Robert Levenson is the 2009-2010 winner of the Psychological Sciences Distinguished Alumnus Award. Bob received his Ph.D. from the Arts and Science Psychology Department in 1974. Since leaving Vanderbilt, he has held academic positions at Indiana University (from 1974-1986) and the University of California, Berkeley (1986-present). During this thirty-five year period, Bob has attained a position of eminence in the field. He is well known for his seminal contributions to emotion research. Earlier studies focused on the question of whether there are unique patterns of autonomic activity associated with the experience and facial expression of discrete emotions. More recent work has focused on the physiological correlates and consequences of emotion regulation. Bob has also begun examining the neural substrates of emotional regulation by studying patients with fronto-temporal dysfunction. He has also done ground-breaking collaborative work with John Gottman on the physiological concommitants and predictors of marital satisfaction and outcomes. Bob is a past president of the Society for Psychophysiological Research and of the American Psychological Society and he is currently the Director of the Institute of Personality and Social Research at Berkeley. Among his many contributions to the field, he has mentored several generations of emotion researchers.

Alumnus Tim Vickery wins 2009 Best Article Award from the Psychonomic Society Congratulations to Tim Vickery for winning a 2009 Best Article Award from the Psychonomic Society. His article with Yuhong Jiang entitled "Associative grouping: Perceptual grouping of shapes by association" appeared in the journal Attention, Perception, & Psychophysics. Tim earned his undergraduate degree in Psychology and Computer Science at Vanderbilt in 2002 and continued as a research assistant at Vanderbilt in the Blake, Gauthier, and Palmeri laboratories before going on to graduate school. In 2008, Tim earned his PhD in Psychology from Harvard University with Yuhong Jiang and is currently a postdoctoral fellow at Yale University with Marvin Chun.

Dr. Gauthier's method of soliciting questions from her class and using the "clicker" to obtain students' responses in real time was featured on a report on NewsChannel 5's Nov. 11 nightly news broadcast.

From the Adventure Science Center: In anticipation of a new three-part series airing on NPT in January 2010, the Adventure Science Center is tackling the issue of what is it that makes us "human." On November 19, Jon Kaas will explore such aspects of the human experience as language, morality and the ability to create and use complex tools.

Congratulations to Yetta Wong for winning a $2000 Dissertation Enhancement Award from the Vanderbilt University Graduate School. She will use the award to learn how to apply Independent Components Analyses (ICA) to her proposed research using Evoked Response Potentials (ERPs).

Tom Armstrong has been selected as one of three winners of the 2009 ABCT Elsie Ramos Memorial Student Research Award for his poster entitled "Selective Attention in Contamination-Based OCD: Eye Tracking of Affective Content and Time Course." He will receive his award in November in New York.

Bunmi Olatunji won the President's New Researcher Award from the Association for Behavioral and Cognitive Therapy (ABCT). Last year he won an Early Career Award from ABCT from the Anxiety Disorders Special Interest Group. This award is ABCT-wide and a testimony to the broad influence of Bunmi's work. Congratuations, Bunmi, on a great and well-deserved honor.

At the Fall Faculty Assembly, Gordon Logan, Tom Palmeri, and Jeff Schall were awarded a Chancellor's Award for Research for the theoretical and empirical work summarized in their wonderful 2007 Psychological Review paper. Their research has combined behavioral, electrophysiological, and computational methods to test and refine alternative models of the inhibitory control processes that are recruited during the stop-signal paradigm. It is very important to acknowledge additionally Leanne Boucher, who clearly has played a very central role in this line of work. Leanne would also be a co-winner of this award were it not for the restriction that only tenure-track and tenured faculty can be nominated for Chancellor's Awards. We congratulate and celebrate all four of our colleagues, who have conducted a line of work that stands as a model for interdiscplinary research in the areas of cognitive science and cognitive neuroscience.

Peiyan Wong received the Cortical Scholar award from the Cajal Club for her PhD research. She receives $1000 plus travel expenses to the Society for Neuroscience meeting where she will accept the award at the Cajal Club Meeting.

Congratulations to Melonie Williams for winning a National Science Foundation (NSF) Graduate Research Fellowship (GRF) award. This award provides a $30,000 12-month stipend for three years.

