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October 2021:

Bob Durham Award Fund in Psychology - To provide awards for outstanding undergraduate students enrolled in the Psychology Department in the College of Letters, Arts and Sciences at UCCS. If $25,000 is reached, the fund will convert to an endowment.

Dr. Kadija Williams Scholarship Fund - To provide graduate student scholarship awards, which may include research-related expenses, for graduate students enrolled in the Psychology Department at UCCS. If $25,000 is reached, the fund will convert to an endowment.

September 2021:

Student Research Showcase: Naila Tagoilelagi

August 2021:

Welcome to new Assistant Professor of Trauma Psychology, Steve Bistricky

July 2021:

Al-Shawaf - Six Impossible Things Before Breakfast

Welcome to new Assistant Professor of Trauma Psychology, Colin Mahoney

Faculty Feature: Heather Littleton

June 2021: 

APA - The growing demand for geropsychologists

Congrats to Dr. Jessi Smith (PI) and Dr. Beth Daniels (Co-PI) for their recent funded grant from NSF. Project Title: Adaptation: Project CREST - Changing Research Experiences, Structures, and (in)Tolerance through the Adaptation of Promising Equity Practices.

Dr. Sheri Gibson - Helping patients coping with COVID19 grief

Funded Awards:

Michele Okun, Leilani Feliciano - Insomnia Phenotypes and their Impact on Maternal and Infant Health. National Institutes of Health

Publications:

Swanson, Chelsea L., Lori E. James, and Rebecca E. Ingram. "Incidental learning of proper names and “earwitness” recall." Memory (2021): 1-8.  https://doi.org/10.1080/09658211.2021.1925301

Christodoulou, Joan, and Andrew Lac. "Examining the Communication of Gender Roles to Parents: A Quantitative Content Analysis of Online Birth Congratulations Cards." Psychology & Sexuality (2021). https://doi.org/10.1080/19419899.2021.1902378

Carroll, Judith E., Kharah M. Ross, Steve Horvath, Michele Okun, Calvin Hobel, Kelly E. Rentscher, Mary Coussons-Read, and Christine Dunkel Schetter. "Postpartum sleep loss and accelerated epigenetic aging." Sleep health (2021). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.sleh.2021.02.002

Overmann, Karenleigh Anne. "A Cognitive Archaeology of Writing: Concepts, Models, Goals." In The Social and Cultural Contexts of Historic Writing Practices, eds. P.J. Boyes, P.M. Steele, N.E. Astoreca, 55-72. Oxford: Oxbow, 2021.

Brimbal, Laure, Christian A. Meissner, Steven M. Kleinman, Erik L. Phillips, Dominick J. Atkinson, Rachel E. Dianiska, Jesse N. Rothweiler, Simon Oleszkiewicz, and Matthew S. Jones. "Evaluating the benefits of a rapport-based approach to investigative interviews: A training study with law enforcement investigators." Law and Human Behavior 45, no. 1 (2021): 55. https://psycnet.apa.org/doi/10.1037/lhb0000437

Roberts, Jennifer R., and Molly Maxfield. “A 2-Study Psychometric Evaluation of the Modified Dementia Worry Scale.” American Journal of Alzheimer’s Disease & Other Dementias, (January 2021). https://doi.org/10.1177/1533317521995322.

Leckey, Sarah, Diana Selmeczy, Alireza Kazemi, Elliott G. Johnson, Emily Hembacher, and Simona Ghetti. "Response latencies and eye gaze provide insight on how toddlers gather evidence under uncertainty." Nature Human Behaviour 4, no. 9 (2020): 928-936. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41562-020-0913-y   

Porter, Tenelle, Karina Schumann, Diana Selmeczy, and Kali Trzesniewski. "Intellectual humility predicts mastery behaviors when learning." Learning and Individual Differences 80 (2020): 101888. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.lindif.2020.101888

May 2021:

NPR: Daniels speaks on female athletes’ stand against sexualization

April 2021:

Daniels & Selmeczy - 2021 CRCW Awardees

UCCS Graduate School programs in latest U.S. News & World Report Rankings
#120 in the nation for best graduate Clinical Psychology program
#148 in the nation for best graduate Psychology program

