SCU Psychology Department

Dr. Read presented recent findings from her lab on the impacts of COVID-19 "stay at home" measures on the shared book reading practices of families with young children at this week's (virtual) Jean Piaget Society Meeting. The study, conducted this year with SCU seniors Grace Gaffney and Amina Imran is available here if you'd like to read more about it: https://psyarxiv.com/dvcqm/

This quarter's student spotlight is Lindsay Baerg ('21). Lindsay's successes in and out of the classroom have helped set her up for a graduate program at Vanderbilt University this coming fall. https://www.scu.edu//news-and-e/news/lindsay-baerg-21.html

This quarter's alum spotlight is Oliver Culver ('14) who used his psych degree to inspire his professional and personal path. https://www.scu.edu//news-and-e/news/oliver-culver-14.html

Yay science! The Psych Department faculty were so excited to get their vaccines this spring as soon as educators became eligible. It brings us one step closer to seeing all of you in person again! Share your vaccine selfies with us-- we want to see them!

Psychology Department alum Lauren Larson ('20) recently had a publication accepted at the Psi Chi Journal of Psychological Research. Lauren's project, which stemmed from her senior thesis under the supervision of Dr. Kieran Sullivan, is titled "Social Media Use in Emerging Adults: Investigating the Relationship With Social Media Addiction and Social Behavior". Join us in congratulating Lauren on this exciting accomplishment! Learn more about the journal at the link below : https://www.psichi.org/page/journal_past#.YK1moahKhPY

Psychology professor Birgit Koopmann-Holm recently gave a talk at the Western Psychological Associations 101st annual conference about how WEIRD (Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich, and Democratic) and Non-WEIRD cultural contexts conceptualize compassionate responses. https://westernpsych.org/2021-convention/

Psychology Professor Tom Plante was awarded the 2021 Pope St. John Paul II Academic and Research Excellence Award from the Catholic Psychotherapy Association last month. Congratulations to Dr. Plante! https://www.catholicpsychotherapy.org/Conference-2021

Huge congratulations to Psychology professor Birgit Koopmann-Holm on receiving the Early Career Research Award from WPA, the Western Psychological Association. "The WPA Early Career Research Award is given to a WPA member relatively early in her/his career (10 years or fewer post-doctorate) who has demonstrated outstanding promise in research. Such promise can be demonstrated through success in publishing articles, chapters, and books and through success in obtaining grants for research."

Hi students, On Wednesday, May 19th from 5:00pm - 7:00pm PT, Santa Clara University will be hosting a virtual film screening that will give students an opportunity to watch and discuss three award-winning short films about mental health and engage in mind-body exercises to help them unplug from their screens. No camera or microphone required! You can learn more about the program here, and if you're interested in attending, there are currently still some seats available for Santa Clara students. You can sign up for free via this registration page.

In what is quickly becoming an annual tradition, students working in the labs of several Psychology faculty mentors staged a benevolent takeover of the Western Psychological Association's 101st annual conference last month. These undergraduate students were actively involved in collecting and analyzing data, developing and submitting conference proposals, and presenting their work at this virtual conference. The 33 students who worked on and delivered poster and symposia pres...entations were Daniel Teramoto '22 (Psychology), Antionette Aragon '22 (Psychology), Katherine Rose '21 (Psychology), Brie Lyon '21 (Psychology), Lindsay Baerg '21 (Psychology), Kahana Wong '21 (Psychology), Sarah Chue '21 (Psychology), Keelin Dillon '22 (Psychology and Spanish Studies), Charlotte Parque '22 (Psychology and Music), Kayla Neumann '22 (Psychology), Brianna Wingard '22 (Psychology), Georgia Ellis '22 (Psychology), Sarah Zasso '22 (Psychology and Communication), Alexandra Folks '20 (Psychology and Political Science), Liya LaPierre '20 (Psychology), Tannaz Azimi '22 (Neuroscience), Sydney Campbell '22 (Neuroscience and Biology), Chris Wanis '21 (Ethnic Studies and Political Science), Paige Clement '22 (Psychology), Ava Bean '20 (Psychology and Child Studies), Robert Hutto '20 (Management and Psychology), Frida Arias Rivera '22 (Political Science and Psychology), Anna Alberico '22 (Public Health Science and Psychology), Aidan Gallegos '21 (Psychology and Philosophy), Sara Rabinowitz '21 (Psychology and Communication), Rose Zhang '22 (Psychology and Child Studies), Katrina Ying '22 (Psychology), Brianna Mireku '22 (Public Health and Psychology), Grace Gaffney '21 (Psychology and Child Studies), Amina Imran '21 (Psychology), Sofia Sandoval Larco '21 (Psychology), Marcello Vial '21 (Psychology and Philosophy), Kara Murray '22 (Psychology and Communication), Esveide Gonzalez-Lombera '22 (Psychology and Sociology), and Cambria Markezich '21 (Psychology). Their faculty mentors were Jui Bhagwat, Katy Bruchmann, Lang Chen, Birgit Koopmann-Holm, Kirsten Read, Tim Urdan, and Lisa Whitfield. Congrats to the students for their excellent work. Nobody was harmed during the benevolent takeover. https://westernpsych.org/2021-convention/ See more

Join Dr. Whitfield and Dr. Bhagwat for a Grad Info panel for students interested in clinical/counseling careers. It takes place the Wednesday night of Week 7 (May 12th, 5-6 pm). The Zoom registration link is below. See the flyer for more details! https://scu.zoom.us///tJ0scO2przsjHta6BiQsJy5XeoPBHjDug9nQ

