The National Academy of Sciences has given John R. Andersonopens in new window, PhD, and Carol S. Dweck, PhD, its 2016 Atkinson Prizes in Psychological and Cognitive Sciences. Anderson, a professor of psychology at Carnegie Mellon University, is best known for his Adaptive Control of Thought model, a computational system that simulates human cognition using assumptions derived from psychological experiments. Dweck, a psychology professor at Stanford University, is best known for her work on how "fixed" versus "growth" mindsets can affect children's learning and social well being, as well as adults' prejudice, conflict resolution and willpower.
California State University San Marcos (CSUSM) has presented its Harry E. Brakebill Distinguished Professor Award to Sharon Hamill, PhD. The award honors teaching, leadership and community service and is the highest honor awarded by the university. Hamill is the faculty director of the CSU Institute for Palliative Care at CSUSM and conducts research on the emotional and psychological challenges faced by young caregivers. In her Psychology of Caregiving class, Hamill transforms her classroom into a nursing home and creates firsthand experiences for students to learn how to empathize with and care for older adults.
The Chicago Business Journal named Margo Jacquot, PsyD, one of 50 "Women of Influence" in its community. Jacquot is a clinical psychologist and the founder and director of the Juniper Center, a counseling and therapy center with 15 providers and five locations in the Chicago area that provides trauma recovery, addiction, sexuality and gender identity and couples and family therapy services.
Arthur F. Kramer, PhD, is the new senior vice provost for research at Northeastern University. His position starts May 2. Kramer is chair of neuroscience and psychology at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He also directs the university's Beckman Institute for Advanced Science and Technology, which includes 1,500 researchers across 50 departments and 11 colleges.
Tess Neal, PhD, assistant professor at Arizona State University, has won the 2016 Saleem Shah Award for Early Career Excellence in Psychology and Law, which is co-sponsored by the American Psychology-Law Society and the American Academy of Forensic Psychology. Neal's research focuses on how expert witnesses inform the decisions made by judges, lawyers and other members of the courts, and how the biases of forensic experts shape legal decisions.
University of Notre Dame associate professor Jessica Payne, PhD, has won the 2015 Psychonomic Society Early Career Award. It recognizes her research on how sleep and stress impact memory, creativity and the ability to process new ideas — in particular, how new information is processed, consolidated and transformed. Payne also studies how sleep and stress influence memory consolidation and brain functioning in people with major depressive disorder and anxiety disorders.
California State University has presented Nancy Segal, PhD, with its $20,000 Wang Family Excellence Award in the social and behavioral sciences and public service category. Segal is a world-renowned expert on twins who founded the university's Twin Studies Center. The center's research has led to a greater understanding of how genetics shape human behavior.
Geoffrey Woodman, PhD, has received a 2016 Troland Research Award from the National Academy of Sciences. Woodman is an associate professor of psychology at Vanderbilt University, where he studies visual attention and visual working memory in primates, including humans and monkeys. The NAS awards two $75,000 Troland research awards each year to recognize unusual achievement by young investigators in experimental psychology.