News

Jaelyn Nixon, first-year student in the joint Public Policy and Psychology PhD program, and member of the Duke Identity & Diversity Lab has been awarded the 2020-2021 Dean's Graduate Fellowship. Broadly, Nixon's research aspirations are motivated by the desire to reduce social injustices. She is particularly interested in the covert ways that discriminatory practices evolve and produce consequences (in terms of incarceration, education, health, & wealth… read more about Jaelyn Nixon, first-year Ph.D. student, awarded Dean's Graduate Fellowship »

Max Elliott, clinical psychology PhD student working with Ahmad Hariri and the Moffitt & Caspi lab, has received a prestigious F99/K00 Transition to Aging grant from the National Institutes of Health. The award was created with the objective to increase, retain, and diversify the pool of trainees in aging and geriatric research.  Max is interested in further understanding the structure of mental illness through investigating the interacting relationships between genes… read more about PhD student Max Elliot receives Transition to Aging Research Award for Predoctoral Students (F99/K00) »

Elsa Friis, a graduate student in clinical psychology, has been awarded the Richard W. Morrell Community Commitment and Advocacy Award by Emory University - Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Medicine for her critical work during her clinical internship. This award is periodically given to a trainee or faculty member who best demonstrates the spirit and action of commitment to community. Friis is recognized for her advocacy work including the… read more about Graduate student Elsa Friis receives award for advocacy work, co-authors article on pandemic response behavioral health  »

With generous support from The Charles Lafitte Foundation, the recently-formed P&N Task Force on Diversity, Inclusion, and Climate is assisting the department with redirecting funds previously designated for (now-prohibited) travel toward support for small and large graduate and postdoctoral research projects related to identity, diversity, inclusion, equity, and thriving. The Task Force crafted a special call to highlight the wide range of research topics that would… read more about P&N graduate students awarded funding for psychological research related to identity, diversity, inclusion, equity, and thriving »

Everyone Is Talking About Race Right Now. But How And For How Long? By Stacia Brown & Anta Rao, June 11, 2020, Embodied Series, WUNC, The State of Things Sarah Gaither, Assistant Professor of Psychology and Neuroscience at Duke, discusses interracial conversations about race and racism with NPR host Anita Rao. Listen here (35:27) Nationwide protests against the police killing of George Floyd are still underway, and they have reignited… read more about Navigating Cross-Racial Conversations in a Time of Civil Unrest  »

Published by Duke Graduate School; written by Julian Daly, Communications Intern Intelligent. Clever. Bright. Smart. Odds are many Duke students have heard those words applied to them. Yet, what happens when you take thousands of smart people and throw them onto one campus where social comparison and feelings of imposter syndrome run rampant? “I think I am intelligent, however, I often question if I am smart enough to be at Duke.” “I believe myself to be intelligent, but only in certain disciplines…”… read more about Ph.D. Students Explore Duke Undergrads’ Mindsets about Intelligence »

Doctoral student Jaime Castrellon of Psychology & Neuroscience, along with Amanda Lazarus (Art, Art History & Visual Studies),  has won the 2020 Bass Connections Award for Outstanding Mentorship. This award recognizes the vital role graduate students and postdoctoral scholars play in mentoring students on Bass Connections project teams. Among many strong nominations, those for Castrellon rose to the top. Nominations from fellow team members and leaders described the… read more about P&N Graduate Student Jaime Castrellon Honored for Commitment to Outstanding Mentorship »

The COVID-19 pandemic has caused Duke, like many other institutions, to move classes to remote access. Faced with the challenges of learning new technologies while also adjusting to social distancing and working/learning from home, P&N community members are finding ways to adapt in this uncertain time. Professor Ahmad Hariri's children June and James work together on math activities at their dining room table. Many parents are finding creative ways to homeschool while also working from home. "Now we… read more about Faced with the challenges of COVID-19, our community carries on »

UPDATE as of March 11, 2020: To minimize potential health risks amid COVID-19 concerns, Duke University has cancelled all Duke-sponsored in-person events; therefore, the North Carolina Cognition Meeting scheduled for March 21st, 2020 is cancelled. All registrants will receive a refund. Duke University's Psychology & Neuroscience Department will proudly host the 2020 Annual Meeting of the North Carolina Cognition Group. The annual conference will take place on March 21st, 2020… read more about Duke Hosts Annual Meeting of the North Carolina Cognition Group »

P&N Ph.D. student Jaime Castrellon was awarded Best Poster at the Society for Neuroeconomics Annual Meeting in Dublin, Ireland on October 4-6, 2019. For two consecutive years, Castrellon’s posters have been selected and featured at the conference as Poster Spotlights: brief talks to the entire conference audience prior to the poster session. Each year Castrellon went on to win the Best Poster Award; he is the first conference presenter to receive the award twice.  Castrellon’s… read more about P&N Ph.D. Student Jaime Castrellon Wins Best Poster Award for the Second Time at the Society for Neuroeconomics Annual Meeting »

P&N's person of the week, Hannah Moshontz, recently conducted a workshop for undergraduates that introduced them to the statistical software package R. Moshontz, a 6th-year PhD student, was invited to teach the workshop as part of P&N's VIP program. VIP is a summer research program for Duke Psychology majors that gives participants a head start on work that may culminate in a senior thesis. Previous VIP statistical workshops have focused on using SPSS. This is the first year that R has been taught. "R is very… read more about P&N Person of the Week: Hannah Moshontz  »

P&N Graduate students have published a Mentoring Handbook, an evolving document capturing best practices and ideas for mentoring undergraduates in research in Psychology & Neuroscience labs and related departments. The idea began during a group brainstorming session in which P&N Graduate Students Brenda Yang and Paula Yust were discussing departmental teaching initiatives with P&N Professor of the Practice Bridgette Hard. Later, Yang said she went to a conference and asked a faculty member at a liberal arts… read more about P&N Graduate Students Create Mentoring Handbook »

The Duke Identity and Diversity Lab, led by Dr. Sarah Gaither, had an amazing showing with other Duke P&N members at the Society of Southeastern Social Psychologist Conference this year. Their day started off with lab manager Joshua Perlin's first ever data blitz talk on prosocial behaviors for children sharing across racial group lines. Next, graduate students Brenda Straka and Adam Stanaland each presented their first conference talks on their work focusing on social exclusion expectations and… read more about Society of Southeastern Social Psychologists Conference Reflections »

What makes it so difficult to change our minds about moral issues, despite new information that contradicts our beliefs? P&N Grad Student Matthew Stanley and team recently published a paper that gives us some clues. The work was highlighted recently by the American Psychological Association's PEEPS, or "Particularly Exciting Experiments in Psychology." http://www.apa.org/pubs/highlights/peeps/issue-110.aspx Stanley is a PhD student in Psychology & Neuroscience at Duke University who entered through the Cognitive… read more about Moral Reasoning: Why it's hard to change beliefs »