Department News
- Welcome this year (2020) to our new chair–Dan Ozer–and to new Visiting Assistant Professor of Psychology, Amanda Woodward!
- Welcome to newly arriving Psychology faculty on campus this year (2019), Professors Diamond Bravo, Anu Goel, Annie Ditta, and Aerika Loyd!
- Dr. Todd Little was presented the Alumni of the Year Award and presented at the annual Psychology Department Conference in September 2019. Stay tuned for the winner of the 2020 Alumni of the Year Award!
- UCR alum Dr. Julia Boehm (now an assistant professor at Chapman University) won the 2019 Early Career Award from the Social Personality Research Network.
- Dr. Carolyn Murray was awarded the 2018 Dr. William Montague Cobb award for special achievements in public health at the local level from the NAACP (July 2018). Dr. Murray also was presented the CHASS Civic Engagement Award (June 2018).
- In Melbourne, Australia, Dr. Sonja Lyubomirsky was awarded the Christopher J. Peterson Gold Medal (July 2019).
- Dr. Elizabeth Davis was honored with UCR’s Junior Excellence in Teaching Award (June 2018).
- Dr. Howard Friedman received a President’s Citation for Distinguished Service to the Western Psychological Association.
- Dr. Rebekah Richert received an American Psychological Association Division 36 Virginia Sexton Mentoring Award (2018).
- Dr. Kate Sweeny was awarded a Teresa and Byron Pollitt Endowed Term Chair (April 2018). (https://ucrtoday.ucr.edu/46461)
- The Brain Game Center established by Dr. Aaron Seitz held an Open House on March 22, 2017. (https://braingamecenter.ucr.edu/)
Newsletter
News Archive
- Dr. Michael Furr was presented was presented the Alumni of the Year Award and presented at the annual Psychology Department Workshop September 2018.
- Dr. Sonja Lyubomirsky was awarded the Society for Personality and Social Psychology Diener Award in Personality Psychology (2018) and the CHASS Research Lecturer Award (June 2018).
- Professor Judith Kroll has been elected by the prestigious American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) as Chair-Elect of the Section Linguistics & Language Science.
- Welcome to newly arriving Psychology faculty on campus this year (2018), Professor Jimmy Calanchini!
- Psychology faculty newly arriving on campus this year (2016) are Professors: Ilana Bennett, Brent Hughes, Judith Kroll, Kalina Michalska, David Rosenbaum, and Edward Zagha. Welcome!
- Associate Professor Kate Sweeny has received the 2015-16 UCR Chancellor’s Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Research Mentoring [given to a faculty member with a distinguished record of fostering undergraduate research or creative activity]
- Associate Professor Kate Sweeny is the 2016 recipient of the American Psychological Association’s (APA) Distinguished Scientific Award for an Early Career Contribution to Psychology (in Health Psychology).
- Assistant Professors Rachel Wu and John Franchak were named 2015 APS Rising Stars by the Association for Psychological Science, as were UCR PhDs Peggy Kern and Ryne Sherman.
- Assistant Professor Rachel Wu joined our faculty, summer 2015. Her research studies how attention and learning interact from infancy to aging adulthood when finding and learning relevant information.
- Assistant Professor Jon Willits joined our faculty, summer 2015. His research studies how people and machines learn languages and other forms of complex knowledge, especially meaning and semantic knowledge.
- Assistant Professor John Franchak joined our faculty, summer 2014. His research examines how people gather and use perceptual information to guide motor actions and engage in social interactions.
- Distinguished Professor Howard S. Friedman has received the UCR Faculty Research Lecturer Award for 2014-15. This is the highest honor that the campus bestows, selected each year by the Academic Senate.
- Distinguished Professor Robert Rosenthal has received the 2014 Mentor Award from the Association for Psychological Science, for mentoring many students who have gone on to become leading psychological scientists.
- Assistant Professor Cecilia Cheung joined our faculty, summer 2013. Her research examines how children’s environments shape their motivation and achievement in school (with a focus on the role of parents).
- Assistant Professor William Dunlop joined our faculty, summer 2013. His research examines the ways in which individuals make sense of themselves and their lives. Such sense-making efforts often manifest via the construction of a coherent and compelling life story.
- Assistant Professor Megan Robbins joined our faculty, summer 2013. Her research examines how people’s daily social interactions are related to their health and well-being. This includes the study of automatic behaviors in natural social contexts.
- Two UCR Psychology undergraduates, Insia Hirawala and Wun Huang were selected as Chancellor’s Research Fellows.
- Distinguished Professor David Funder has won the Doctoral Dissertation Advisor/Mentoring Award, awarded by the UCR Academic Senate (2013).
- Professor Steve Clark was appointed as director of the Robert Presley Center for Crime and Justice Studies at UCR, effective April 1, 2013.
- Chandra A. Reynolds, was conferred honorary doctor by the Jönköping University at the Jönköping Concert Hall, Elmia.
- Assistant Professor Weiwei Zhang has joined our faculty, effective July 2012. He studies fundamental questions of theoretical importance about perception, attention, and memory.
