UAB Psychology Update by UAB Psychology

PSYCHOLOGY

PSYCHOLOGY UPDATE | SUMMER 2018

Across the Spectrum Four female faculty members in the Department of Psychology study and treat Autism Spectrum Disorder

INSIDE

SUMMER 2018 | 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 Huffman FOLLOW UAB PSYCHOLOGY

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INSIDE

Contents PSYCHOLOGY AT A GLANCE

GRADUATE STUDIES

PAGE 04 AlI Cutillo & Christina D’Angelo Dauphin Island Sea Lab Doctoral Hooding Fulbright Scholars Graduate Students

PAGE 10 Nathaniel Harnett Discoveries: PTSD and the Brain

PAGE 05 Dr. Joanna Gaines Save the Date SCAHIP Students Joshua Seward SRA Conference Dr. Christianne Strang Stacie Totsch Dr. Diane Tucker Kylie Woodman

UNDERGRADUATE STUDIES PAGE 06 The Ost Recap PAGE 08 Mugdha Mokashi UAB Changed Everything for Me PAGE 09 Joshua Lim Four Students Selected for Innovation Fellowship to Influence Change on UAB’s Campus Molly Clay DSS Student Wins Karina Eide Memorial College Scholarship for Students with Dyslexia

PAGE 11 Dr. Sylvie Mrug What 10 Mentors Learned From Graduate Students and Postdocs Benjamin McManus Slow Down and Evaluate the Risks of Driving Before Hitting the Road PAGE 12 Youth Safety Lab Winners Share the Coalition’s Mission of Eliminating Roadway Deaths by 2050 PAGE 13 Austin Svancara National Traffic Safety Program Invites UAB Graduate Student to Participate in Research Internship Dr. Christina Rodriguez, Samantha Gonzalez & Doris Pu Graduate Students Attend ISRA Conference 2018-2019 Internship Placements 100% Match PAGE 14 Nathaniel Harnett & Kirsten Schoonover Nathaniel Harnett and Kirsten Schoonover are at the Front of the Pack in a National Effort to Increase Diversity in Neuroscience

FACULTY PAGE 16 Dr. Edward Taub For Your Patients-Multiple Sclerosis: A Rehab Therapy Used in Stroke Recovery May Help in MS PAGE 18 Dr. David Schwebel Hoverboard Injuries Sending Thousands of Kids to ERs PAGE 19 Dr. Olivio Clay Clay’s Research Inspires Second Opinion PAGE 20 Dr. Sarah O’Kelley Dr. Maria Hopkins Dr. Kristi Guest Dr. Laura Stoppelbein Across the Spectrum PAGE 25 Dr. Despina Stavrinos Driving Simulator Set to Visit Birmingham Park and Recreation Centers PAGE 26 Dr. Christianne Strang Art Therapy Helps Liberate Emotions When Words Fail

ALUMNI PAGE 28 Ann Bridges Steely Taking a Leap PAGE 30 Dr. Virgina Wadley Bradley Lowering Blood Pressure reduces Risk of Mild Cognitive Impairment, Dementia PAGE 31 Kevin Sawchak Goal Oriented: Former Blazer Soccer Player Goes From Finnish League to Finishing his Degree

SUMMER 2018 // PSYCHOLOGY UPDATE 03

PSYCHOLOGY AT A GLANCE

1 1

ALI CUTILLO & CHRISTINA D’ANGELO

Chien is 2018 alumna of the UAB College of Arts and Sciences and the UAB University Honors Program, earning bachelor’s degrees in neuroscience and international studies. While abroad, she will teach in a rural elementary or middle school. Chien aspires to become a physician and practice medicine in areas with heavy populations of Chinese and Taiwanese immigrants.

Ali Cutillo and Christina D’Angelo, students in the Medical/Clinical Psychology doctoral program, attended the 2018 Society of Pediatric Psychology Annual Convention (SPPAC) in Orlando, Florida. Christina presented a research poster about coping with cystic fibrosis, and Ali’s poster looked at quality of life in children after brain surgery to remove brain tumors. In the spirit of work-life balance, Christina and Ali even found some time to explore Disney World!

