Fall 2017

PSYCHOLOGY UAB PSYCH FALL 2017

A N N O U N C I N G the

ONLINE P SYC H O LO GY

DEGREE FALL 2017 | UAB PSYCHOLOGY UPDATE Online Degree, Story on p.7 HOMECOMING: BLAZERS UNITED October 1-7, Schedule of Events p. 15

Go Blazers!

SAV E TH E DAT E 10.04 . 2 017 2017 Distinguished Alumni Awards Ceremony and Reception see more on page 15

FALL 2017 | UAB PSYCHOLOGY UPDATE The Psychology Update is a news magazine written for students, faculty and alumni of the UAB Department of Psychology UAB PSYCHOLOGY UPDATE EXECUTIVE EDITOR Sylvie Mrug, Ph.D. EDITOR + CONTENT Mary Frances Thetford, M.Ed. CONTENT + DESIGN Lauren Vardaman FOLLOW UAB PSYCHOLOGY

02 PSYCHOLOGY UPDATE // FALL 2017

INSIDE THIS ISSUE

FA L L 2 0 1 7

Inside 04. DEPAR TM ENT NEW S 06. ON THE COVER 07. FACU LTY S POTLIGH T 08. FA CU LTY IN THE NEWS 12. GRA DUATE STUDENTS I N THE N EWS 15. W HAT’S GOING ON?

FALL 2017 // PSYCHOLOGY UPDATE 03

Department of Psychology F A C U LT Y A N D S T U D E N T H A P P E N I N G S

DR. DAVID KNIGHT

will serve as the Director of the Graduate Behavioral Neuroscience Program beginning August 22. Dr. Knight is an Associate Professor in the Psychology Department and a former Co-Director of the Undergraduate Neuroscience Program. He is also the recipient of the 2017 Dean’s Award for Excellence in Mentorship. Dr. Knight’s research focuses on neural substrates of human learning, memory and emotion, and he serves as an Associate Editor of the Open Neuroimaging Journal. He has been closely involved in the Behavioral Neuroscience Doctoral Program for the past 10 years and brings in a wealth of experience in mentoring both graduate and undergraduate students and collaborating with neuroscience faculty across departments.

DR. FRANK AMTHOR

The Department of Psychology offers its sincerest grattitude to Dr. Frank Amthor for serving as the Behavioral Neuroscience Doctoral Program Director for the past 5 years. Dr. Amthor successfully led the program through a number of major transitions and has made major contributions to growing and improving the program over the years.

4 PSYCHOLOGY UPDATE // FALL 2017

DR. SYLVIE MRUG

Dr. Sylvie Mrug, Professor in the Department of Psychology, has been named Interim Chair of the department, effective July 1.

Dr. Mrug has been at UAB since 2004, when she began a year-long internship in Child Clinical/Pediatric Psychology.

Following that internship, she was hired as an Assistant Professor in the Department of Psychology. She was named Associate Professor in 2010 and Professor in 2015. In addition, she serves as a center scientist in the UAB Center for the Study of Community Health in the School of Public Health, a position she has held since 2008. She’s also affiliated with the UAB Nutrition Obesity Research Center (NORC), the UAB Center for Educational Accountability, and the UAB Gregory Fleming James Cystic Fibrosis Research Center.

Dr. Mrug is a native of the Czech Republic and received her bachelor’s and master’s degrees at Charles University in Prague. She received additional master’s degrees in Clinical Psychology (2001) and Applied Statistics (2004) at Purdue University, before completing her doctorate in Clinical Psychology at Purdue in 2005.

Dr. Mrug’s work focuses on behavioral and emotional problems in adolescents and how young people’s exposure to violence, as well as their relationships with their peers, can influence the development of substance abuse, depression, anxiety, and anti-social behavior. She has received funding by the NIH and the CDC, and she is widely and regularly published in peer-reviewed journals, including Pediatrics, The Journal of Pediatric Psychology, and The Psychology of Addictive Behaviors. She serves on the editorial boards of The Journal of Youth and Adolescence, The Journal of Abnormal Child Psychology, and Adikologie. She’s the associate editor of The Journal of Early Adolescence and is a grant reviewer for the NIH and the Institute for Educational Sciences.

In addition to her research, Dr. Mrug also teaches a number of graduate courses and has mentored a number of both graduate and undergraduate students with research interests in adolescent developmental psychology.

D E PA R T M E N T N E W S

DR. KARLENE BALL

After serving as Chair of the Department of Psychology for nine years, University Professor, Karlene K. Ball, Ph.D., stepped down in June of 2017. Ball was the fifth person to hold the title since the department’s inception in 1969.

