Dr. Elizabeth Yeater Named Teacher of the Year for 2009
The Faculty Senate Teaching Enhancement Committee and the Office of Support for Effective Teaching annually honor faculty with campus-wide teaching awards. This year's recipients include Dr. Elizabeth Yeater. Assistant Professor Elizabeth Yeater trains clinical psychology graduate and undergraduate students through her research on sexual victimization of women, Posttraumatic Stress Disorder and Borderline Personality Disorder. This research takes them into challenging environments, including community homeless shelters. Former students have found the experience invaluable in their pursuit of higher degrees. (Reprinted from UNM Today.)

New Book by Professor Geoffrey Miller Out May 14th, 2009
Dr. Geoffrey Miller, Associate Professor in Psychology, is the author of a new popular science book on the evolutionary psychology of consumer behavior. The book, titled Spent: Sex, Evolution, and Consumer Behavior, will be released May 14 in the US/Canada by Viking/Penguin/Putnam, July 2 in the UK/Commonwealth by William Heinemann/Random House, and later in Dutch, Korean, and other translations. Dr. Miller's other books include Mating Intelligence: Sex, Relationships, and the Mind's Reproductive System and The Mating Mind: How Sexual Choice Shaped the Evolution of Human Nature.

Dr. Jane Ellen Smith Named Chair of Psychology Department
Dr. Jane Ellen Smith, professor in the Psychology Department at UNM since 1984, took over the role of Chair in August, 2008. Dr. Smith's lab researches a diverse group of psychological topics including assessment and treatment of body image and eating disorders, cognitive-behavioral treatment of alcoholic homeless women, dual diagnosis (substance abuse and chronic mental illness), the Community Reinforcement Approach (CRA) to treat alcohol problems, and Community Reinforcement and Family Training (CRAFT) to engage treatment-refusing substance abusers into treatment.

Dr. Smith was recently named the 2007-09 Presidential Teaching Fellow, the highest teaching award at the university.

Steve Alley Wins Annual Louie Award
Psychology lecturer Steve Alley won an annual Louie award given to employees who exemplify the very best in providing great service to UNM students. Alley was recognized for “being a great supporter of the students in the Psychology department in which he currently teaches four large psychology classes, a Freshman Interest Group class, and an ITV course, yet still finds time to do some advising due to somber circumstances in the department.” Congratultions!

Dr. Steven Verney Named Senior Fellow at The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF) Center for Health Policy
The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF) Center for Health Policy just named Dr. Steven Verney as a Senior Fellow of the center. The RWJC Center for Health Policy is a collaborative project between the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the University of New Mexico. The purpose of the Center is to increase the diversity of those with formal training in the fields of economics, political science and sociology who engage in health services and health policy research. The Center on UNM's main campus is the only center of its type in the country. Dr. Verney is the Senior Fellow in the area of Psychology.

Last year, Dr. Verney won one of the second annual University of New Mexico Faculty of Color Award. The awards recognize the outstanding work of faculty of color at UNM in mentoring, research, service and teaching.

Dr. Angela Bryan Featured on UNM site for Work With At-Risk Adolescents
With the publication of her latest article, “Randomized trial of group interventions to reduce HIV/STD risk and change theoretical mediators among detained adolescents" in the Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, Dr. Bryan was featured on February 5th by UNM Today, UNM's web-based newspaper. Dr. Bryan researches alcohol and its role in sexual risk-taking among detained adolescents. You can read the entire article here. Also, you can read a Q&A with Dr. Bryan from the Daily Lobo here.

Research Articles by UNM Psychology Faculty Featured on facultyof1000.com
The web site, which provides expert evaluations of important articles in biology and medicine, has recently listed expert evaluations of Kent Hutchison’s recent article on genetic variability in the incentive salience of alcohol [ link ] and Derek Hamilton’s recent work on behavioral processes involved in spatial navigation [ link ] . Both reports received evaluations of “Exceptional’, indicating that they are considered “landmark” papers in the top 1% of publication in their respective disciplines.

Dr. Barbara McCrady Named Distinguished Professor
Barbara McCrady, professor of psychology and director of the Center on Alcoholism, Substance Abuse, and Addictions, has been at UNM since 2007. McCrady’s area of focus is on the interrelationships between alcohol abuse/dependence and family function. Her premise has been that families are integrally involved in the development and maintenance of drinking, as well as the process of change.

She has been a driving force in the psychological and medical communities about the importance of family engagement in the treatment process. Through other treatment studies she showed that relationship-focused treatment led to both reduced drinking and fewer relapses. For this work, McCrady was awarded the distinguished NIH Merit Award for “enduring contribution to scientific knowledge,” acknowledging that she is a seminal force in shifting the nature of alcohol treatment from a purely medical focus to one that emphasized psychosocial factors.

Distinguished professors are individuals who have demonstrated outstanding achievements and are nationally and internationally renowned as scholars. Interim Provost Viola Florez said, “The rank of Distinguished Professor is the highest faculty rank at the university. It is reserved for a very small number of individuals who have made major scholarly contributions to their fields." (Reprinted from UNM Today.)

Dr. Mike Dougher Wins Don Hake Award for Translational Research
For 15 years, psychology professor and UNM’s Associate Vice President for Research Michael Dougher has worked with his students to examine the role of stimulus relations and semantic networks they believe underlie human cognition learning and memory. They have studied the effect on clinical disorders such as depression and anxiety. For that work, Dougher has received an award from the American Psychological Association.

The Don Hake Award for Translational Research for work that bridges the basic/applied continuum of behavior analysis was given to Dougher at the association’s national meeting in Boston.

As part of the event, Dougher delivered an invited talk, “Stimulus Relations: False Memories and Clinical Implications.” He and his students have spent the past decade and a half trying to identify experimentally behavioral processes that underlie language and certain cognitive phenomena.

Dougher and his students used basic laboratory work to identify processes that can account for development of fearful reactions to events that have never been associated with aversive stimulation or even directly encountered. The work clarified behavioral processes responsible for cognitive distortions that characterize depression and stimulate memory distortions and errors.

“It’s nice that the work was recognized, but it has been a real team effort, and the students did the heavy lifting,” Dougher said. (Reprinted from UNM Today.)

Graduate Students Win Awards

Jennifer Harriger, a doctoral candidate in the psychology department, won the"Susan Deese-Roberts Teaching Assistant of the Year" Award. Jennifer teaches developmental psychology, abnormal psychology, and psycholgy of personality on main campus and UNM West.

Jennifer is part of Dr. Witherington's lab where her research interests include the development of self-objectification, body image, obesity and eating disorders in children and adolescents.

Graduate student Lora Cope won a $5000 Graduate Research and Development (GRD) award from GPSA for her forensic work she is doing with her mentor, Dr. Kent Kiehl.