Remy Meir, an Auburn, Alabama native, has been awarded the Fulbright Study/Research grant to conduct research at the University of Oslo in Oslo, Norway. Her research project will focus on stress as a potential risk factor for addiction in a human population. Meir graduated from UAB this spring with a bachelor’s degree in neuroscience with minors in public health, chemistry, and mathematics. Meir is an alumna of the UAB Honors College.

DAUPHIN ISLAND SEA LAB Students in the Behavioral Neuroscience doctoral program are off for The Dauphin Island Sea Lab July 16 - August 3. The Introduction to Neurobiology course was created in 1997 by Drs. Paul Gamlin and Kent Keyser to give graduate students a unique and stimulating environment in which to embark on their academic neuroscience research careers. Faculty from Psychology, Graduate Biomedical Sciences, Cell, Developmental and Integrative Biology, Neurobiology, and Vision Sciences are involved in the instruction and maintenance of this course. Students come from UAB, UA, Auburn and USA. The Sea Lab is located on Dauphin Island, a barrier island surrounded by the Gulf of Mexico, the Mississippi Sound and the Mobile Bay. A truly unique experience awaits all those in the pursuit of knowledge! 2

DOCTORAL HOODING Faculty members celebrate with their students following the Doctoral Hooding. From left to right: Mary Katherine Osborn Ray, Dr. Mary Boggiano, Shannon Wittig, Dr. Christina Rodriguez, Benjamin McManus & Dr. Despina Stavrinos

FULBRIGHT SCHOLARS Lillian Chien, a Reno, Nevada, native, has been awarded the Fulbright English Teaching Assistant Program grant to Taiwan.

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GRADUATE STUDENTS Graduate students from the Medical/Clinical and Developmental Psychology doctoral programs volunteered at the annual Beer, Bands, and BBQ event hosted at Avondale Brewery. Proceeds supported the Alabama Head Injury Foundation (http://www.ahif. org/), an organization that aims to increase awareness of traumatic brain injury, encourages brain injury prevention, and provides services to people with brain injuries.

JOANNA GAINES, PH.D. Alumna Joanna Gaines has recently been deployed to Riyadh, Saudi Arabia to be the Field Epidemiology Training Program’s Resident Advisor for the United States Public Health Service (USPHS). Dr. Gaines is a USPHS Officer in the Department of Health and Human Services at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

PSYCHOLOGY AT A GLANCE

5 DR. CHRISTIANNE STRANG

She has also served in the Indian Health Service. She commissioned with the USPHS as part of the Epidemic Intelligence Service, the CDC’s post-doctoral training program, only the second developmental psychologist to do so. She has been deployed all over the nation and world during epidemics, immigration crises and natural disasters, including Liberia, Haiti, Kenya, Arizona and Missouri.

Dr. Strang’s submission, “Effects of tDCS-like Electrical Stimulation on Retinal Ganglion Cells”, was accepted for publication in “Eye and Brain”.

STACIE TOTSCH Stacie Totsch, a student in the Behavioral Neuroscience Doctoral Program accepted the basic and translational oncology T32 for her post-doc at UAB in the Division of Hematology and Oncology.

SAVE THE DATE The Department of Psychology Annual Distinguished Alumni Awards Day is scheduled for Wednesday, October 17 during Homecoming Week. The awards presentation and talk will begin at 3:00 PM at the Spencer Honors House followed by the Alumni Reception at The Wine Loft from 5-6:30 PM. 4

SCAHIP STUDENTS Dr. Despina Stavrinos led SCAHIP students on a field trip to The Civil Rights Institute. Pictured from left to right: Julia DeMichele, Tatiana Ray, Rachel Gehman, Victoria Swaine.

