Former lab manager, Lauren Foley, will attend the MGH Institute of Health Professions beginning this fall. She will pursue a Master of Science in Nursing to become a nurse practitioner. We thank Lauren for her hard work in the SPCL and wish her the best in her program!

Maureen Craig successfully defended her dissertation! After commencement, she will begin a postdoctoral fellowship in the Department of Psychology at the Ohio State University! She will join the labs of Drs. Kentaro Fujita and Lisa Libby.  In the postdoc, she will develop new collaborations that explore how construal level may influence intra-minority intergroup relations and how subjective perceptions of the "majority-minority" racial shift may influence perceived threat and related outcomes.

Alissa Mrazek, a third year doctoral student in the SPCL, was awarded a research grant from the Dispute Resolution Research Center (DRRC) at NU's Kellogg School of Management. Alissa will use the grant to fund continuing research investigating how motivational orientations interact with genetic variation to influence cooperation with minorities.

Maureen Craig's research on the effects of shifting racial demographics on White Americans' racial attitudes and political ideology is getting all sorts of media coverage! The paper on political ideology has been mentioned in the Huffington Post, by J. Bouie in Slate, by J. Chait in New York Magazine, as well as on Minnesota Public Radio News and All in with Chris Hays. Her work on racial attitudes has been covered in Pacific Standard.

Destiny Peery has accepted a Visiting Assistant Professor (VAP) position at Duke Law School.  This is a two-year position designed to support and mentor aspiring faculty. The VAP program selects only two individuals per year who demonstrate potential to obtain a tenure-track position at a top-tier institution.

Dorainne Levy, a second year doctoral student in the SPCL, was awarded a 2012 National Science Foundation (NSF) Graduate Research Fellowship.  The NSF selects graduate students based on outstanding abilities and past accomplishments, as well as potential to contribute to strengthening research in STEM fields.  Dorainne will use this award to further her current research on the affective, cognitive, behavioral, and health outcomes of contending with discrimination.

The Ford Foundation selects graduate students based on their scholarly competence as well as their potential for future achievement as a scholar, researcher, and teacher in an institution of higher education.  This award is meant to increase the number of professors who can and will use diversity as a resource for enriching the education of all students.

Maureen Craig's research proposal for the Time-sharing Experiments for the Social Sciences (TESS) program, titled "Is the Impending 'Majority-Minority' United States Seen as a System Threat to White Americans?", has been accepted to be fielded.  The TESS program, funded by NSF, fields social science experiments for investigators and pays for the cost to collect data from nationally-representative samples.

Dorainne Levy, a second year doctoral student in the SPCL, has received the Society for Personality and Social Psychology (SPSP) Diversity Travel Award.  The SPSP created this fund to increase diversity within personality and social psychology and award recipients are chosen on the basis of intellectual merit.  Dorainne will receive $500 to support her travel to attend the SPSP annual conference in San Diego, CA, which will be held January 26-28, 2012.

Meghan Bean has defended her dissertation and begun a post-doctoral position at the University of Arizona!  Good luck, Meghan!

Meghan Bean, Katie Rotella, and, Maureen Craig have each won a 2011 Society for Personality and Social Psychology (SPSP) Student Travel Award.

The Travel Award was awarded to 76 students for the purpose of presenting their research at the 2011 SPSP conference. Meghan will receive $500 to support her travel to this year's convention in San Antonio, Texas.

Maureen and Katie will each be presenting their posters, "Coalition or Derogation? How Reminders of Discrimination Influence Intraminority Intergroup Relations" and "Effects of Perceived Victimhood on Intergroup Trust and Loyalty".

Meghan will give a talk entitled "The Threat of Appearing Prejudice: External Motivation to Appear Non-Prejudiced and Race-Based Selective Attention" as part of the Visual Processing of Race Symposium.

This fall, the Society of Experimental Social Psychology (SESP) named the 2010 recipient of their Dissertation award and 2 finalists for the award. This very prestigious award confers membership into the society, which is typically reserved for social psychologists who are at least 5 years post-PhD and who have demonstrated "evidence of substantial contribution to social psychology as an empirical science; significant publication in recognized journals or books."

Paul Eastwick (PhD 09) and former SPCL graduate researcher, is the 2010 recipient of the SESP Dissertation Award.  Part of his dissertation is published in Psychological Bulletin, "Beyond the Pleistocene: Using phylogeny and constraint to inform the evolutionary psychology of human mating." Paul is currently an Assistant Professor at Texas A&M.

