A former University of Iowa graduate student has won the 2016 International Society for Developmental Psychobiology Dissertation Award, the society announced. The award went to Alex Tiriac for his dissertation, “State-Dependent Processing of Reafference Arising from Self-Generated Movements in Infant Rats.” 

Tiriac completed his dissertation under the supervision of Mark Blumberg, professor in the Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences within the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences. Tiriac earned a doctorate from the UI in 2016 and is now a postdoctoral scholar at the University of California, Berkeley. The award honors outstanding scientists early in their careers; it comes with a $1,000 prize.