Isabel Gauthier has officially been promoted to the rank of full Professor, an honor that reflects her influential body of work in visual object recognition. Bill Smith has also been recognized as an emeritus professor of psychology for his decades of excellent work in social psychology. Congratulations to you both!

Mike Mack wins a $500 travel grant from the Cognitive Science Society to its next meeting in Amsterdam this July. He will present a paper entitled “Recognizing Scenes Containing Consistent or Inconsistent Objects.” Congratulations Mike.

The Pat Burns Memorial Graduate Student Research Award – established by the Department of Psychology to recognize outstanding achievement in research Co-Winners: Peiyan Wong and Stephenie Harrison

The William F. Hodges Teaching Assistant Award – established by family and friends of William F. Hodges to honor outstanding teaching assistants in the Department of Psychology Co-Winners: Christina Cerkevich and Daryl Fougnie

The Jum C. Nunnally Research Award - established by friends and family of Jum Nunnally to recognize the most outstanding undergraduate honors project in the Department of Psychology. Winner : Kara Brooke Grubb

Congratulations to Peiyan Wong and Stephenie Harrison as joint winners of The Pat Burns Memorial Graduate Student Research Award. Pat Burns touched generations of doctoral students during her nearly four decades of service to Vanderbilt University. In memory of her tireless efforts to help guide our students through all phases of their graduate education, the Department of Psychology established this award to recognize outstanding achievement in research by our graduate students. The recipients each received a $250 award.

Congratulations to Charissa Andreotti on winning a fellowship from the National Science Foundation. The Graduate Research Fellowship Program (GRFP) from NSF offers our nation's research leaders of tomorrow exceptional funding with 3 years of graduate support ($30,000 annual stipend, $10,500 cost-of-education allowance, $1,000 one time international travel allowance, TeraGrid Supercomputer access).

Chai-Youn Kim, an outstanding graduate of our program, has been identified as a "rising star" by the American Psychological Society. See link to APA Observer: http://www.psychologicalscience.org/observer/getArticle.cfm?id=2496

David Lyon is this year's winner of the Randolph Blake Early Career Award. This award recognizes exemplary alumni of the program in Psychological Sciences in the early stages of their career.

The team of Laura Novick, PhD (Department of Psychology and Human Development) and Kefyn Catley were awarded an IES grant to (a) study college and high school students' understanding of tree diagrams that depict evolutionary relationships among taxa (particularly cladograms) and (b) develop curriculum to teach tree-thinking skills to both high school and college biology students.

Congratulations to Shelly Ball (Psychology and Human Development) who received a dissertation enhancement grant.

The Lisa M. Quesenberry Foundation was established by Irvin and Mary Ann Quesenberry and Kathryn Quesenberry to memorialize the accomplishments of their daughter and sister, Lisa M. Quesenberry. It is designed to provide research or study awards to motivated graduate students. Preferably, the awards will be made to female graduate students who are studying the field of psychology and who have overcome significant personal challenges to pursue their education. Congratulations Christina!

At the meeting of the faculty of the College of Arts and Sciences on December 10, Jon Kaas won the prestigious College of Arts and Science Graduate Mentoring Award. Congratulations to Jon for this recognition of his decades of excellence in graduate mentoring!

Erin Rodriguez wins NRSA fellowship. Erin's project, "Communication, Coping and Executive Function in Children with Cancer" was selected for funding by the National Cancer Institute (Bruce Compas is her mentor on this grant). She joins recent Peabody Psychology NRSA winners, Kristin Reeslund (National Institute of Mental Health; NIMH; Bruce Compas, mentor), Amy Folmer (NIMH; David Cole, mentor), Julia Felton (NIMH; David Cole, mentor), and Elizabeth Malesa (National Insitute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders; Teddi Walden, mentor) (2007), Lynette Dufton (NIMH; Bruce Compas, mentor) (2005), and Sarah Jaser (NIMH; Bruce Compas, mentor) (2003).

Congratulations to Margarita Lorence for receiving a highly competitive NRSA (National Research Service Award) from NIDDKD entitled "The cognition of disinhibition: Pathway to obesity prevention". This fellowship will cover three years of Margarita's graduate work at Vanderbilt with David Schlundt. Congratulations, Margarita!

