Ione Fine was selected as a Bloedel Scholar. Dr. Fine's research will examine how sign language influences mathematical cognitive processes and also auditory cortical plasticity as a result of blindness.

Dr. Ariel Starr received a 5-year research award from the National Science Foundation for her research titled "Promoting Spatial Skill Development." The goal of this research is to provide new insights into how spatial language and spatial structuring support the development of spatial skills and STEM readiness.

 

Graduate Students & Postdocs

McKenzie Hagen (mentored by Ariel Rokem), received a National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship to support their research on reproducibility and variability in empirical MRI results. McKenzie Hagen also received a Department of Energy Computational Sciences Graduate Fellowship. 

Kim Bourne (mentored by Cynthia Levine), received a Graduate waiver from the Society for Personality & Social Psychology to attend the SPSP conference. Award decisions are based on "the excellence of the submitted conference abstract and on the strength of the applicant's scholarly achievements."

Ella Lombard received the Society for Personality & Social Psychology Poster Award for her poster titled "Feedback Receptivity: A Leadership Strategy for Increasing STEM Gender Equity."

Terrènce Pope (mentored by Sapna Cheryan) is a finalist for UW Graduate School Medal Award. The Graduate School Medal recognizes a scholar-citizen who illustrates the synergy between graduate-level achievement in the University and social or cultural productivity in the community.

Postdoctoral scholar Marilyn Piccirillo (mentored by Katherine Foster and Mary Larimer) was awarded a 599/R00 grant from the National Institutes of Health for her work titled "Digital Phenotyping of Anxiety and Anxiety-Related Alcohol Comorbidity and Treatment."

Postdoctoral fellow Jonas Dora (mentored by Kevin King) was selected by the ITHS Pilot Translational and Clinical Studies program to receive the Early Investigator Catalyst Award

Fasika Hailu, current lab manager and incoming graduate student working with Sapna Cheryan, received a National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship. Fasika also received an Honorable mention for the Ford Foundation Fellowship

 

Marsha M. Linehan Term PhD Fellowship in Clinical Psychology

Kate Conroy

Diana Kwon

 

Nathaniel Wagner Memorial Endowment Fund

Shana Attar

 

Earl Hunt Graduate Fellowship Fund

Jessica Glazier

Kevan Kidder

 

Alcor Fellowship

Theodros Haile

Ella Lombard

Carly Gray

 

Barbara Sarason Endowed Fellowship in Psychology

Emma PeConga

 

Psychology Department Scholars

Chu-Hsuan Iris Kuo

Kimberly Bourne

Liying Wang

 

Distinguished TA Award

Terrènce Pope

Laina Keim

 

Undergraduate Students

Zhen Williams, Rikhia Chatterjee, Maya Hsu, Anika Lindley, Madison "Kaa'yis'taan" Truitt and Mimi Hope Tu were selected as part of the 2022 Husky 100 Cohort. The Husky 100 award recognizes UW students who are making the most of their time at the university.

The College of Arts & Sciences selected psychology major Druti (Dru) Naik to be a gonfalonier at the UW Commencement Ceremony. The gonfaloniere (as they are called collectively), are outstanding graduating seniors who represent their colleges by carrying large banners -gonfalons- into the Commencement Ceremony. Dru graduated Magna Cum Laude this past December. Faculty members praised her high level of intellect and motivation as well as by her presence and engagement during the year of remote pandemic teaching and learning. Equally impressive was Dru’s spirit of collaboration, her compassion, and the generosity of her time and talents. This coming fall, Dru will attend Georgia Tech to begin a Master’s of Science in Human Computer Interaction. 

The Psychology Department's nominee for the Dean’s Medal in the Natural Sciences Division of the College of Arts and Sciences is Ziqi (Sylvia) Sun. Sylvia graduates Cum Laude with a B.S. in psychology and is a member of the psychology honors program, working under the direction of Dr. Corey Fagan. Sylvia’s honors project – work that Dr. Fagan describes as “groundbreaking” – involved independent design and data collection in China looking at whether Measurement-based Care can change Chinese people's attitudes toward mental health counseling. 

Congratulations to the 18 students who make up this year’s graduating Psychology Honors Program cohort. Each student has spent two years engaged in faculty-led research and carrying an independent research project under the direction of their faculty advisor. Dr. Chantel Prat directs this program. This year’s graduating Honors Students are: Josie Andert, Zoe Deenihan, Kathryn Duffy-Greslo, Ryan Gillis, Natasha Lavides, Anika Lindley, Cecilia Mustelin, Nikki Nerkar, Linh Pham, Nichole Sams, Sahana Sridhar, Sylvia Sun, Tiffany Tang, Kensie Tyler, Miriam Urie, Rachel Wilborn, and Frank Zhou.  

Felice Chen, an undergraduate honors student working with Ella Lombard in Sapna Cheryan's lab, received the Mary Gates Scholarship.

 

Mary Gates Leadership or Research Scholars

Felice Chen

Ryan Gillis

Christine Hau

Jiani Huang

Yasmin Landa

Esther Li

Nikki Nerkar

Taylor Pedersen

Devany Shikiar

Emma Skillen

Sahana Sridhar

Trang Thi Tran

Alice Xing

 

Ruth H. Hagenstein Endowed Scholarship

Tien Van

Callan Weber

Taylor Pedersen

Kathryn Duffy-Greslo

Zoe Deenihan

Alice Xing

Ryan Gillis

 

Guthrie Prize

The Guthrie Prize is awarded annually to two students for excellent writing in psychology. This year's winner for the Best Empirical Paper is Anika Lindley. Anika's paper, titled "Aggression and social functioning among autistic children," was completed under the direction of Dr. Sara Webb. Anika is a Psychology honors student and graduates with a B.S. in psychology and a statistics minor. The Guthrie Prize winner for the Best Conceptual Paper/Research Proposal is Nikita Nerkar. Nikita's paper, titled "The role of interdependent versus independent self-construals in neural responses during vicarious extinction learning in socially anxious individuals," was completed under the direction of Dr. Angela Fang. Nikita is a Psychology honors student and graduates with a B.S. in psychology and a global health minor. The selection committee also identified two Honorable Mentions, Margaret Johansson (advisor Dr. Margaret Sibley), and Frank Zhou (advisor Dr. Corey Fagan). Congratulations! 

 

Degrees Awarded

The Department would like to congratulate the following individuals for completing their Master’s degrees, achieving candidate status, and graduating with Doctoral Degrees in Winter and Spring 2022:

 

Master's Degrees Completed

Hannah Benavidez (Child Clinical Area with Shannon Dorsey)

Kimberly Bourne (Social Psychology and Personality Area with Cynthia Levine)

Ishika Ray (Social Psychology and Personality Area with Yuichi Shoda)

Lauren Smith (Adult Clinical Area with William George)

Jee Hoon Han (Cognition and Perception with Susan Joslyn)

Chelsea Mackey (Adult Clinical Area with Mary Larimer)

 

Candidate Status Achieved

Chao Qin (Cognition and Perception Area with Susan Joslyn)

Neil Gleason (Adult Clinical Area with William George)

Malayka Mottarella (Cognition and Perception Area with Chantel Prat)

 

Graduated with Doctoral Degrees

Ruiyu Zeng (Animal Behavior with Joseph Sisneros)

Jessica Burgeno (Cognition and Perception with Susan Joslyn)

Bryan Schussler (Behavioral Neuroscience with Jeansok Kim)

Peter Zambetti (Behavioral Neuroscience with Jeansok Kim)