During Ball’s tenure as Chair, the department has made remarkable progress in funded research, faculty recruitment, and student enrollment. Dr. Ball will remain on the faculty and refocus on her research as Director of the Roybal Center for Research on Applied Gerontology and CoDirector of the UAB Center on Aging.

SCAHIP STUDENTS

say farewell after a great summer at UAB! The 8-week APA-funded program, Scholarship in Child and Adolescent Health and Injury Prevention (SCAHIP), offered research training, graduate school and career development, and opportunities to socialize with other students.

“I am tremendously proud of the Department of Psychology and all that we have accomplished during my nine years as chair, and am eternally grateful to our faculty, to former Dean Jean Ann Linney, and to Dean Palazzo for allowing me the opportunity to serve in this capacity,” Ball said.

Robert Palazzo, Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences, remarked that “Dr. Ball has done an amazing job as chair. The Department is situated as being one of the most interdisciplinary departments on campus and is ranked among the top 100 nationally in annual federal expenditures. The department on the whole is at the intersection of many new endeavors and Dr. Ball understands and facilitates that. Dr. Ball has also demonstrated a generous heart and a sincere concern for the faculty and students.”

Dr. Ball’s research interests include the study of the visual and cognitive correlates of mobility difficulties among older adults, with an emphasis on driving skills. She is an internationally renowned expert on developmental change in cognition associated with aging, with discoveries that span the disciplines of cognitive psychology, human factors, injury prevention, basic and applied gerontology, vision science, and transportation research. Her cognitive interventions designed to maintain and improve everyday functioning in older adults have become the centerpiece of a nationwide initiative to prevent decline in health-related quality of life, and have resulted in lower medical expenditures and safer mobility among older drivers.

JAVARUS HUMPHRIES

was selected as one of 8 UAB students to receive the Genentech Research Scholars Fellowship which allowed him to conduct research with UAB faculty member, Dr. Despina Stavrinos at the Translational Research for Injury Prevention (TRIP) Lab for 10 weeks during the summer.

In addition to his full-time research activities, he had the opportunity to engage with researchers across campus through journal clubs and biweekly seminars to learn about research integrity and ethics, skills needed to be a successful researcher, clinical and translational research, and funding resources for graduate school. The Genentech Research Scholars Fellowship Program was designed to ensure that undergraduate students of all backgrounds have equal access to vast research opportunities on campus.

FALL 2017 // PSYCHOLOGY UPDATE 5

O N

T H E

C O V E R

UAB PSYCH FALL 2017

Go Blazers!

THE MISSION The mission of the program is to provide an alternative path of access for those wanting to continue their educational goals. Students will enjoy the flexibility of the online classroom environment and experience the pride and career benefits that come with earning a degree from UAB, one of our nation’s top-ranked universities.

O N THE COVER

ON THE COVER The UAB Department of Psychology is excited to announce the launching of our Online Psychology Bachelor’s of Science Degree Program in April 2017. Interest and enrollment in the online undergraduate degree has been high in the initial months of the program. More than 30 students are now pursuing their degree completely online at UAB, with interested students reaching out to the program on a daily basis.

“It is exciting to see the interest and growth in the online degree program over the first few months,” said Dr. Maria Hopkins, Director of Undergraduate Studies in Psychology.

“Offering a degree fully online allows students in Alabama, and beyond, the opportunity to earn their degree – whenever, wherever. From the response we’ve received over the past few months, this program fits the needs and interests of students.”

6 PSYCHOLOGY UPDATE // FALL 2017

“ “Delivering this high-quality, online degree makes higher education accessible to qualified students of all backgrounds. Students who may have ruled out going away to college, or who had to leave the traditional college experience, now have the opportunity to pursue their education from a university that employers recognize and respect,” Dr. Hopkins said.

H O W T O A P P LY For more information or to apply, visit our website at www.psy.uab.edu and click on “Academic Programs” or call Dr. Bridgett Kennedy (205)934-3850.

DR. DESPINA STAVRINOS

F A C U LT Y S P O T L I G H T

R E C E I V E S $ 2 . 2 M I L L I O N G R A N T T H AT W I L L E X T E N D D I S T R A C T E D D R I V I N G R E S E A R C H AT U A B

by Katherine Stephen, UAB News

The participants will be broken up into groups of 16 and 18-year-olds with and without driving experience, and they will perform general and driving-based attention tasks over a period of 18 months, which will allow the research to show the effects of age and driving experience on driving attention over time.

