Newsletter Article

Graduate Accomplishments

Autumn 2016

Our last newsletter issue was published before Autumn 2016 quarter was over, and these are the milestones to report! Of note, we had a higher than usual number of students who went for the optional master's degree, which is awesome (see below).

Liz Bird (Adult Clinical Area with William George) received an ADAI small grant ($20,000) for her project, "Investigation of Sexual Victimization Severity and Pre-Sex Drinking: The Roles of Sex-Related Stress and Sex-Related Drinking Motives."

Four students passed their general exam and advanced to candidacy: Elizabeth Ake (Developmental Area with Kristina Olson), Sarah Edmunds (Child Clinical Area with Wendy Stone), Lizzie Neilson (Adult Clinical Area with William George), and Roy Seo (Cognition and Perception Area with Chantel Prat).

Six students completed their master's degrees: Trevor Coyle (Adult Clinical Area with Marsha Linehan), Daniel Kort (Social Psychology and Personality Area with Cheryl Kaiser), Hilary Lambert (Child Clinical Area with Katie McLaughlin), Rosemary Meza (Child Clinical Area with Shannon Dorsey), James Kit Moreland (Cognition and Perception Area with Geoff Boynton), and Roy Seo (Cognition and Perception Area with Chantel Prat).

Two students completed their doctorates in Autumn quarter: Meg Grounds (Cognition and Perception Area with Susan Joslyn) and James Rae (Social Psychology and Personality Area with Kristina Olson). Meg is in User Research at Microsoft and James is completing a post-doc at Oxford University.

Winter 2017

In winter, we saw three child clinical students from the same entering year cohort complete their general exams: Melanie Klein (Child Clinical Area with Liliana Lengua), Kyrill Gurtovenko (Child Clinical Area with Lynn Fainsilber Katz), and Connor McCabe (Child Clinical Area with Kevin King). Connor was featured in a previous newsletter for his research on adolescence which received NRSA-funding.

Kyrill Gurtovenko (Child Clinical Area with Lynn Fainsilber Katz) also completed our optional Quantitative Minor, a specialty program available to currently enrolled graduate students. He is the 21st student to do so.  Congratulations! Information on the Quantitative Minor can be found here on their area website.

Two students completed an optional master's: Jose Ceballos (Cognition and Perception Area with Chantel Prat) and Matt Peverill (Child Clinical Area with Katie McLaughlin). Jose was fatured in a previous newsletter for his McNair fellowship-supported research on language.  Since then, Jose has also been awarded a National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship.

Colin Beam (Cognition and Perception Area with John Miyamoto) defended his disseration and graduated with his Ph.D.

Spring 2017

Valerie Tryon (Behavioral Neuroscience Area with Sheri Mizumori) is the Spring Hunt Fellow. Please check out her research feature!

Ashley Ruba (Developmental Area with Betty Repacholi) received a Travel Grant for Early Spring 2017 from the Graduate & Professional Student Senate (GPSS).

Trent DesChamps (Child Clinical Area with Wendy Stone) was selected to receive a National Science Foundation Fellowship award. Please check out his research spotlight in this issue. 

Brianna Yamasaki (Cognition and Perception Area with Chantel Prat) is the recipient of the University of Washington's Excellence in Teaching Award for 2017 and the Psychology Department's Hunt Fellow for Summer 2017. She has provided her perspective and observations on teaching and research in another article in the graduate student section. 

Megan Ramaiya (Adult Clinical Area with Jane Simoni) received the Thomas Francis Jr. Global Health Fellowship to support her work in Nepal this summer.

Four students were selected as the 2017 Summer Alcor Fellows funded by the Alcor Endowment in Psychology, Adrian Andelin (Behavioral Neuroscience Area with Jaime Olavarria), Prerna Martin (Child Clinical Area with Shannon Dorsey), Kelsey McCune (Animal Behavior Area with Renee Ha), and Rosie Walker (Adult Clinical Area with Lori Zoellner). These treasured awards were created by Harry E. Peterson and Claire Garlick Peterson, who were Puget Sound residents with interests and ties in Psychology, Music, and Astromony. We appreciate the stewards of the Alcor Endowment in Psychology and Music for continuing to provide support to our graduate students as they complete their academic goals.

Since 2015, the Psychology Department has been providing summer funding awards to their students, recipients of which are called Psychology Department Scholars. Our 2017 Psychology Department Scholars are Robert Mohr (Animal Behavior Area with Joseph Sisneros), A. Paige Peterson (Adult Clinical Area with Corey Fagan), and Erika Ruberry (Child Clinical Area with Liliana Lengua).

Sarah Edmunds (Child Clinical Area with Wendy Stone) received a Population Health Initiative’s Graduate Student Conference Travel Award in order to attend the International Multisensory Research Forum in Nashville, Tenneesee, in May 2017.

Annie Fast (Developmental Area with Kristina Olson) was just awarded the Graduate School Presidential Dissertation Fellowship. This is a one quarter award to be used during the 2017-2018 academic year.  The purpose of this award is to relieve graduate students of their teaching duties or other employment not directly related to the dissertation in order to devote their full time to writing the dissertation.

We honored the achievements of many of these outstanding graduate students at the inaugural Psychology Awards Luncheon in May. Please check back with us in the winter, where we will go over our end-of-the-year events, such as Research Festival and our Ph.D. Hooding Ceremony, along with the usual accomplishments and milestones. Have a wonderful summer!