To our Graduating Psychology Majors, We know that your senior year here at SCU has not been anything like what you imagined it would be. The psychology faculty are with you in your disappointment and loss. We are very impressed by your resiliency and how well you have risen to the challenge of distance learning amidst the many stressors related to the COVID-19 pandemic. As you wrap up your senior year we would like to continue to do everything we can to support you and celeb...rate you as you graduate from SCU! We are compiling a yearbook of sorts and would love to have you participate by creating a slide for yourself. So please, select the link and follow the sample slide (there are a couple of examples there as well) to create and share a slide about you by May 31st! https://docs.google.com//1AKHcbuaum884dPHaxgECkwvOJq/edit

Psychology professor Tom Plante recently published an article, Four lessons learned from 1,000 psychological evaluations of clerics and clerical applicants in the Roman Catholic and Episcopalian Churches, in Spirituality in Clinical Practice. This article highlights four fundamental lessons learned from conducting these evaluations that may be helpful to clinicians and researchers alike who work in the diagnostic, treatment, or consultation arena with similar church groups. T...hese include research indicating that clerical applicants tend to be (a) psychologically healthy, (b) older with more life experiences than previous generations of clerics, and (c) traumatized by the clerical sexual abuse story. Finally, a critically important lesson learned is a call for evidence-based best practices in conducting clerical screening evaluations. Learn more below: https://psycnet.apa.org/record/2021-28761-001 See more

Psych Department alum and Fulbright scholar Sammi Bennet ('19) was recently featured on the Fulbright Association's webpage. Learn more about how Sammi spent her year lifting others up through ethnographic research in South India. We are so inspired by your work, Sammi! Congratulations! https://fulbright.org/2020//14/samantha-bennett-india-2019/

Looking for a new podcast? Check out The Talking Brains Podcast, hosted by Neuroscience major Brendan Sprout ('21). Episode 2 features the Psych Department's own Dr. Kirsten Read and a discussion of the impact of COVID-19 on child development. https://www.buzzsprout.com//5387572-talking-brains-ft-dr-k

The SCU Psychology family is growing! Dr. Yue Zhang and her husband welcomed baby Neo to their family on August 9th. Please join us in congratulating Dr. Zhang on her new arrival.

As we are all adjusting to online instruction (and obsessive hand washing), just a reminder to go easy on yourself and others. Stay healthy, all! Love, your friendly neighborhood psychology department.

Last week, Psychology and Neuroscience Professor Lindsay Halladay and her lab published an article in the neuroscience journal Learning & Memory entitled "Phasic signaling in the bed nucleus of the stria terminalis during fear learning predicts within- and across-session cued fear expression". For this work, the Halladay lab used surgically implanted electrodes to measure neural activity in the extended amygdala during a cued fear learning task in mice to identify functionally distinct populations of neurons contributing to aversive learning memory formation. Identification of these neural mechanisms contributes to our knowledge related to the neural dysfunction that leads to anxiety-related disorders. Learn more at the link below: http://learnmem.cshlp.org/content/27/3/83.abstract

Happy Day of Giving, Broncos! Did you know that you can designate gifts directly to the Psychology Department? We love to use alumni gifts to sponsor student research and travel. Donate below: https://givingday.scu.edu/

The Read Lab had a study published last week in the journal Child Language Teaching and Therapy. The study, which began in 2015 and was conducted by now alumnae Erin Soares (nee Furay) '16 (Psychology and Liberal Studies), Tess Miller '16 (Psychology), Katie Ciffone '15 (Psychology) and Kirsten Read (Psychology), found that when reading e-books to young children on the autism spectrum, it's more beneficial for children's learning to have a live narrator, rather than just let the technology narrate. This work is just one more piece of evidence the Read Lab at SCU is accumulating that shows the power of reading aloud with young children even with a diverse range of strengths and challenges. Learn more at the link below https://journals.sagepub.com//epub/10.1177/0265659020903795

In case you haven't heard, it's Super Tuesday! Don't forget to get out and vote! In case you haven't heard, it's Super Tuesday! Don't forget to get out and vote!

Last week, our Psi Chi chapter inducted 25 new members. Psi Chi is the International Honor Society in Psychology, and each quarter we welcome Psychology, Public Health and Neuroscience majors to apply. Please email Dr. Jui Bhagwat ([email protected]) for more information. Congratulations to our new inductees!

This quarter's alumni spotlight is Elizabeth Kay, class of 2013. Elizabeth, who now works for the Stanford School of Medicine, shares how her SCU psychology major prepared her for a wide variety of careers. https://www.scu.edu//elizabeth-kay-13-worked-at-tesla-earn

Last week, Dr. Koopmann-Holm was interviewed by PsyPost, a psych and neuroscience news website, about her research on meditation and compassion. Find the article below! https://www.psypost.org//compassion-meditation-can-increas

This week, Professor Bell's Behavior Analysis (PSYC 140) class met the Santa Clara Police Department's K9 unit, and their trainers Spectrum Canine. Prof. Bell s...howed his students a practical application of the science, explaining that animal training is one possible career path for those studying behavior analysis. #LifeatSCU See more

Come de-stress and decorate some cookies! Today and tomorrow from 12:30 to 4:30. And don't forget to share your creations on social media with #psychedforcookies