2024 Psychological and Brain Sciences Newsletter
Message from the Chair
Department Spotlights
Faculty and Graduate Student Kudos
Alumni Class Notes
Message from the Chair
Greetings to all our alumni from the George Washington University Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences! I hope you will join me in celebrating the various successes that our department members have had over the past year. We continue to make our own the new building that we moved into in 2022. After a period of adjustment, the labs are fully functional and we are enjoying all the natural light that our new building affords us. We are continuing to teach more undergraduates than ever before, and we have more grant and foundation funding supporting our research than we have ever had in the past.
Some of our highlights from the last year include:
- We launched a new MS Program in Applied Psychology.
- Dr. Sherry Molock received the Carrie Singer Accelerator Grant (named after a GW alumna herself) to fund efforts in creating a supporting infrastructure to sustain a model of community-based suicide prevention. Dr. Molock’s project is entitled HAVEN (Helping Alleviate Valley Experiences Now).
- Dr. Stephen Mitroff and Dr. Dwight Kravitz have established a collaborative agreement between GW and the Army Research Labs, one of multiple cooperative agreements that have resulted from their ongoing collaboration over the past four years.
- Psychological and Brain Sciences’ grand total research expenditures for this year are an impressive $4,156,409 which is double what we spent last year!
- Three of our graduate students are supported by the prestigious National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the National Science Foundation (NSF) predoctoral grants: Kira Wegner-Clemens, Saskia Jorgensen and Lauryn Hoard.
- The Psi Chi National Psychology Honor Society flourished last year and inducted the most members ever! Our major continues to grow and more students than ever are engaged in undergraduate research!
To our alumni, we will contact you later about some fabulous alumni events that will be scheduled this year. I hope you have the opportunity to attend one of them and engage with fellow graduates.
Thank you so much for your support and involvement. Please stay in touch.
Sincerely,
Sarah Shomstein
Department Chair, Hunt Professor of Psychology
Department Spotlights
Collaborating to End the HIV Epidemic in DC
Faculty in the Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences are instrumental in the District of Columbia Center for AIDS Research (DC CFAR). This multi-institutional effort promotes and supports research that contributes to ending the HIV epidemic in D.C. and beyond. The work of this partnership of academic, governmental and community organizations includes significant efforts by 11 of our professors.
Addressing Maternal Distress During Pregnancy and Around Childbirth
Congratulations to Dr. Mimi Le on her new $4.2 million Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute (PCORI) grant on maternal mental health in collaboration with local colleagues! Dr. Le is the co-PI on this grant with local partners at Children’s Hospital. As part of the work of Professor Le’s Mothers and Babies: Mood and Health Research Program, this three-year project addresses maternal mental health disparities through integrated screening, prevention and treatment of maternal distress for African American perinatal women in the D.C. area. The program raises the question: In the United States and internationally, could mental health screening and services be integrated into primary care?
Department Kudos
- Professor Lisa Bowleg’s excellent research focusing on socio-structural inequalities such as racism, police brutality and health inequities was recognized with the 2021 Trachtenberg Prize for Faculty Scholarship (Research). She also received a $78,222 grant from NIH to study adolescent health at the intersections of sexual, gender, racial/ethnic, immigrant identities and native language.
- We applaud the mentoring and leadership of Professor Sarah Calabrese in 2024 resulting in two scholarly publications by her PhD students: first authors D.A. Kalwicz and X. Modrakovic and one by undergraduate team members, Y. Etami and M. A. Zaheer (and others) in the journal AIDS Patient Care and STDs.
- Dr. Ana Maria del Rio Gonzalez received a $1,049,087 grant from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for Juntas Adelante, a peer-coaching intervention program to promote the HIV-prevention drug chemoprophylaxis among Latina transgender women in the Washington, D.C.,-area.
- Cognitive neuroscience faculty Drs. Dwight Kravitz and Steve Mitroff published a timely editorial with Patricia Bauer in Psychological Science about doing science right even in times of a pandemic.
- Dr. Kravitz was also awarded a $723,275 grant from NSF to study the neural dynamics of memory maintenance.
- Dr. Huynh-Nhu Le received a $114,636 grant from MedStar Georgetown Hospital and the Clark Foundation for integrating mental health care in centering pregnancy.
- Congratulations to postdoctoral fellow Dr. Chang Liu on a new publication in Child Development, “Child Effects on Parental Negativity: The Role of Heritable and Prenatal Factors.” Clinical program faculty member Dr. Jody Ganiban is a co-author.
- Chang Liu also received a $135,276 grant from NIH to identify dynamic change processes in growth trajectories from infancy to early adolescence.
- Professor Paul Poppen was recognized by GW with a Golden Award for 50 years of service!
