Announcing our 2019-2020 Research Excellence Award Winners

May 21, 2020

Part of the FABBS mission is to promote the sciences of mind, brain, and behavior, and to communicate the importance of its research to the public. Encouraging and recognizing the work of young scientists is a critical part of our mission. The FABBS Research Excellence Awards program honors undergraduate and graduate students within our affiliate member departments and divisions who have conducted research of superior scientific quality with broad societal impact. In addition to describing the methods and results of the research, nominations must also include an impact statement with the potential relevance of the research for policy decisions (e.g., implications of the research for social and policy issues, and/or efforts to communicate the science to non-academic constituencies).

After careful review from our selection committee of our largest pool of applications to date, we are proud to announce our Research Excellence Awardees for 2019-2020:

Undergraduate Research Excellence Awardees:

  • Carly Miron, University of Pennsylvania, Department of Psychology
    “Longitudinal Association between Callous-Unemotional Traits and Friendship Quality among Adjudicated Adolescents“
  • Yiwen Zhong, University of Michigan, Department of Psychology
    “The Effect of Anecdotes on Science Evidence Evaluation“

Doctoral Dissertation Research Excellence Awardees:

  • Kaitlin Cassady, University of Michigan, Department of Psychology
    “Age-related neural dedifferentiation in the sensorimotor system and its behavioral consequences“
  • Jeremy Harper, University of Minnesota, Department of Psychology
    “The effect of alcohol use on brain networks of cognitive control and salience attribution in young adulthood: causal inferences from a cotwin control study“
  • Stephanie Koebele, Arizona State University, Department of Psychology
    “Hysterectomy and Cognition: A Novel Preclinical Assessment of the Longitudinal Cognitive Effects Resulting from Gynecological Surgery in Adulthood“
  • Jacob Westerberg, Vanderbilt University, Department of Psychology
    “Bridging the Gap Between Cognitive Signals from Single Neurons to EEG“
  • Nur Hani Zainal, The Pennsylvania State University, Department of Psychology
    “A Randomized Controlled Trial of a 14-Day Mindfulness Ecological Momentary Intervention for Generalized Anxiety Disorder“

The selection committee was pleased with the strength of the pool this year, and applauds the research done by awardees. FABBS is honored to feature and promote these young scientists’ promising work and is excited to see their ongoing contributions to the field.

The call for nominations for the 2020-2021 awards will be sent out in the fall. Students from FABBS affiliate members are eligible for nomination.