JOSHUA SEWARD Joshua Seward, a recent graduate of the UAB Psychology undergraduate program and member of Dr. Zina Trost’s lab, presented his work on “Exploring the Role of Pain Catastrophizing in Driving Behavior among Individuals with Chronic Low Back Pain” at the 2nd annual DHARS (Disability Health and Rehabilitation Science) symposium. This year’s symposium focus was on optimizing health, function, and participation in children and adults with disabilities.

SRA CONFERENCE UAB psychology students and faculty presented 10 posters and 3 talks at the Society for Research on Adolescence conference in Minneapolis, MN, where they also braved a snow storm, celebrated a birthday, and did not escape from ‘the room’.

DR. DIANE TUCKER Dr. Diane Tucker (Psychology) and Dr. Cynthia Ryan (English) teamed up to take 8 UAB students on a study abroad trip to Iceland over spring break 2018. Iceland is a country with stunning natural beauty, including floating glaciers, crashing waterfalls, geysers, and lovely geothermal pools. Iceland has developed an exemplary “culture of sustainability” and our trip focused on understanding how Iceland has used its extensive geothermal and hydropower resources to meet its energy needs. We experienced the Nordic culture and learned about Iceland’s transition to sustainable fishing practices and creative uses of geothermal energy. We traveled to northern Iceland and to the remote West Fjords region, experiencing parts of this fascinating country that are beyond the usual tourist itinerary. Upon returning to Birmingham, students applied their experience to analyzing sustainability-related challenges in our community.

KYLIE WOODMAN 6

Undergraduate student Kylie Woodman won first place at the 2018 UAB Spring Expo for her oral presentation entitled ”Technology Use in the Home: Links to ParentChild and Family Relations”. Woodman is mentored by Dr. Christina Rodriguez.

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UNDERGRADUATE STUDIES

The Ost

RECAP

28th Annual Undergraduate Ost Research Competition & Awards Ceremony Each year the Department of Psychology hosts an Undergraduate Research Competition that honors the memory of Professor John W. P. Ost. Professor Ost served as chair of the Department of Psychology from 1973 until 1977 and continued to serve as an active faculty member until his untimely death in 1988. The John Ost Undergraduate Research Competition commemorates Dr. Ost’s dedication to undergraduate research training. The keynote speaker for the event was Dr. Mike Sloane, who is an Associate Professor of Psychology and the current Director of the UAB University Honors Program. Born and raised in Ireland, Dr. Sloane joined the department as an Assistant Professor in September 1982 after completing his doctoral work at the Cresap Neuroscience Laboratory of Northwestern University. He directed the Psychology Honors Program for over 12 years, served as Director of Undergraduate Studies, and was the first Vice Chair of the Department. In the mid1980s, Dr. Sloane launched the Psychology Club, facilitated the development of UAB’s chapter of Psi Chi, and organized the annual Southeastern Undergraduate Psychology Research Conference, which ran for 21 years. He is the former director of the cognitive science minor and the doctoral program in cognitive science. Dr. Sloane was also instrumental in creating the Ost Competition in 1989. 06 PSYCHOLOGY UPDATE // SUMMER 2018

In 2004, he was selected to direct the University Honors Program, UAB’s flagship honors program established in 1983, which offers an interdisciplinary arts and sciences curriculum to a select group of highly motivated and talented undergraduates. In 2004, he authored a White Paper proposing the establishment of an Honors College, an Office of Undergraduate Research, and an annual undergraduate research conference at UAB, all of which have come to fruition.

The Winners

The results of the 2018 Ost Competition were a tie between students Liz Davis and Lindsay Jenkins, who will share a cash prize. Their posters were entitled “Racial differences in violence exposure and their effects on the psychosocial stress response” (Davis, primary mentor Dr. David Knight, Department of Psychology) and “The role of ERRa in the motor cortex and its implications on Schizophrenia” (Jenkins, primary mentor Dr. Rita Cowell, Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Neurobiology). Hemant Srivastava was also given an honorable mention for his poster, “ABT263 (Navitoclax) and the IPF-treatment drugs for a healthier aging” (primary mentor Dr. Sunad Rangarajan, School of Medicine). In addition to the Ost winners, several other awards were announced and presented at the Ost event.

