The Department of Psychology in the UI College of Liberal Arts and Sciences is helping to shape the future of the discipline by graduating doctoral students who will go on to become tomorrow's college-level teachers and researchers. In the past year, five doctoral candidates in the department have received prestigious dissertation grants and awards.

Adam Steinmetz has been selected as a recipient of a 2013 American Psychological Association Dissertation Research Award. This award will help support Steinmetz's dissertation research on understanding the role of cannabinoid receptors within the cerebellum in associative motor learning. The title of his dissertation is “Role of Cannabinoid Receptors in Cerebellar Learning." Steinmetz is supervised by John Freeman, UI psychology professor.

Zhen Wu has been awarded a grant from the National Science Foundation to support her dissertation research. The title of her project is "Doctoral Dissertation Research: How Does Pointing Facilitate Word Learning?" Her research will address how and why pointing influences young children’s word learning in real-time contexts. Wu is working under the supervision of Julie Gros-Louis, UI assistant professor of psychology.

Rosaura Orengo-Aguayo has received a grant to support her dissertation research from the Society for the Psychological Study of Social Issues. Her dissertation will test the effectiveness of an Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT)-based skills group in reducing aggression, impulsivity, and improving mental health outcomes among a high-risk, multi-problem sample of incarcerated domestic violence offenders. Orengo-Aguayo is working under the supervision of Erika Lawrence, UI associate professor of psychology.

Elizabeth O'Neal has been selected to receive the American Psychological Foundation's Lizette Peterson Homer Memorial Injury Research Grant. The grant supports research into psychological and behavioral aspects of the prevention of injuries in children and adolescents. This grant will support O'Neal's research project titled, "Mother-Child Communication about Safety in Low-Income Families." O'Neal is working under the supervision of Jodie Plumert, UI psychology professor.

Matt Calamia was selected as a recipient of a 2012 American Psychological Association Dissertation Research Award. The title of Calamia's dissertation is “Measuring apathy: An investigation of the internal structure of apathy symptoms and their relationship with cognitive and functional impairments." Calamia is co-supervised by Kristian Markon, UI associate professor of psychology, and Dan Tranel, UI neurology professor.