This grant will help Stavrinos add to the body of research her team has already published — the core of the TRIP Lab’s work is in the prevention of injury, particularly unintentional injuries like those that result from distracted driving behaviors.

Stavrinos will lead her TRIP Lab in conducting the new study with the help of a first-of-its-kind full-bodied SUV driving simulator, which helps add to the authenticity and accuracy of the experience a study participant has as a driver.

DR. DESPINA STAVRINOS

T

he Translational Research for Injury Prevention Laboratory at the University of Alabama at Birmingham has been awarded $2.2 million by the National Institutes of Health to address a major health issue.

Motor vehicle collisions are the leading cause of death among teenagers — inattention is the primary contributor. They account for approximately one in three deaths among teens ages 16 to 19. With this new influx of funding from the NIH, researchers at UAB will be able to test the influence of age and driving experience on driving attention development under various conditions, and will identify underlying cognitive mechanisms of attention development and ultimately the occurrences of collisions.

“We already know that driver inattention equals further vulnerability to distraction,” said Despina Stavrinos, Ph.D., assistant professor in the College of Arts and Sciences’ Department of Psychology. “What we need to know more about is the relationship between young age and low driving experience to driving attention. We believe this new study will help reveal how those factors can actually predict driving attention and driving outcomes.”

“Our intention is that the findings will have significant implications for targeted interventions, ultimately to reduce motor vehicle collisions and to develop policy regarding optimal age and experience for licensure,” Stavrinos said.

The study, “Longitudinal Examination of Driving Attention Among Adolescents,” begins this year and will continue through May 2022.

The study will look at the drivers’ general attention, speed of processing and executive function — all underlying cognitive mechanisms of attention — in 220 adolescents.

FALL 2017 // PSYCHOLOGY UPDATE 7

DR. DAVID SCHWEBEL TA P S V I RT U A L R E A L I T Y T O KEEP KIDS SAFE

by Selby Frame | in Community, Research, Science, APA PsycIQ

“We record absolutely everything,” says Schwebel. “We know exactly when they choose to cross the street, their speed of walking, the speed of vehicles, which gaps they’re choosing, whether they enter soon after a car passes or if there’s a delay—which is a good proxy of their cognitive processing.”

wait for a gap?

The simulator lets Schwebel and his students study a dangerous task without putting children at risk—and it gives participants great practice for the real world. While the intervention may be fun, the imperative for his work is deadly serious: Pedestrian fatalities in the U.S. leaped 11 percent to more than 6,000 deaths in 2016. Of the estimated 270,000 pedestrian traffic deaths worldwide, nearly half are youths. Schwebel is among a surprisingly scant cohort of research psychologists working in the field of youth safety. His Youth Safety Lab is one of the few academic research centers in North America devoted to researching child safety, and is a major locus for research and student training.

It may sound like a phone-happy, distracted pedestrian but it’s actually the reverse: The girl is using a smartphone—coupled with virtualreality technology—to help her learn how to cross the street safely.

“When you take a step back from pedestrian safety and realize that injuries are by a huge margin the leading cause of child death in America—and one of the leading ones globally—it’s pretty remarkable that more psychologists aren’t thinking about the behavioral aspects of it,” notes Schwebel.

The experiment is the latest brainchild of APA Fellow David Schwebel, a leading researcher in child-injury prevention and Professor of Psychology at the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB), where he directs the UAB Youth Safety Lab.

Schwebel has published more than 200 peer-reviewed articles and conducts a wide spectrum of research at his lab: pedestrian safety, poisoning prevention, global injury prevention, dog-bite prevention, youth soccer safety, playground safety, lifeguard behavior, car-seat safety, among many others. It’s enough potential danger to keep any helicopter parent permanently on high spin.

Schwebel has created a sophisticated streetcrossing training application that runs using software for a smartphone retrofitted with Google Cardboard—an inexpensive virtualreality platform.

“Clearly at every age there are risks,” acknowledges Schwebel, “. . . but children as young as 18 months can be taught to follow rules and avoid injury.”

DR. DAVID SCHWEBEL

A

young girl prepares to cross a busy

street, her face plastered to a smartphone.

Will she step off the curb and run for it or

The user just places a phone into a cardboard or plastic viewer, and looks through its plastic lenses into a virtual world of traffic—complete with sounds and passing cars. The “traffic” moves at different speeds, with variances for car distances and gap sizes. When students judge it safe, they click a button and step off the virtual curb to cross the street.

