Congratulations to Professor Lisa Feldman Barrett, who was recently appointed University Distinguished Professor, and was recognized at this year’s Academic Honors Convocation! Prof. Barrett also spoke at the event, reflecting on her own educational journey and on the dynamic nature of modern psychology. The Academic Honors Convocation was covered by News @ Northeastern; click here [...]
Congratulations to Prof. Iris Berent, who gave an invited talk at the University of Oxford earlier this month! Professor Berent’s talk, entitled “What is impaired: Phonology or phonetics?”, was given as part of the third Oxford-Kobe Symposium, an event focused on the neurobiology and treatment of dyslexia. Prof. Berent’s research, which was featured earlier this [...]
Congratulations to our undergraduate psychology students who presented their research projects at RISE this year! RISE, which stands for Research, Innovation, and Scholarship Expo, is put on each year by the University’s Center for Research Innovation, to showcase the breadth and depth of innovative thinking at Northeastern. It is open to the full Northeastern community, [...]
Two of our Psychology Department faculty members, Prof. Dave DeSteno and Prof. Iris Berent, were featured last week on News@Northeastern! On Tuesday, April 3, News @ Northeastern ran an article about Prof. DeSteno’s research into meditation and its social implications, with particular emphasis on its impact on compassion, as demonstrated by a study run by [...]
Congratulations to our second-year graduate students, who presented their Master’s theses at the Department’s annual Master’s Convention, this Friday, March 22nd! The following are the titles of the papers that were presented this year, along with their abstracts: Does Displaying Visual Information in Depth Improve Iconic Memory?, Quan Lei Adolescent anabolic steroids: Exposure, withdrawal, and [...]
Last month, members of our department’s Personality and Social area group traveled to New Orleans to attend the 14th annual meeting of the Society for Personality and Social Psychology. Mollie Ruben, one of our graduate students working under Professor Judith Hall, was chosen as a recipient of SPSP’s Diversity Fund Travel Award, which helped to [...]
Professor David DeSteno was featured on Friday’s Katie Couric Show, in a segment on why people cheat, in the wake of the Lance Armstrong scandal. Congratulations, Prof. DeSteno!
The department is happy to announce that our own Professor Iris Berent is set to release a new book, “The Phonological Mind,” published by Cambridge University Press. Prof. Berent’s book, which takes an interdisciplinary approach to the study of phonology, has already received a number of impressive reviews, and will be available for purchase starting [...]
Professor Lisa Feldman Barrett was featured in an article in the Financial Times this week! The article, entitled “Cerebral Circuitry,” discusses the possibility that gadgets are changing the way our brains work, particularly with regard to emotions and human interactions. To read the article, click here.
InSolution, Northeastern University’s research blog, has recently published a post about our own Professor John Coley’s research on the importance of early interaction with nature, including his article published in Child Development, entitled “Where the Wild Things Are: Informal Experience and Ecological Reasoning.” (more…)
For the past eight years, inspired by her daughter Sophia, Professor Lisa Feldman Barrett has put on the ultimate haunted house to raise money for a local food bank. This October, her haunted house was featured in Science magazine! To learn more about the haunted house, visit its website!
Gwyn Buell, our much beloved Psychology Department secretary, retired at the end of September, after 33 invaluable years of service. We’re sad to see her go, but incredibly grateful for her contributions to the department over the past three plus decades! This week, a special luncheon was held in her honor. See below for pictures [...]
We are pleased to announce that Dr. Neal Pearlmutter has been appointed Director of the Linguistics Program, starting Fall 2012. Professor Pearlmutter is a member of the Cognition Area in the Department of Psychology and currently serves as advisor for Combined Majors in Computer Science, Information Science, ASL, and Linguistics. For more information about the [...]
Congratulations to the second year Psychology Graduate Students for successfully completing their Masters’ presentations! Each student presented a talk on their current research to department faculty, fellow graduate students and guests. Great job everyone! To read the abstracts of each graduate student presenter, click on the name below. Eric Anderson Leah Dickens Jeff Nador Devin [...]
On Wednesday, May 2, the Department of Psychology hosted the first annual Symposium for Boston-Area Graduate Students in Psychology. Graduate students in psychology, cognitive science, and related fields met to discuss their research at a poster session in the Curry Center Ballroom. There was a great turnout, with more than 60 students from Northeastern, Boston [...]
Dr. Yury Petrov and graduate student Jiehui Qian were featured on the website NewScientist. They created a new visual illusion, called the Star Trek illusion, in which white dots and their shadows appear to change in contrast, grow and shrink in size and vary in depth. However, none of these actions are actually happening. Instead, [...]