Evan Apfelbaum (PhD Tufts 09) and current SPCL Post-doctoral Fellow was selected as a finalist for the SESP Dissertation Award for his oustanding dissertation, "Negotiating Diversity: Developmental Emergence, Interpersonal Practice, and Intergroup Implications." He is currently at Northwestern working as a Visiting Assistant Professor of Management and Organizations and Post Doctoral Fellow at the Kellogg Team and Group Research Center.

Andrew Todd (PhD 09) received the 2010 Social Issues Dissertation Award’s second prize for his disseration, "Combating Contemporary Racial Biases: On the Virtues of Perspective Taking." The award is given by the Society for the Psychological Study of Social Issues (SPSSI) for dissertations that best demonstrate scientific excellence and potential application to social problems. Andrew is now working as a post-doctoral fellow at the Universität zu Köln in Germany.

Kristin Pauker (PhD Tufts 09) received the 2010 SPSSI Social Issues Disseration Award's first prize for her dissertation, "Not So Black and White: The Impact of Motivation on Memory for Racially Ambiguous Faces." Kristin worked with Professor Richeson as an undergrad at Dartmouth College. She is currently a post-doctoral fellow at Stanford University.

APA’s Science Directorate is pleased to announce its selection of Sarah Johnson, PhD as the incoming 2010-2011 APA Executive Branch Science Fellow. Johnson completed her PhD at Northwestern University and then moved on to do a post-doc at the University of Illinois at Chicago. She will spend her Fellowship year in the Office of Behavioral and Social Sciences Research at the National Institute of Health. She will join APA’s two Congressional Fellows in the year-long Washington, D.C.-based program APA runs under the umbrella of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS).

Maureen Craig, a 2nd year graduate student in the SPCL, was awarded a
2010 National Science Foundation (NSF) Graduate Research Fellowship. NSF selects graduate students based on past accomplishments and future potential for research in STEM disciplines. This fellowship was awarded based on Maureen's past and future research on "Intraminority Relations".

Katie Rotella, a 2nd year graduate student, received an Honorable Mention for her grant proposal entitled, "The social neuroscience of intergroup trust." The National Science Foundation (NSF) bestows this honor upon applicants who have submitted outstanding proposals and recognizes them for making a "significant academic achievement" on a national scale.

Former Lab members, Michelle Rheinschmidt, Deborah Son, and Jason Okonofua also received NSF honors. Michelle, currently a graduate student at UC Berkley, and Deborah, a graduate student at Princeton University, were awarded NSF Graduate Research Fellowships. While Jason, who is now a PhD student at Stanford University, received an Honorable Mention. Jason also earned Honorable Mention in the Ford Foundation Graduate Fellowship Competition.

Destiny Peery, a 4th year doctoral student in the SPCL, has won the 2010 - 2011 American Bar Foundation (ABF) Doctoral Fellowship in Law and Social Science. The fellowships are awarded to students conducting research that shows "promise of a major contribution to social scientific understanding of law and legal process."

Destiny aims to direct her disseration work at the question of how psychology and law interact to create, shape, and maintain the social category of race. It is through the lens of multiracialism and the current climate of confusion around how to categorize racially ambiguous or multiracial persons that provides an interesting way to examine this issue.

Maureen Craig, a 2nd year doctoral student in the SPCL, was awarded Runner-Up in the 2010 Student Poster Award Competition at the Society for Personality and Social Psychology (SPSP) conference held in Las Vegas, NV. SPSP gives out three awards each poster session--one First place award and two Runner-Up awards--to students whose poster presentations reflect excellence in research, clarity in presentation, and personal knowledge in a discussion with the judges. Maureen's poster was entitled, "Intraminority relations: Does the salience of historical disadvantage promote common categorization or outgroup derogation?"

Andrew Todd, a graduate researcher in the SPCL, has accepted a post-doctoral position in Cologne, Germany. He will work with Professor Thomas Mussweiler in the Department of Psychology at the University of Cologne. We wish Andy the best with his post-doctoral studies!

Katie Rotella and Michelle Rheinschmidt, both of the SPCL, were awarded Honorable Mention for their National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship Program proposals. The National Science Foundation (NSF) bestows this honor upon applicants who have submitted outstanding proposals and recognizes them for making a "significant academic achievement" on a national scale.

Katie Rotella, a 1st year graduate student, was given Honorable Mention for her grant proposal entitled, "Intergroup Trust: A Social Neuroscience Approach." Katie is co-advised by Professors Jennifer Richeson and Joan Chiao.

Michelle Rheinschmidt, Lab Manager for the SPCL, was given Honorable Mention for her grant proposal entitled, "Class-based rejection on campus: Implications for low-income students' achievement, well-being, and sense of belonging."