8 PSYCHOLOGY UPDATE // FALL 2017

Although he has earned a reputation as a technologically innovative researcher, one of his most successful youth-safety interventions was decidedly low tech—and targeted caregivers as much as it did children.

He developed a “Stamp-in-Safety” program to help improve teacher supervision of preschoolers on playgrounds, where nearly 70 percent of preschool injuries occur.

“We said, the teachers are in the shade talking about their weekend and the kids are running around on the playground. How can we change this?” notes Schwebel.

FA C U LT Y I N T H E N E W S

The solution was simple: Give nametags to all kids and equip teachers with self-inking stamps. When teachers see a child playing safely they give him or her an ink stamp as a reward. “On the surface it’s rewarding the child for safe behavior,” notes Schwebel, “but underneath the goal was to change teacher behavior too.”

It was perhaps inevitable that Schwebel would become a psychologist. The son and grandson of psychologists— father Dr. Andrew Schwebel taught at Ohio State University, and grandfather Dr. Milton Schwebel was a dean at Rutgers University—psychology was “the family business.”

“I grew up with psychology as part of my life,” he says. “As a kid, I sometimes even went to APA conventions.”

Schwebel got a taste for applied research as an undergrad at Yale, where he worked with noted psychologist Jerome Singer. His mentor had been hired by creators of the Barney and Friends children’s television show on PBS to evaluate its effectiveness in teaching children.

“As much as parents got sick of the [theme] song, the show actually taught children a lot,” says Schwebel. “We had children watch the show, as well as getting lessons in school. Our research showed that children learned as much from the show as they did from their teachers on the same topics.”

Schwebel’s penchant for applied research and social justice also has resulted in many international research partnerships. He has worked with researchers to evaluate kerosene-safety practices in low-income South African communities and in rural Uganda, and conducted extensive research with partners in China. ”I enjoy working with people from other cultures and I also think I have some obligation,” says Schwebel, “because ultimately we conduct science to improve society. There is higher risk of injury in other countries so that’s a priority for me.”

One long-running collaboration with Iranian researchers, which because of political issues was conducted entirely through emails, highlighted self-immolation among young women in Iran.

“It’s devastating, culturally bound, and it tends to be loweducated young wives who . . . often have tough lives,” he says. “It sometimes leads to severe depression, and immolation is in many cases their only means to commit suicide.”

These days, Schwebel is focusing on getting his pedestriansafety programs to scale big—and even hop continents. A recent test run with schoolchildren in China was a big hit.

The class went wild when the technology was introduced and the trainings netted great results. The PI on several grants from the NIH, Schwebel hopes to expand this work into other rapidly motorizing countries, including South Africa and Iran.

Based on their findings, the show’s creators rewrote some episodes to increase their effectiveness. “That taught me how psychology could really make a difference,” says Schwebel.

He has carried that passion for applied psychology into much of his research, developing interventions that offer real-world tools based on data collected in his lab and in the field. In some cases, his work may have directly saved lives. Several years ago, for instance, he was approached by an attorney representing a family whose toddler son had died from drinking torch fuel. It became one of several child-poisoning lawsuits against manufacturers. In a series of studies, Schwebel and his researchers studied the shape, coloring and labeling of a variety of bottles to determine how likely preliterate children were to consider them as something safe to consume—or to avoid.

“We discovered, not surprisingly, that they were more likely to judge an opaque, black bottle as dangerous than a transparent torch-fuel bottle with juice-colored liquid inside,” says Schwebel, adding: “Then the company started packaging the product in a dark-colored bottle. I have to assume that my research played at least some role in that decision.”

FALL 2017 // PSYCHOLOGY UPDATE 9

DR. KARLENE BALL EXCERCISE FOR THE MIND

A

certain level of physical decline will inevitably happen to all of us. A person who is a great athlete in their 20s and 30s simply will not have the same strength and stamina later in life, no matter how much they work out. Father Time, as they say in the world of sports, is undefeated. Mental abilities, however, do not always diminish with age. There are people who remain mentally sharp well into their 80s and even 90s, while others begin having basic cognitive issues such as forgetfulness in middle age. Some of the decline is disease related, but for many people it is just a consequence of getting older.

“Senior moments,” they are called, yet these types of memory lapses never arrive for some seniors.

So why is there such a wide difference in how aging affects the mind, especially when it comes to memory, reasoning and the ability to quickly process information?

That is one of the things Karlene K. Ball, Ph.D., Professor and Chair in the Department of Psychology, has been examining through her work with the Ed Roybal Center for Research on Applied Gerontology.

