GWU Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences
Leading research, practice, and education in the science of psychology
Please join us in congratulating Dr. Peg Barratt who was awarded the Fulbright Specialist Position in the Fulbright Program of World Learning! Dr. Barratt will working with Mongolian Institute for Educational Research during April and May of 2020. We wish her the best of luck on her journey and with this exciting work!
Congratulations on these recent fellowships awarded to Psychology folks!
Psychology major, Melissa Baker, has been awarded a Luther Rice Undergraduate Research Fellowship. She will work with faculty mentor, Dr. Mimi Le on a project titled, "The Relationship Between Physical Activity Levels & Postpartum Depression Symptoms at 6 Weeks Postpartum".
Clinical Psychology Ph.D. student, Sanam (Sammy) Dhaliwal, has been awarded a George Washington University Summer Dissertation Fellowship for her project, "The Role of Sleep Disruption in the Onset of Perinatal Depression" Sammy's faculty mentor is Dr. Mimi Le.
Applied Social Psychology Ph.D. student, Steffi Renninger, has been awarded a George Washington University Summer Dissertation Fellowship for her project, "Adaptive and Maladaptive Responses to Weight Loss Failure among Middle-Aged Men: The Potential Moderating Role of Achievement Goals." Her faculty mentor is Dr. Tonya Dodge.
Postdoctoral fellow, Dr. Patrick Cox, received an Early Career Travel Grant to attend the upcoming Vision Sciences Society meeting in St. Petersburg, FL in May. Patrick works with Dr. Steve Mitroff.
Sanam (Sammy) Dhaliwal and Maria Cimporescu, who were awarded Richard Walk Dissertation Fellowships! Sammy’s research mentor is Dr. Mimi Le, and her project is entitled “The Role of Sleep Disturbance in the Onset of Perinatal Depression”. Maria’s mentor is Dr. George Howe, and her project is “Stress Appraisal of Anticipatory Stressors Related to the Transition Out of College”
We wish all of them the best in these endeavors!
Congrats to Applied Social Psychology doctoral student Sidney Holt on the 2017 Outstanding Student Abstract award at the American Public Health Association (APHA) conference! Her abstract was entitled, “I Live in this Neighborhood Too, Though”: Psychosocial Effects of Gentrification on Black men in DC.
The abstract details analyses that Holt conducted based on focus groups with Black men from Menhood, a National Institutes of Health-funded study designed to examine the effects of neighborhood and individual-level stressors and resilience on sexual risk for Black men who live in Washington, DC. Holt’s supervising professor, Dr. Lisa Bowleg is the Principal Investigator of Menhood.
Holt’s research highlighted that gentrification led participants to experience heightened police presence within their neighborhoods and in turn, increased discriminatory encounters with police; segregation and social exclusion from their new White neighbors; restricted mobility within their neighborhoods; fear of displacement; loss of belonging and sense of community; and self-blame and a sense of powerlessness to stop gentrification. All of these experiences have the potential to negatively impact health and well-being. Holt’s work fills an important gap within the social and behavioral science literature. Holt notes that although media attention about gentrification in DC has increased in recent years —DC was the second fastest gentrifying city in the U.S. from 2000 to 2010 — it’s relatively rare that researchers seek to learn about gentrification primarily from the perspective of long-time, low-income Black residents. Holt says that she hopes that her work will prompt researchers, policymakers and health providers to consider the social and mental health effects of gentrification, and not conceptualize gentrification primarily as an urban development phenomenon with only economic and political ramifications.