Meghan Bean, a 3rd year doctoral student in the SPCL, has won the 2009 American Psychological Association (APA) Student Travel Award, sponsored by the Science Directorate of the APA. The Travel Award program helps approximately 100 psychology graduate students travel to the annual APA Convention to present their research.  Meghan will receive $300 to support her travel to this year’s convention in Toronto, Canada, which will be held August 6th-9th.

Josie Menkin, an honors student in the SPCL, has received the Lois Elizabeth Henrikson Undergraduate Travel Award. These awards, given by the Northwestern Psychology Department, provide funding for undergraduate psychology students traveling to conferences to present their research. Josie will present her senior thesis project at the Stanford Undergraduate Psychology Conference (SUPC) on May 16, 2009. Upon graduation this June, Josie will begin a full-time lab manager position in the Life-span Development Laboratory of Dr. Laura Carstensen at Stanford University.

Sophie Trawalter, Ph.D., will be an Assistant Professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill beginning this July.  She has accepted a tenure-track faculty position in the Department of Psychology. We wish Sophie well in this next phase of her career!

Paul Eastwick, Ph.D., will join the faculty of Texas A & M University this summer.  He has accepted a tenure-track position in the Department of Psychology. Paul will be an Assistant Professor beginning July 1st.  We wish him the best in his new position and department!

Sarah Johnson, a graduate student in the SPCL, has been awarded the 2008 American Psychological Association Dissertation Research Award. Sarah was one of approximately 35 doctoral students in the field of psychology to receive this award.  Recipients receive $1,000 in grant funding to offset the costs of dissertation research. Sarah will apply this funding to her dissertation project, entitled "Middle Class and Marginal? The Influence of Socioeconomic Status on Self-Regulation at an Elite University."

Dorainne Levy, an undergraduate from Rice University in Houston, Texas, received a Summer Research Opportunities Program (SROP) Fellowship. She was awarded summer funding and a Research Assistant position in the Northwestern's Social Perception and Communication Lab. Her research will include examining the effects of race on perceptions of uniformed authority figures. She will also be analyzing videotaped data examining the relations between non-verbal behavior and blatant vs. subtle racial bias in interracial social interactions. In July, she will present a poster of her research to all of the SROP fellows across the Midwest at a conference at Michigan State University. Dorainne will also deliver an oral presentation of her final research findings to the SROP directors at Northwestern at the end of her summer fellowship.

Allison Mueller, a research assistant in the SPCL, received an Institute for Policy Research Summer Undergraduate Research Assistant Award. She has been awarded funding to conduct research over the summer in order to lay the foundation for her Advanced Independent Research Project for the 2008-2009 academic year. Her summer research will include working with graduate student Meghan Bean to investigate the effects of race on perceptions of uniformed authority figures. Allison will also be analyzing videotaped data related to individuals' social identities and self-presentation strategies.

Rachel Vaughn, a research assistant in the SPCL, has been awarded a Summer Undergraduate Research Grant (URG) by the Northwestern Office of Fellowships.  Summer URG recipients receive funding to offset living and research expenses while working full-time on their scholarly projects.  This summer, Rachel will be leading a project that addresses how different forms of prejudice (i.e., blatant and subtle) may differentially impact individuals from minority backgrounds.  She will also begin preparations for her honors thesis project that she will conduct in the SPCL as part of the Psychology Department's 2008-2009 Honors Program.  

Meghan Bean was given Honorable Mention by the National Science Foundation (NSF) for her grant proposal entitled, "Young, Black, and Male: Boundaries of the 'Black Male = Threat' Stereotype." The NSF bestows this honor upon applicants who have submitted outstanding proposals and recognizes them for making a "significant academic achievement" on a national scale.

In the November 2007 issue of the Observer, the Association for Psychological Science (APS) named Jennifer Richeson, Ph.D., a "Rising Star" in the field of psychology. This issue features an interview with Richeson, in which she reflects on the experiences that have drawn her into her current line of research. She acknowledges the mentors and colleagues who have contributed to the accomplishments that she has made in her early career.  Richeson offers advice to graduate students and others just beginning their careers in psychology.

* Download a PDF copy of the article by clicking here.

SPCL member Sophie Trawalter, Ph.D., has received a "Grants-in-Aid" Award from the Society for the Psychological Study of Social Issues (SPSSI). SPSSI is an association of psychologists and other scientists devoted to the application of psychological research to important social and policy issues. Sophie will apply this grant funding to her postdoctoral work on how students develop competencies for life in diverse environments.