The Department of Psychology and the College of Science were pleased to co-sponsor “The Human Capacity for Language: Nature, Origins and Use,” an interdisciplinary symposium. Organized by Dr. Iris Berent, the symposium featured internationally-renowned scholars Simon Fisher, Steven Pinker, and Albert Galaburda.
Dr. David DeSteno spoke at the Coolidge Corner Theatre’s “Science on Screen” program on Monday, February 20th . He discussed the science behind surprising shifts in human morality prior to the screening of Woody Allen’s 1989 comedy-drama Crimes and Misdemeanors. For more information about the his “Science on Screen” talk, click here.
The faculty, staff, and students of the Department of Psychology congratulate Dr. Harlan Lane, Matthews Distinguished University Professor, on receiving the George Veditz Award. This much deserved award was presented by the Massachusetts State Association of the Deaf to recognize Dr. Lane’s “long-time commitment to preserving ASL by educating others, increasing awareness of Deaf culture nationally [...]
Alaa and Dalal Alhomaizi, twin sisters from Kuwait created SPEAK, an organization whose mission is to overcome the stigma attached to mental illness in the Middle East. The Psychology majors were interviewed by Northeastern News, read the article here.
Congratulations to graduate student Xu Zhao who presented a poster at Boston University’s 36th annual Conference on Language Development (BUCLD 36). Her topic was “Are markedness constraints universal? Evidence from Mandarin Chinese speakers.” Xu is a graduate student in the department’s Phonology and Reading Lab, directed by Dr. Iris Berent. Xu’s area of research focuses [...]
PRISM is a program funded by the National Science Foundation to attract and retain students in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) majors at Northeastern University. The Department of Psychology is actively involved in PRISM’s mission. In the fall, Distinguished Professor of Psychology Lisa Feldman Barrett presented a talk through PRISM titled “Understanding the Nature [...]
The College of Science kicked off their Colloquium series with a talk by Distinguished Professor of Psychology Dr. Lisa Feldman Barrett, Director of the Interdisciplinary Affective Science Laboratory (IASL). Dr. Barrett presented a talk entitled “How the Brain Creates the Mind.” The talk took place at the Raytheon Amphitheater on November 17th.
Recently featured in the Boston Globe, Dr. David DeSteno, Associate Professor of Psychology, describes the psychological factors that can warp our judgments of other people. Click here to read the entire article.
Iris Berent, Professor of Psychology, was recently featured on Northeastern University’s YouTube channel. Click here and watch Professor Berent describe how people identify sounds as speech.
Lisa Feldman Barrett, Distinguished Professor of Psychology, will be speaking at PRISM, an interdisciplinary program to promote interest in Mathematics, Physics, Biology and the sciences among college and high-school students. Professor Barrett’s talk, entitled “Understanding the Nature of Emotion” is scheduled for Friday, September 30th at 12:00pm, in 210 SH. For more information about PRISM, click here.
The Psychology Department has a tenure-track position available in the area of behavioral neuroscience. For details on the position, please click here.
Randy Colvin, Associate Professor of Psychology, assesses the psychological impact of man-made and natural disasters. Read the article here.
The first College of Science Co-op Expo is scheduled for October 6, 2011, from 2-5 pm in the Curry Student Center Ballroom. This event will provide COS students with an opportunity to share what they have learned on their Co-op with faculty, administrators, and COS freshmen who have been invited to the event. Students in [...]
Professor Judy Hall spent two weeks in Princeton, New Jersey as a faculty member in the Social Psychology Summer Institute, sponsored by the National Science Foundation and Princeton University. This two-week intensive set of courses attracts outstanding graduate students from around the country (and the world) to immerse themselves in current topics of interest to [...]
Congratulations to Dr. Emily Fox-Kales on the publication of her new book about Hollywood celebrities and the culture of eating disorders titled, “Body Shots.” Dr. Fox-Kales discusses how body conscious and weight-obsessed celebrities are dangerous role models for young moviegoers. For over thirty years, Dr. Fox-Kales has helped people who suffer from body image disturbances as a clinical psychologist [...]
Jolie Baumann, doctoral candidate in social psychology, was recently interviewed by the Northeastern News about her research demonstrating the influence of emotion states on threat detection. To read Jolie’s comments and learn more about her interesting research, click here.
Dr. David DeSteno’s new book explores virtue and vice, and provides a new perspective on “character.” The book is titled, ”Out of Character: Surprising Truths About the Liar, Cheat, Sinner (and Saint) Lurking in All of Us” and should be on everyone’s reading list. Dr. DeSteno is associate professor of psychology and director of the Social [...]
