Congratulations to the undergraduates who won Psychology awards for posters they submitted to UO’s 2020 Undergraduate Research Symposium! Two students tied for the Psychology Grand Prize, given to the best overall poster. This award will be shared by Alex Boxberger, for a poster about “The effect of maternal borderline personality disorder symptoms on child externalizing problems, as mediated by parenting stress and maternal warmth,” and by Amy Chen, for the poster “Individual differences in memory self-efficacy and learning ability.”

Psychology’s Methodological Excellence Award went to Joshua Pearman‘s poster about “What parts of status matter? Comparing respect and admiration to social influence,” and the Innovation and Independence Award in Psychology went to Clare Brinkman, for the poster “Naturalistic perspective taking: Themes found in people’s naturalistic accounts.”

These students, who were selected by a faculty committee, will receive monetary awards. The department is very proud of its high level of undergraduate involvement in research and congratulates these four students for their outstanding posters.

Congratulations to UO undergraduate student Rennie Kendrick, who was selected to participate in Posters on the Hill, a Washington, D.C. event showcasing innovative student work and highlighting the value of federal investments in undergraduate research.

Kendrick will be presenting a poster on memory and innovative thinking, the subject of her honors thesis. Her plans include meeting with members of Oregon’s congressional delegation. Assistant professor Dasa Zeithamova-Demircan is helping Kendrick with the project, part of their work in the UO’s Brain and Memory Lab.

You can read more here.

Several of the amazing undergraduate students in our department participated in the 9th annual Undergraduate Research Symposium earlier this month. You can see pictures of them and their scientific posters in the gallery below.

Now in its ninth year, the Symposium has grown to 513 presenters and 290 faculty mentors spanning 75 majors, 21 minor programs, 33 minors, and eight colleges. It is so exciting to see the rapid growth of the Symposium since it began in 2011 with 69 presenters and 40 faculty mentors, and the fantastic student work that it showcases—over 2,000 students in its nine-year history.