“There is very little variability in many of these abilities when you’re younger. Everybody is doing pretty well,” Ball says. “As people age, though, the variability gets higher.

You have some people who aren’t much worse than they were when they were young, and then others who have a steady decline. What we are asking is, ‘What did those people do when they were younger that might have prevented any decline from occurring? And what can we do now to mentally stimulate those cognitive abilities in order for people to regain them?’”

10 PSYCHOLOGY UPDATE // FALL 2017

Ball and fellow researchers at UAB have been conducting studies looking at cognitive training programs, which she said are “basically ways to exercise the brain.” They have run tests to see how quickly a person can handle such common functions as looking up a phone number, making change for a dollar, or finding a specific food item on a crowded grocery store shelf.

“We’ve looked at not only their performance on the cognitive tests themselves, but how does this translate into improvements in their everyday life,” Ball says. “In addition, we also look at what changes in the brain before and after they go through these exercises, and see where in the brain these changes are occurring.

“What we’ve found over the years is you can improve an older person’s cognitive abilities by doing targeted exercises that get progressively more difficult as they improve their performance. And the changes that occur in their cognitive skills translate to improvements in everyday function.”

Ball also has been involved in studies examining cognitive issues in the ability to drive a car. Ball says this research is particularly important because many seniors feel isolated or have to enter an assisted-living facility once they no longer are able to drive.

“We have found in a large clinical trial that if certain people go through the cognitive training program, they were half as likely to crash over the subsequent seven years, with benefits to some extending as far as 10 years,” Ball says.

“So whatever we’re doing with the cognitive training seems to have a long-term benefit.”

FA C U LT Y I N T H E N E W S

By Cary Estes | UAB Arts and Sciences Magazine

DR. VIRGINIA BRADLEY

Professor of Gerontology, Geriatrics and Palliative Care, UAB School of Medicine “I’ve worked with Dr. Ball for many years. Our work together on a randomized controlled trial evaluating three types of cognitive training, as well as our collaboration on a study validating a self-administered version of processing speed training, was instrumental in the design of my current research. This NIH-funded five-year project is a clinical trial comparing the benefits of enriched versions of computer-based training and home practice in adults with clinically diagnosed Mild Cognitive Impairment. Our main interest is in maintaining function for as long as possible in daily activities such as driving, bill paying, and medication management.”

DR. CYNTHIA OWSLEY

Professor of Ophthalmology, UAB School of Medicine

Ball says researchers are now trying to discover exactly how widespread these types of training programs can be applied, ranging from patients with mild cognitive impairments to those with more severe diseases such as Parkinson’s. She says they also are looking at how much physical exercise and creative activities like knitting can improve cognitive abilities.These studies are being conducted in collaboration with several other researchers at UAB, including Virginia Wadley Bradley, Ph.D., in the School of Medicine; Karen Meneses, Ph.D., RN, FAAN, in the School of Nursing; and Cynthia Owsley, Ph.D., MSPH, in the Department of Ophthalmology (see sidebar at right).

“Dr. Ball has been part of our research team here in the Department of Ophthalmology, where we have conducted a NIH-funded population-based study on 2,000 older drivers in Alabama. The goal of the study is to examine which vision screening tests are related to collision involvement three years after the screening. Vision screening tests currently used at the state licensing office do not identify drivers at increased risk for collision involvement.

So our study will be very useful for advising states on driver’s licensing policy. Preliminary analysis of the data suggests that tests of peripheral vision and slowed visual-processing speed had the highest sensitivity for identifying older drivers who would be involved in future crashes.”

DR. KAREN MENESES

Professor and Associate Dean for Research, UAB School of Nursing

DR. KARLENE BALL “One of the things that’s been great at UAB is the opportunities for collaboration across the whole campus,” Ball says. “We’ve provided these kinds of training programs to many other researchers, so they can try it out in their particular areas of expertise. So what’s really promoted this research is our ability to collaborate internally across campus as well as externally.”

“I am currently a recipient of a pilot funding from Dr. Ball’s Center for Translational Research on Aging and Mobility. My project is called Speed of Processing in Middle Aged and Older Breast Cancer Survivors (SOAR)., which determines the cognitive changes that occur in cancer survivors as they return to work and live full lives. The pilot is important because cancer survivors are living longer, and the intervention may help them live better. Funding for this project has also enabled me to include my predoctoral students in the recruitment, retention, testing, and support for the intervention.”