JOB OPENING: Assistant Professor - Clinical Psychology - Trauma

Remembering Bob Durham

March 2021:

UCCS Aging Center receives $160,000 to care for vulnerable older adults

In Memory: Robert Durham

December 2020:

FALL 2020 Commencement: https://commencement.uccs.edu/fall-ceremony

Congratulations to our 2020 UCCS campus award winners: Campus Legacy Builder: Dr. Frederick Coolidge & Faculty Assembly Service Award: Dr. Elizabeth Daniels

UCCS Aging Center receives NextFifty Initiative grant to advance independence for at-risk seniors

November 2020:

Samuelson named to the UCCS Million Dollar Club

Pyszczynski named 2020 Outstanding Research Mentor

UCCS program to help people cope with pandemic-related stress spreads to 37 states.

October 2020:

Distinguished Professor Tom Pyszczynski to receive the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Rocky Mountain Humanistic Counseling and Psychological Association

Psychology graduate students (Adams, Catarino, Lockett) to present posters at Rocky Mountain Humanistic Counseling and Psychological Association Conference

August 2020:

Welcome to Instructor: Dr. Tom Francis

Welcome to Instructor: Dr. Nina Dulabaum

July 2020:

Seven steps to creating resilience during a pandemic

Benight on resilience: “We’re going to get through this”

June 2020:

Daniels - Five researchers to be featured on next week’s “The Academic Minute”

May 2020:

Psychology professor Beth Daniels to pursue first-ever Fulbright fellowship focused on gender studies

Harwell - Sleep and Trauma: What we know and where we are headed

Daniels - The New York Times: What Is Beauty Now?

2020 LAS Awards - Psychology

Congratulations, UCCS' LAS Class of 2020!

Okun and Feliciano study pandemic’s effect on students’ physical and psychological health

Psychology graduate alumni making an impact

April 2020:

Commencement Feature: Yeager brings technology background to address trauma treatment

Psychology graduate programs best program distinctions in latest U.S. News & World Report rankings

CU On Air - Psychology alumna Dr. Mary Dodge - CU Denver prof examines white-collar and traditional criminals, investigations, trends and tech

Thayer awarded grant by the Committee on Research and Creative Works (CRCW)

Qualls and Benight featured in local news outlets

Daniels receives UCCS Faculty Assembly Service Award

March 2020:

Al-Shawaf named Rising Star by Association for Psychological Science

The UCCS Psychology Department stands strongly as allies of those protesting both the recent and long history of deaths through violence in our racist society.  We are firmly antiracist, and work actively to raise our own awareness, understanding, and commitment to action toward the advancement of social equity, justice, and inclusiveness.  We recognize the extraordinary pain that is born by Black members of our society whose lineage of slavery in the U.S. continues to produce policies and practices that threaten their lives and livelihood.  We deeply grieve the loss of innocent lives of Elijah McClain, Breonna Taylor, and George Floyd, as some of the most recent Black victims of senseless and tragic killings at the hands of police. We want to acknowledge the students, faculty, and staff who may be sharing in this incredible sadness and pain.  We also want to acknowledge the ways in which that pain surrounds us, impacting our society more broadly in ways that we hope will lead to significant changes. 

We seek to participate in changes that improve social justice and equity in the coming days/weeks/months/years.  We acknowledge that psychology has historically contributed to systems that perpetuate racism; we will actively attend to our history and work to change our future impact. As such, our department commits to improving our own community’s inclusivity.  Some immediate actions we are taking are to conduct a student survey about areas of concern and opportunity for change in our department.  A departmental Diversity Committee is building a strategic plan of action over the summer, with plans for implementation of specific activities in the fall.  The plan will incorporate recommendations from experts in leading departmental cultural change as well as from the suggestions of a graduate student discussion that followed participation in the “Racism Pandemic” Special Townhall hosted by APA.  We will be creating mechanisms for input and engagement from all members of our community.

In preparation for the social justice work we have to do, we encourage all to engage in a substantive self-education effort.  Here are two reasonable places to start: anti-racism resources; what can you do. Watch for more opportunities to learn, grow, expand consciousness, communicate and work for justice for all members of our society.  We acknowledge that this will be a long-term process that requires effort and, at times discomfort, which we commit to do.