Message from the Chair

Lisa G. Aspinwall, Chair

Dear Alumni, Emeriti, and Friends:

It's been a year of continued growth for the department, as we successfully recruited a new faculty member, Brennan Payne, through our participation in a transformative excellence program designed to galvanize research on the neural basis of behavior, learning, and memory.  The transformative excellence program is a partnership among the Departments of Psychology, Bioengineering, and Neurobiology and Anatomy, in collaboration with College of Social and Behavioral Science and the broader campus Neuroscience Initiative.  This program will ultimately bring three new faculty members to campus. Dr. Payne, who was recently named a Rising Star by the Association for Psychological Science, completed his PhD in the Cognitive Science of Teaching and Learning in 2014 at the University of Illinois and a postdoc at The Beckman Institute at the University of Illinois.  His work focuses on the understanding of language and memory systems across the adult lifespan.  Welcome, Brennan!

We also welcome Dr. Monika Lohani (PhD in Social and Developmental Psychology, Brandeis University, 2014; postdoc at Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence), who has joined our department as a Research Assistant Professor working with the Strayer lab. Dr. Lohani's research focuses on emotion regulation, as well as the social-emotional aspects of human-machine interaction. She will be joining the faculty of the Department of Educational Psychology as an Assistant Professor in July 2018.

It's also been a year of continued recognition for our faculty, as our senior faculty swept the major awards in teaching (Cecilia Wainryb), research (Patricia Kerig), and mentoring (Bert Uchino) at the college level, while our newer faculty members were also recognized for their contributions to superior teaching (Kristina Rand was a finalist for the career-line superior teaching award) and research. Sam Joel and Brennan Payne joined Jackie Chen and Liz Conradt as APS Rising Stars; Brennan Payne and Kristina Rand both received Early Career Awards from APA Division 3 (Human Perception and Performance) for best scientific paper; and Liz Conradt received three young investigator/early career awards from scientific societies for her contributions to research in child development. At the university level, Don Strassberg was recognized by the Graduate School with the Distinguished Mentor Award. Don will retire at the end of this year after four decades of outstanding teaching and mentorship, and we could not be more pleased to see him receive this recognition from his students and colleagues.

Meanwhile, our graduate students continue to receive recognition at both the campus and national levels, with two students selected for the new African-American Doctoral Scholars Initiative, two Cognition and Neural Sciences students tying for first place in the graduate division at the CSBS Student Research Day event, one winner of the APA Dissertation Award, and a record number of students recognized with National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowships.

Finally, I invite you to take a look at our media highlights for the year – our faculty, postdocs and students were quoted in a wide range of sources from Scientific American, CNN, Time, NPR, The Atlantic, NBC Nightly News, Fox News, and Stars and Stripes to the Deseret News, Salt Lake Tribune, Utah Business, Good4Utah, BYU Radio, and KUER. This coverage serves the vital function of increasing public awareness of the contributions of psychological research to such important topics as suicide prevention, driving safety, child development, sexuality, psychological well-being, racial identity, emergency communications, and relationships and health.