FALL 2017 // PSYCHOLOGY UPDATE 11

STACIE TOTSCH + DR. ROBERT SORGE D I E T “ C H E AT ” D AY S N E G AT I V E LY I M PA C T R E C O V E RY F R O M I N F L A M M AT O RY I N J U RY

By Allison Marin, Ph.D., Practical Pain Management

O

besity and chronic pain, both serious health problems in the United States, frequently co-occur in the same patients. People with obesity have pain not only in their weight-bearing joints but also in non weight-bearing joints, suggesting that another factor besides excess body weight is influencing the relationship between pain and obesity. One such factor may be diet. The high levels of carbohydrates, saturated fat, and omega-6 fatty acids that characterize a poor diet lead to activation of the innate immune system and the induction of a pro-inflammatory state. Researchers at the University of Alabama at Birmingham hypothesize that this inflammation predisposes individuals to chronic pain.

In a new study presented at this year’s meeting, the researchers examined how diet quality affects behavioral and physiological measures of pain.

This project was selected as one of the meeting’s most promising abstracts by the Scientific Program Committee and was presented as both a poster and a talk in a session on meeting highlights. The work was led by Robert Sorge, Ph.D., Assistant Professor at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, and presented by graduate student Stacie Totsch.

12 PSYCHOLOGY UPDATE // FALL 2017

In an earlier study conducted by Dr. Sorge and colleagues, animals were fed the Total Western Diet (TWD), a model of the high fat diet consumed by Americans. After mice consumed the diet for 14 weeks, a chronic inflammatory injury was induced using Complete Freund’s Adjuvant (CFA). Mice that consumed the TWD took much longer to recover than animals that consumed a regular control diet. The TWD was based on median macronutrient values from the CDC’s National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES). The researchers reasoned that many Americans don’t eat this average diet, but instead eat at the 2 extremes, very unhealthy and very healthy.

They developed the Standard American Diet (SAD) and the Anti-Inflammatory Diet (AID) to mimic these extremes. The SAD is high in fat, carbohydrates, sugar, and trans and saturated fats, while the AID contains several components (including resveratrol, curcumin, and ginseng) with known anti-inflammatory properties. In the current study, the team investigated how alternating between the 2 diets would affect pain and recovery from inflammatory injury.

The researchers fed mice a SAD, AID, or control diet for 14 weeks prior to the administration of CFA. Some of the AID and control animals were switched to SAD chow only on Saturdays and Sundays, mimicking the weekend cheat days found in many Americans’ diets.

G R A D U AT E S T U D E N T S I N T H E N E W S

Psychology Students Awarded at UAB Health Disparities Research Symposium The MHRC provides Charles Barkley Health Disparities Investigator Awards to the best 3 oral presenters and to the best 3 poster presenters: $200 (1st place); $150 (2nd place); and $100 (3rd place). The cash awards are from an endowment fund donated to the UAB MHRC by Mr. Barkley.

IAN MCDONOUGH, PH.D.

Oral Presentations - First Place UAB, College of Arts and Sciences, Psychology “Beta-Amyloid and Cortal Thickness Reveal Racial Disparities in Preclinical Alzheimer’s Disease”

CAITLIN POPE, M.A.

Animals on the SAD 7 days per week took almost twice as long to recover from mechanical sensitivity as those fed the control diet. In contrast, mice who received the AID every day of the week recovered as fast or faster than those on the regular diet.

Unexpectedly, the animals that were switched from the AID to the SAD on weekends took just as long to recover from the inflammatory injury as those who ate the SAD diet the entire week. The mice that were switched from the regular diet to the SAD took even longer to recover than the mice who only ate the SAD. When the researchers examined the animals’ gut microbiota, as expected, mice on the SAD had higher levels of proteobacteria that are associated with an inflamed gut than mice on the AID. Conversely, the anti-inflammatory actinobacteria were more prevalent in the gut of mice on the AID. The animals that switched between the 2 diets had intermediate levels of both types of bacteria.

“These results aren’t promising for people who have cheat days, and suggest that even acute exposure to the SAD is detrimental. However, there is good news: the AID does confer some benefit to the gut,” Ms. Totsch said.

Poster Presentations - Third Place UAB, College of Arts and Sciences, Psychology “On The Road to Better Healthcare Access: Assessing Transportation Barriers in Older Adults with HIV”

EMILEE BURGESS

was awarded Best Paper by an Early Career Scholar for 2016 in the International Journal of Eating Disorders. Her paper (also her dissertation work) is entitled “Effects of transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) on binge-eating disorder” The IJED editorial board members nominate candidates and the winners are then selected by the journal’s Editor-in-Chief and Associate Editors.