Congratulations to Katy Thakkar for receiving a highly competitive NRSA (National Research Service Award) from NIMH entitled "Control of action in schizophrenia: Countermanding saccades and ERP". This fellowship will cover three years of Katy's graduate work at Vanderbilt with Sohee Park and Jeff Schall. Congratulations, Katy!

At the fall faculty assembly on August 26, three of our faculty were honored for their research and service to Vanderbilt Frank Tong won a Chancellor's Award for his ground-breaking research on neural decoding. Randolph Blake won the Jefferson Award for his notable and varied contributions to the government and counsels of the University. Tim McNamara was recognized for his 25 continuous years of service at Vanderbilt.

In recognition of his outstanding research in the area of anxiety disorders, Bunmi Olatunji is the 2008 recipient of the Early Career Award from the Anxiety Special Interest Group of the Association for Behavioral and Cognitive Therapy. Way to go, Bunmi!

Richard McCarty, a distinguished psychologist who has led the largest school at Vanderbilt University for the past seven years, will be presented to the Vanderbilt Board of Trust next week for confirmation as the university’s chief academic officer.

The Dissertation Enhancement Review Committee has awarded Jejoong Kim a DEG in the amount of $2,000 for dissertation research. Congratulations!

The Dissertation Enhancement Review Committee has awarded Peiyan Wong a DEG in the amount of $2,000 for dissertation research. Congratulations!

Josh Buckholtz, a Neuroscience graduate student, has just been awarded the first-ever graduate student prize for outstanding research in Neuroeconomics by the Claremont Graduate University's Center for Neuroeconomic Studies. Josh was awarded the prize for his paper "The Neural Basis of Legal Decision-Making." Josh worked with Rene Marois, David Zald, Chris Asplund, Paul Duxe, John Gore, and Owen Jones on this project.

Katy Thakkar received a ThinkSwiss Research Scholarship awarded by the Swiss Federal government to work on a collaborative project in the summer at the Neurology clinic of the University of Zurich. She will be examining mental rotation in patients with focal lesions and if possible, examine patients who experience out-of-body phenomenon with Dr. Peter Brugger's group.

The Department of Psychology and Human Development is delighted beyond measure to announce that Georgene Troseth has received tenure and promotion to Associate Professor in the department. Congratulations to Georgene on a superb accomplishment!!

Research by Leanne Boucher, Thomas Palmeri, Gordon Logan, and Jeff Schall appears in Psychological Review.

To honor his contributions to the treatment and primary prevention of depression, Steve Hollon received the Alexander Heard Distinguished Service Professor Award from Vanderbilt. This award recognized his role in demonstrating the long-term efficacy of cognitive therapy for depression, and for his contributions to the professional community through his training of numerous cognitive-behavioral therapists in the greater Nashville area.

René Marois's research with Paul Dux, Jason Ivanoff, and Christopher Asplund was highlighted on the front page of the March 25th edition of the New York Times. Their work elucidates the neural mechanisms underlying the information processing bottleneck that occurs when attempting to perform multiple tasks simultaneously.

Seventy-six million dollars in grants. Fifty-two research projects. One hundred investigators. Three national research centers. These are just some of the accomplishments the Learning Sciences Institute has racked up since its launch in 2003.

The graduate program in Neuroscience at Vanderbilt has been ranked # 2 in the country for Faculty Scholarly Index, which is a a composite measure published by the Chronicle of Higher Education. This is a testimony to the high quality, impact, and visibility of the work conducted by Neuroscience faculty, graduate students, post-docs, and other laboratory members at Vanderbilt --- a number of whom are affiliated with the Department of Psychology.

The Student Affairs Committee of the Graduate Faculty Council has awarded Jeff Nyquist a Dissertation Enhancement Grant in the amount of $2000. Congratulations!

Randolph Blake, Centennial Professor in the Department of Psychology, has received the College of Arts and Science Graduate Mentoring Award. This award is given annually to a faculty member who has served as an exemplary mentor to graduate students -- and in Randolph's case is definitely well-deserved. Congratulations!