- Congratulations to Professor Gabriella Rosenblau for bring selected by the Heidelberg Alliance Germany as part of their ongoing program for the international exchange for scientists in the health and life sciences.
- Dr. Sarah Shomstein was featured in an article in Quanta Magazine on aphantasia. It was fairly recently that Professor Shomstein was shocked to discover that she lacks mental imagery. She can imagine many things, such as the smell of an apple, but not its image. Very interesting area of research!
- Dr. Michelle Stock received a GW COVID-19 Research Fund award to explore how the mental and physical health of Black young adults in Washington, D.C., is impacted by coronavirus-related stressors.
- Congratulations to Applied Social Psychology (ASP) graduate students Kate AuBuchon and Jonah Kracke-Bock on their paper, “Abstaining College Students' Motives to Use E-Cigarettes” that has been accepted for publication by the Journal of Studies on Alcohol and Drugs. ASP faculty members Drs. Tonya Dodge and Michelle Stock were co-authors.
- Aubuchon also received a $1,500 grant from Psi Chi for the project “I Don’t ‘Like’ Your Politics: The Impacts of Political Exclusion on Group Attitudes and Voting.”
- Our top-notch incoming class of doctoral students includes two students supported as prestigious Columbian Fellows. Luke Herchenroeder will explore social influences on substance use. Rebekah Hardy will address questions in language and neuroscience. She was attracted to our department by the collaborations among faculty.
- Current doctoral student Mary Mbaba was inducted into the national Edward Alexander Bouchet Honor Society which recognizes diversity and excellence in doctoral education.
- Doctoral student Ben Parchem and Dr. Sherry Molock published a timely article examining the impact of COVID on college students from communities of color! It was Ben’s first-authored publication, “Perceptions of power and sexual pleasure associated with sexual behaviour profiles among Latino sexual minority men.” His co-authors include several clinical and applied social alums and faculty.
- Clinical alumnus Dr. Devin English and GW faculty Drs. Sharon Lambert, Lisa Bowleg, Maria Cecilia Zea and Lionel Howard along with USC faculty Dr. Brendesha Tynes recently published a paper in the Journal of Applied Developmental Psychology: “Daily multidimensional racial discrimination among Black U.S. American adolescents.” This paper was covered in Time magazine and The New York Times.
Alumni Class Notes
Katarina AuBuchon, PhD ’23, is a T32 postdoc at Georgetown’s Lombardi Comprehensive Cancer Center where she researches inequities in cancer symptom management and screening and how provider/system level interventions can narrow these inequities.
Jason Comer, BA ’94, is a medical oncologist with an interest in lung cancer at the Fred Hutch Cancer Center in Seattle, Wash.
Patrick Cox, BA ’12, was awarded a $59,446 grant from the U.S. Army Medical Research and Materiel Command for a project on quantifying how eyesight is distracted by similar-seeming objects during complex visual searches.
Amir Faghfoory, MS ’04, works as a psychiatrist, providing psychiatric medication management and psychotherapy to individuals in different parts of the United States, both in-person and virtually.
Luis Garcia, PhD ’10, is a faculty member in the Health Science Program at Stockton University in Galloway, N.J. He was a founding member of the program and former chair.
Yael Gatenio, BA '94, is a practicing optometrist.
Jada Gibson, BA ’22, is in her final year of receiving her master’s degree in counseling at Johns Hopkins University and on track to be a therapist.
Donavan Hoffman, BA ’24, is pursuing a doctoral degree in clinical psychology at Northern Illinois University.
Jose Rey Antonio Lesaca, BA ’15, serves as associate chief counsel at the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and was recently recognized with an Outstanding Service Award for his efforts in advising the FDA on a number of novel and complex legal issues.
Prudence Lindbergh, BA ’23, is working on her undergraduate Luther Rice Fellowship while earning a master’s in social and behavioral epidemiology at Georgetown University.
Shaelyn McCarthy, BA ’23, is an HR rotational associate for Fidelity Investments in Boston, Mass. She is also a part-time group fitness instructor at F45 Training.
Stefanie Reeves, BA ’95, is the deputy chief of public policy and engagement for the American Psychological Association. A Fellow of the American Society of Association Executives, she recently received their 2024 Professional Performance Award.
Samantha Runyon, BA ’20, is a corporate event planner for Aya Healthcare and a special operations/harm reduction team member for Insomniac Events. She resides in her hometown of San Diego, Calif.
Georgia Turpin, BA ’23, serves as an Air Force intelligence officer at the 31st Fighter Wing at Aviano Air Base in Italy. She is also pursuing her master's degree in public policy at Northwestern University.
John Venezia, BA ’18, is a licensed social worker in Maryland working on the psychiatric units at a regional hospital.