Congratulations Class of 2011! We are proud of your achievements. Many of our talented students are headed to graduate school. Here is a partial list of our recent graduates and the programs they will be attending in the fall. Best wishes to the Class of 2011!
Several members of the Psychology department were recently honored at the 2011 Convocation Ceremony. Psychology Professor Judith Hall, pictured above, was awarded the honor of University Professor. Recognition as a University Professor is one of the highest honors the university can bestow on a faculty member at Northeastern. Dr. Hall was one of three faculty [...]
Congratulations to Dr. Judy Hall who was recently named a University Professor! Recognition as a University Professor is one of the highest honors the university can bestow on a faculty member at Northeastern. This is a major accomplishment and a great honor – congratulations Professor Hall!
Congratulations to Jolie Baumann, on being the chosen recipient of the 2011 Outstanding Graduate Student Research Award in Humanities, Social and Behavioral Sciences. Jolie is a third year graduate student, working toward a Ph.D in Social Psychology with Professor Dave DeSteno. This is one of six university-wide graduate awards for research, teaching, and community service presented [...]
Harlan Lane, Distinguished Professor of Psychology, has coauthored a new book on Deaf Culture, “The People of the Eye: Deaf Ethnicity and Ancestry.” One of the founders of Northeastern’s ASL program, Lane highlights that sign-language users have many of the characteristics of a distinct ethnic group. Click here for the full article.
Randy Colvin, Associate Professor of Psychology at Northeastern, assesses how overnight fame, mega success and good fortune affect behavior. Read the article here.
Lisa Feldman Barrett, Distinguished Professor of Psychology, and colleagues evaluated the brain structures of 58 participants using MRI scans. Results indicated that amygdala volume was positively correlated with participants’ reports of the size and complexity of their social networks. Click for more details.
Congratulations to graduate student Jolie Baumann and her advisor David DeSteno. Their research on emotion and threat detection was highlighted in a recent article in the Wall Street Journal. Participants induced to feel anger, compared to participants induced to feel a different emotion, were more likely to misidentify neutral objects, such as a wallet or [...]
Congratulations to Professor Judith Hall and Doctoral Student Danielle Blanch-Hartigan of the Psychology Department for their significant contributions to the International Conference on Communication in Healthcare held in Verona, Italy. Professor Hall presented a keynote address entitled “Clinicians’ Accuracy in Perceiving Patients: Toward an Integrative Approach to Communication Skill.” Danielle Blanch-Hartigan chaired a symposium entitled [...]
Michelle Israel, who guided hundreds of psychology students through successful Cooperative Education experiences, is leaving the Psychology Department to take on her next challenge as Head Co-op advisor for Behavioral Neuroscience. Faculty and staff will miss seeing you and your beautiful office. Students will miss your humor, guidance, and caring. We wish you much success [...]
The Psychology Department is pleased to invite applications for two tenure-track positions at the Assistant Professor level in the emerging field of affective science. We seek a social psychologist whose research is at the intersection of emotion and social psychology. We also seek a behavioral neuroscientist whose research focuses on the mechanisms underlying affective and [...]
On July 1, 2010 the Department of Psychology joined the College of Science. Founding Dean J. Murray Gibson will guide the new college. For more information visit the College of Science website.
Congratulations to Dr. David DeSteno for being selected Editor of Emotion, the prestigious journal published by the American Psychological Association. Professor DeSteno will start accepting manuscripts in 2011 as incoming editor and take the helm as Editor in 2012. We wish Dave the very best.
Congratulations to Jennelle Yopchick and her advisor Nancy Kim for receiving “The Society for Personality and Social Psychology Best Poster Award for 2010” titled “Causal Reasoning and Hindsight Bias.” This is quite an honor. Jennelle’s poster was one of seven that received the “Best” honor from over 2,000 posters presented at the annual conference held [...]
Congratulations to Danielle Blanch, pictured with Vice Provost Luis Falcon. Danielle was awarded the Outstanding Graduate Student Award in Research in the Humanities, Social, and Behavioral Sciences. This is one of six university-wide graduate awards for research, teaching, and community service presented annually by the Graduate and Professional Student Association (GPSA) and the Office of [...]
Dr. Judith Hall and Dr. Amy Ship of Harvard Medical School have received the prestigious Stemmler Award from the National Board of Medical Examiners. The two-year award is to conduct innovative research designed to contribute to the health of the public through state of the art assessment of health professionals. Drs. Hall and Ship will [...]