- Assistant Professor Liz Davis has joined our faculty, effective July 2012. She studies emotion development, emotion regulation, and individual differences in physiological functioning & social experience that relate to developmental psychopathology.
- Distinguished Professor Robert Rosenthal has been named the 2011 CHASS Distinguished Research Lecturer (College of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences)
- Distinguished Professor Howard Friedman has won the 2011 Elizabeth Hurlock Beckman Award for inspiring students to make a difference in the community (see http://newsroom.ucr.edu/2829)
- Assistant Professor Sara Mednick has joined our faculty, effective July 2011. She studies napping and the role of sleep in a variety of cognitive domains, such as creative problem solving, verbal memory, perceptual learning, object learning, and statistical learning.
- Read the New York Times review of The Longevity Project by Professor Howard Friedman and Dr. Leslie Martin here: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/19/science/19longevity.html. Further links to interviews about The Longevity Project are found either on Facebook https://www.facebook.com/pages/The-Longevity-Project/151456004873773 or at the book’s website http://www.howardsfriedman.com/longevityproject/
- Listen to Professor Tom Sy’s NPR (radio) interview about Asian-American leadership and charisma here: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=135513478
- UCR graduate student Julie Kang was selected to attend the UC Graduate Sacramento Day where she spoke to legislators about the importance of graduate students. Here is the article and video from that day: http://www.universityofcalifornia.edu/news/article/23664
- Assistant Professor Misaki Natsuaki has joined our faculty, effective 2009. She studies why emotional and behavioral problems increase during the transition from childhood to adolescence, and why some youths experience such difficulties while others do not.
- Distinguished Professor Robert Rosenthal was awarded the 2009 Lifetime Achievement award from the Western Psychological Association.
- Distinguished Professor Robert Rosenthal was elected to the American Academy of Arts & Sciences, one of the nation’s most prestigious honorary societies (established in 1780) and a center for independent policy research.
- Emeritus Professor Ross Parke has won the Distinguished Scientific Contribution to Child Development award, from the Society for Research in Child Development (SRCD) (2009).
- Distinguished Professor David Funder has won the Jack Block Award for Distinguished Contributions in Personality Psychology (awarded by the Society for Personality and Social Psychology) (2008).
- Professor Sonja Lyubomirsky’s paper “Achieving sustainable gains in happiness: Change your actions, not your circumstances” was selected as the best article published in the Journal of Happiness Studies in 2007.
- Assistant professor Aaron Seitz has joined our faculty effective July, 2008. He studies how the brain selectively adapts to important environmental changes.
- Assistant professor Kate Sweeny has joined our faculty effective July, 2008. She studies how people give news of, prepare for, and respond to negative life events.
- Distinguished Professor Robert Rosenthal was named a University Professor by the University of California Regents, a title reserved for scholars of exceptional international distinction who are also recognized as teachers of exceptional ability (2008).
- Prof. Veronica Benet-Martinez’s paper “Do bilinguals have two personalities?” was selected as the best article published in the Journal of Research in Personality in 2006.
- Distinguished Professor Howard Friedman has won the prestigious James McKeen Cattell Fellow Award from the Association for Psychological Science (APS) (2007-08), for outstanding contributions to the area of applied psychological research.
- Assistant professor Tom Sy has joined our faculty effective July, 2007. He studies management, emotional intelligence and contagion, and leadership development.
- Assistant professor Khaleel Razak has joined our faculty effective July, 2007. He studies the development of sensory processing, including echolocation in the pallid bat.
- Distinguished Professor Ross Parke has won UCR’s 5th annual Doctoral Dissertation Advisor/Mentoring Award (2007), praised by 18 UCR students who have completed Ph.D. dissertations under his direction.
- Assistant Professor Michael Erickson has won UCR’s Teaching Innovation Award (2006). UCR’s Academy of Distinguished Teaching found Mike to be especially capable of engaging even the largest lecture classes.
- Assistant professor Tuppett Yates has joined our faculty effective July, 2006. She conducts research on the developmental sequelae of child maltreatment, resilience, and self-injurious behavior.
- Assistant professor Ed Korzus has joined our faculty effective July, 2006. He studies the neural basis of cortical information processing, aiming to understand how neural circuits hold knowledge about the world and guide behavior.
- UCR Psychology Ph.D. Robert M. Kaplan has been named to the prestigious Institute of Medicine, of the National Academies of Science (elected 2005).
- Assistant professor Kelly Huffman has joined our faculty effective July 2005. She specializes in systems neuroscience, especially the mechanisms involved in neocortical development and how neocortical gene expression and alterations in sensory input regulate cortical plasticity.
- UCR Psychology grad Joan Tucker (Ph.D., 1993) has been selected for the Outstanding Young Researcher Award from the Western Psychological Association (2004). Joan concentrated in social and health psychology at UCR and now works as a researcher at the RAND Corporation.
- Assistant professor Rebekah Richert has joined our faculty effective July, 2005. She specializes in developmental psychology, especially children’s metaphysical thought, such as pretense, imagination, and religious beliefs.