Winners are honored with a certificate and prize at the International Conference on Eating Disorders (ICED), the annual meeting of the Academy for Eating Disorders (AED). IJED is the official journal of the Academy of Eating Disorders.

JENNI ROUSE

won first place in Division 52 at the Annual APA Convention for her poster titled “Implications of Supervision and Peer Influence on Child Pedestrians in Changsha, China.”

The convention was held August 3-6 in Washington, D.C. Rouse is mentored by Dr. David Schwebel.

FALL 2017 // PSYCHOLOGY UPDATE 13

BENJAMIN MCMANUS HOW NOT TO NOD OFF BEHIND THE WHEEL

By Robert Preidt, HealthDay Reporter | U.S. News & World Report

A

t least one in five fatal motor vehicle accidents involves drowsy driving, U.S. traffic safety experts say. So it’s vital that you recognize when you’re sleepy behind the wheel.

“

“The statistics are pretty jarring. Compared to drivers who report typically getting seven or more hours of sleep nightly, those who typically sleep only four to five hours per night are 5.4 times more likely to be involved in a crash,” said Benjamin McManus, a Ph.D. candidate at the University of Alabama at Birmingham.

“Drowsy driving can be considered a form of distracted driving. Like in distracted drivers, [mental] resources are directed away from the task of driving in drowsy drivers,” McManus said in a university news release.

Signs of sleepiness while driving include increased blinking; longer blink duration; slower eye movement; swerving; slowed reaction time; and poor decision-making. Falling asleep while stopped in traffic or at a traffic light are dead giveaways that you’re too tired to drive.

“Recognizing the signs is the first step in prevention,” McManus said. Next, you can try a few different tactics to help stay awake, he suggested.

14 PSYCHOLOGY UPDATE // FALL 2017

These include stopping and taking a nap; drinking a caffeinated beverage; or boosting alertness by adjusting the radio, opening a window, or talking with passengers. Although these actions can help, they aren’t necessarily perfect solutions, McManus noted.

“Ceasing driving to take a nap may be the best of these commonly implemented countermeasures, as naps have been shown to reduce driving impairment in such situations,” McManus said.

“Research tells us that, as a supplement to sleep, naps can be effective for maintaining sustained attention, learning and memory.”

According to McManus, research shows that a minimum of seven hours of sleep is associated with safe driving. However, many people don’t manage to get that much shuteye.

“A culture change regarding the importance of sleep might make the biggest impact of all.

Currently, we tend to view sleep as one of the first things to sacrifice when we face impending deadlines or busy schedules. Recognizing just how dangerous drowsy driving can be is an important step in making us all safer on the road,” he concluded.

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FALL 2017 // PSYCHOLOGY UPDATE 15

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Medical/Clinical

Medical/Clinical

S A LVA D O R L O P E Z

AMANI NORLING

HELEN ROOT

Behavioral Neuroscience

Medical/Clinical

Skidmore College, B.A., Psychology and Spanish

Boston University, M.S., Psychology

UAB, B.S., Psychology

Behavioral Neuroscience

16 PSYCHOLOGY UPDATE // FALL 2017

UAB, B.S., Neuroscience

The Ohio State University, B.A., Psychology

California State University, Stanislaus, M.S., Psychology

California State University, Sacramento, B.A., Psychology

University of Alabama in Huntsville, M.A., Experimental Psychology

University of Massachusetts, Amherst, B.A. Psychology

Congrats Grads!

M E R E D I T H H E N RY Lifespan Developmental | Fall 2016 CCI, UAB Department of Psychology JOSEPH GRIFFIS Behavioral Neuroscience | Spring 2017 Post-doc Fellow Washington University, St. Louis, MOÂ HALEY BISHOP Lifespan Developmental | Summer 2017 Post-doc Fellow, (Dr. Jessica Mirman) UAB Department of Psychology DANIELLE VINCENT (LORCH) Lifespan Developmental | Summer 2017 Post-doc Fellow, Loyola University, Chicago, IL

