News and Events
April 2013
Several Psychology Students completing undergrad research opportunities with faculty mentors will be presenting or will be co-authors at international conferences this season: Undergraduate students A. Sanders, Maria Kireeva and Molly Miller will present at the Association for Psychological Science in DC; Maria Kireeva and Molly Miller are also co-authors on independent research at the Society for Personality and Social Psychology in New Orleans. Miguel Velasquez will be presenting at UCLA Psychology Undergraduate Research conference; Amanda Rivera and Miguel Velasquez won spots at LUMCON Neurobiology summer course. Graduate students Rachel Kahn, Laura Thornton, Brenna Sapotichne, Juli Weiss, Moira Riley, Lucy McGoron, Laura LaFleur, Matt Marrero, Emily Kuhn, Genevieve Lapre, Brandon Scott, Rebecca Graham, Justin Russell, Donice Banks, Jenny Phan, Andrew Dismukes, and Jeremy Peres presented at the Society for Research on Child Development, APS, APLS, or SPSP. Dr. Connie Lamm will be conducting a study entitled “Developmental differences in the neural correlates underlying attentional control: An ERP study”. This research will fund the DCAP laboratory using a SCoRE seed money grant from the Office of Research and Sponsored Programs to stimulate competitive research in emerging professionals. Congratulations Connie! The 40th Annual Honors Convocation and the Department of Psychology were pleased to announce that Maria Kireeva received the distinguished undergraduate Student Award; Florencia Iturri received the Distinguished Undergraduate Certificate of Commendation; Molly Miller and Miguel Velasquez received the S. Thomas Elder Most Promising Undergraduate Research Award; Rachel Kahn won the Andrew S. Wensel Distinguished Graduate Student Award; Matthew Casey won the Richard D. Olson Award in Experimental Design and Methodology. |
March 2013
| Dr. Kelly Parker, Executive Director of the LA State Board of Examiners of Psychologists and another member of the Board , spoke to students about the "need to know" essentials for obtaining licensure in LA on Thursday, March 21. |
February 2013
Psychology Undergraduate Students made an impressive showing at InnovateUNO on March 1st. With Dr. Monica Marsee as a supervisor, Maria Kireeva and Molly Miller presented their research. With Dr. Elizabeth (Birdie) Shirtcliff as a supervisor, Brandon Gaudet, Florencia Iturra, Swornim Shrestha and Miguel Velasquez presented their research, with fellow undergraduates or alumni Jenny Phan, Amanda Piglia, and Katharina Schneider as coauthors. Early Research Professor Elizabeth (Birdie) Shirtcliff has received an EPSCOR OPT-IN grant from the board of regents to develop a real-time testosterone device with entrepreneurs at Oasis Diagnostics in Vancouver. Dr. Gerald LaHoste's lab have shown to delay Huntington's Disease symptoms in a trsnagenic mouse model. Research focusing on the role of the Rhes protein in Huntington's Disease has shown that diseased mice lacking in Rhes do not exhibit symptoms as early as diseased mice with greater amounts of the protein. |
January 2013
Michael Vitacco, PhD, is a Clinical Psychologist and Assistant Professor at Georgia Health Sciences Center who studies the development of psychopathy in incarcerated youth. He recently gave a talk entitled "Psychopathy and the Law: Holding psychopaths morally and criminally responsible" to psychology department and guests. Jeff Kiesner, PhD recently presented his work on the “Individual Response to the Menstrual Cycle: Implications for Affective and Behavioural Development”. Jeff is a research scientist at the Departimento di Psicologia Universita di Padova (department of general psychology, University of Padua, Italy). The talk was held on Wednesday, January 16th. Michelle Wirth, PhD is an Assistant Professor at Notre Dame who studies how stress responsive hormones such as cortisol and allopregnanolone affect the brain and modulate emotional, motivational, and cognitive processes. She spoke to the University of New Orleans department of psychology on Friday, January 18th.her talk was entitled "Not just social: Evidence for broader effects of oxytocin on human cognition". |
December 2012
| Assistant Professor of Psychology, Elliott Beaton, is awarded a grant from NIMH to examine the physiological and neural indices of stress in children with 22q deletion syndrome. The grant provides three years of funding for over $740,000. Congratulations Elliott! |
November 2012
Professor of psychology Dr. Carl Weems reports that watching disaster coverage of hurricanes on TV can exacerbate anxiety and PTSD symptoms. The article appears in the recent issue of psychological science. The Excellence in Teaching Selection Committee has selected Dr. Gilda Werner Reed for the UNO International Alumni Association’s Excellence in Teaching Award. Dr. Reed will be presented with the Award at the Fall Commencement and will be honored at the Investiture Gala. University Distinguished Professor and Department Chair, Dr. Paul Frick, will be speaking on “New Findings on Conduct Disorder for DSM-5: The role of Callous Unemotional Traits” at the Instituto D’Or Pesquisa e Ensino, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil in November. |
October 2012
In partnership with CenterAustria, Ms. Katharina Schneider has completed a 2 month research internship in the SPIT lab in which she worked directly with human participants in several ongoing research studies, conducted biological assays, and learned advanced statistical modeling. The research experience will set the stage for Ms. Schneider’s thesis on testosterone reactivity to stress. Dr. Tiffany Simpson, Executive Director of the Governor's Children's Cabinet and a 2010 graduate of UNO’s doctoral program, is instrumental in implementing a system for using data to guide state public policy involving children. The system, called “Louisiana Kids' Dashboard” shows 16 indicators, divided among the categories Health Care, Education and Well-Being. Each indicator shows the baseline, current and target levels, and displays trends to indicate if Louisiana is doing better, worse or the same as the baseline for that indicator. The Kids' Dashboard indicators are national measurements, similar to those tracked through the Annie E. Casey Foundation, Kaiser Family Foundation and other organizations that issue comparisons of children's well-being by states. The indicators on Louisiana Kids' Dashboard are tracked through Department of Children and Family Services, Department of Education, Department of Health and Hospitals, Louisiana Workforce Commission, and Office of Juvenile Justice.
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September 2012
University of Melbourne professor Nick Allen spoke to the UNO psychology department on Wednesday, 12:30 pm in GP 2041 on “The social neuroscience of family interactions: A window into adolescent depression”. University of Buffalo Scientist Rebecca Houston spoke to the UNO psychology department on Thursday, 12:30 pm in GP 2041 on “Research transformations across a career in biopsychology”.
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August 2012
| As of August 2012, Dr. Robert “Bobby” Laird has been promoted to a full professor in the Department of Psychology based on his impressive program of research on parent and peer influences on adolescent behavior, cap-stoned recently by the recent award of $515,000 from the W.T. Grant Foundation and pilot funding from the Louisiana Board of Regents. Dr. Laird’s contribution to the UNO community is also noted through is substantial service as the IRB chair since 2008. Dr. Laird ensures these career advancements are achieved with an orchestrated work-life balance: Dr. Laird is a father of two boys, Reeve and Rylan, and runs road races regularly. |
July 2012
| Dr. Monica Marsee puts her role as the Psi Chi advisor to work! She has received a faculty advisor research grant through the Psi Chi Central Office to investigate “Personality, Aggression, and Dysregulation”. This project will advance our understanding of the unique features of callous-unemotional, narcissistic, and borderline personality traits in detained adolescents. Not only does the research involve graduate students Katherine Lau and Greg Fassnacht, but it is also designed to involve 8-10 undergraduate students gaining hands-on research experience. |
June 2012
Highlights from the 2010-2011 Annual Report shows that the Psychology Department shines in all areas, with nearly $9 million in active grants; a publication rate of 5.1 publications per year (nearly 3 times the national average for psychology), faculty instructor effectiveness ratings of 4.79 and 4.69 in the fall and spring semester (on a scale of 1-5, with 5 the best rating), and the highest graduating class in the College of Science. UNO psychology undergraduate sophomore Miguel Velasquez receives a SURE grant from the Board of Regents of the State of Louisiana to examine the reciprocal relation between psychophysiological patterns of stress responsivity and sleep. Mr. Velasquez will complete the research experience in Dr. Shirtcliff’s Stress Physiology in Teens (SPIT) laboratory where he has been volunteering for the past semester.
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May 2012
Dr. Paul Frick was recently featured in the New York Times and also made a big splash in a recent article in the Annual Review of Clinical Psychology, the highest impact of any psychology journal. Together with Joel Nigg and drawing from his experience on the DSM-V committee, Dr. Frick explores the issues of diagnosis of attention deficit, oppositional defiant and conduct disorder with the aim of enhancing the validity and clinical utility of these disorders. Laura Thornton has been awarded the American Psychology-Law Society Student Section Award for her Presentation in Puerto Rico on “Predictive Utility of a Specifier to the Diagnosis of Conduct Disorder based on the Presence of Callous-Unemotional Traits”. Laura is a second year graduate in Dr. Paul Frick’s laboratory.
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April 2012
ZERO TO THREE a non-profit organization, has selected UNO Psychology Alumnus Sherryl S. Heller, Ph.D for its Leaders for the 21st Century Fellowship. The program connects, enriches, and inspires professionals dedicated to advancing the health and development of very young children. Read more about the fellowship here. Dr. Gilda Werner Reed was named one of the Best 300 Professors by the Princeton Review. She was selected from 42,000 faculty members across the nation and over 120 colleges and universities developed from ratemyprofessors.com. Dr. Reed has been teaching at UNO since 1994 and since that time has earned 65 ratings with an overall quality of 4.8 points. Read more about it from nola.com.
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Revised 4/26/2013