D AV I D S H E R R E L L

SARA SIMS

Medical/Clinical

Medical/Clinical

Rutgers University, Camden, M.A., Psychology

Samford University, B.A., Psychology

E VA T R I N H Lifespan Developmental | Summer 2017 CDC Evaluation Fellowship Program, Atlanta, GA HAILEY BULLS Medical/Clinical | Summer 2017 Post-doc Fellow, University of South Florida, Moffitt Cancer Center EMILEE BURGESS Medical/Clinical | Summer 2017 Post-doc Fellow, Portland DBT Institute MICHELLE HADDAD Medical/Clinical | Summer 2017 Post-doc Fellow, Neuropsychology, Emory University CHRISTINA JAGIELSKI Medical/Clinical | Summer 2017 Post-doc Fellow, Gastroenterology, University of Michigan Medical Center

MICHELLE SISSON

A U S T I N S VA N C A R A

Medical/Clinical

Lifespan Developmental

North Dakota State University, M.A., Psychological Sciences

J U L I E T R A PA N I

Georgia State University, B.A., Psychology Medical/Clinical

University of Kansas, B.S., Behavioral Neuroscience

C A R O L I N E L E O N C Z Y K ( O AT E S ) Medical/Clinical | Summer 2017 Post-doc Fellow, Psychiatry, Rush University Medical Center, Chicago, IL ERICA SCHMIDT Medical/Clinical | Summer 2017 Post-doc Fellow, Neurological Sciences, University of Nebraska Medical Center

M A RY- E L I Z A B E T H WINSLETT

CARO WOLFNER

Behavioral Neuroscience

Lifespan Developmental

UAB, B.S., Neuroscience

University of Kansas, B.S., Psychology

FALL 2017 // PSYCHOLOGY UPDATE 17

W H AT ’ S G O I N G O N

UPCOMING EVENTS OCTOBER 1-7

UAB HOMECOMING: BLAZERS UNITED For a complete list of Homecoming events, please visit: www.uab.edu/homecoming

OCTOBER 4

UAB HOMECOMING WEEK 14th Annual Distinguished Alumni Awards Presentation and Lecture Location: Spencer Honors House | Time: 3PM Followed by the Alumni Reception Location: The Wine Loft | Time: 5:30PM - 7PM RSVP: casevents@uab.edu

OCTOBER 11

PSYCHOLOGY COLLOQUIUM SERIES “Improving the Transition from Pediatrics to Adulthood in Individuals with Chronic Illnesses” Wendy Gray, Ph.D. Assistant Professor of Psychology Department of Psychology Auburn University Location: CH 327 | Time: 3:30PM

NOVEMBER 20-26

FALL / THANKSGIVING BREAK

NOVEMBER 29

PSYCHOLOGY COLLOQUIUM SERIES “When Hands Speak as Loud as Words: Insights from the Gesture Concerning the Neurobiology of Learning” Laura Morett, Ph.D. Assistant Professor of Educational Neuroscience Director, Neuroscience of Education Research on Development (NERD) Lab University of Alabama Location: CH 327 | Time: 3:30PM

College of Arts and Sciences HOMECOMING SCHEDULE OCTOBER 2

DEPARTMENTAL DOOR DECORATING COMPETITION Time: 11AM

OCTOBER 3

COLLEGE BUILDING DECORATION COMPETITION Location: Heritage Hall (Front Steps) | Time: 11AM

OCTOBER 4

NAS GURNEY DERBY Location: 13th Street S | Time: 12PM DEPARTMENT OF PSYCHOLOGY ALUMNI EVENT Location: The Wine Loft | Time: 5:30PM RSVP: casevents@uab.edu

OCTOBER 5

COLLEGE OF ARTS AND SCIENCES LUNCH Location: Heritage Hall (Back Patio) | Time: 11:30 AM ARTS AND SCIENCES ALUMNI CHAPTER “MEET AND GREET” Location: Cahaba Brewing | Time: 5PM

OCTOBER 6

HOMECOMING PARADE Time: 12PM DEPARTMENT OF COMPUTER SCIENCE CELEBRATES 50 YEARS Location: Facebook Suite | Time: 6PM

OCTOBER 7

TAILGATE Location: Legion Field | Time: 4 hrs prior to kickoff FOOTBALL GAME Location: Legion Field | Time: TBD

DECEMBER 8

LAST DAY OF CLASS

DECEMBER 11-15 FINAL EXAMS

DECEMBER 16

COMMENCEMENT

FALL 2017 // PSYCHOLOGY UPDATE 19

UAB DEPARTMENT OF PSYCHOLOGY CAMPBELL HALL SUITE 415 | 1300 UNIVERSITY BLVD. | BIRMINGHAM, AL 35294 205.934.3850

JOIN THE NATIONAL ALUMNI SOCIETY TODAY! DON’T FORGET TO CHECK PSYCHOLOGY WWW.UAB.EDU/ALUMNI