Award Recipients

UNDERGRADUATE STUDIES

Outstanding Graduate Student in the Department of Psychology Nathaniel Gene Harnett Outstanding Graduate Student in Medical/Clinical Psychology Jesse Passler Gregg Steele Outstanding Student in Behavioral Neuroscience Nathaniel Gene Harnett & Stacie K. Totsch Outstanding Graduate Student in Lifespan and Developmental Psychology Jose O. Maximo Passey Prize for the Outstanding Student in Psychology Meredith Schertzinger & Courtney Tindell UAB Psychology Department Achievement Award Xiola Harris Outstanding Undergraduate Student in Departments of Psychology and Neurobiology Rahul Gaini, Isabella Mak, Mugda Mokashi

Dr. Christina Rodriguez & Stacie Totsch

Dr. Christina Rodriguez & Nathaniel Harnett

Dr. Christina Rodriguez & Jose Maximo

Dr. Maria Hopkins & Courtney Tindell

Dr. Maria Hopkins & Meredith Schertzinger

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Isabella Mak, Rahul Gaini, Mugdha Mokashi & Xiola Harris

UNDERGRADUATE STUDIES

Mugdha

MOKASHI U N D E R G R A D UATE S TUD ENT

“UAB Changed Everything for Me” by Jeff Hansen | in UAB News

Mugdha Mokashi grew up in Madison, a high-achieving Huntsville suburb where one-fourth of her high school class had ACT scores of 30 or higher. This upbringing, the University of Alabama at Birmingham senior said, was “extremely privileged, with a lot of support. I never had that bubble pop.” Then she came to UAB. “When I saw medical clinics and I met friends who didn’t grow up in Madison,” she said, “I realized how systemically you can be deprived of the advantages Madison had. I got to know people who have had little support.” One example: Her Science and Technology Honors program in UAB Honors College had a first-year course on basic lab procedures. “I had worked in a biotechnology organization in Huntsville, so I had experience,” Mokashi said, “but I had a friend who had never seen a pipette before.” The friend had come from a high school that offered only a single AP course.“I realized that the world was unfair for so many people,” Mokashi said. “UAB gave me a passion for public service.” Mokashi spent five semesters volunteering with Rape Response at the Crisis Center Birmingham, where she would be on-call 12 hours at a stretch. If a client arrived, we would go to the center,” Mokashi said. “We would talk them through what happened, discuss potential options for filing reports, tell them about counseling, and provide support during a sexual assault exam conducted by a trained sexual assault nurse examiner provider.” Mokashi served in the UAB Undergraduate Student Government Association for three years, as program coordinator, director of Student Issues and president.

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“It is very frustrating, but in a positive way,” she said. “It involves negotiating with stakeholders who have different competing interests. We did get free menstrual hygiene essentials placed in all women’s bathrooms.” Her most rewarding service was launching a student chapter of Unite for Reproductive & Gender Equity at UAB. The URGE website says it works to give all people agency over their own bodies and relationships, and give them the power and knowledge to exercise that agency. “It was exciting,” Mokashi said, “because it felt like the beginning of organizations on campus related to the empowerment of women.” Besides earning a neurosciences honors degree in the College of Arts and Sciences while working in the lab of Karen Gamble, Ph.D., UAB Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Neurobiology, Mokashi will graduate with a master’s degree in public health with a concentration in health behavior from the UAB School of Public Health. She served her public health internship in the Dominican Republic, speaking Spanish the entire summer. She helped conduct community interviews with a group researching barriers to accessing HIV treatment in Santo Domingo. Mokashi is bound for medical school this fall, though she has not decided which of a fistful of prestigious offers to accept. After four years in her labs, in classes, in her service, and in hundreds of hours shadowing physicians at Alabama hospitals and the UAB 1917 Clinic for HIV care, she plans to take a long-deferred family trip back to her birthplace in the Indian state of Maharashtra. Mokashi had pluck growing up — she liked to push the envelope, take risks and make decisions on her own. Coming to Birmingham added a fundamentally different facet to that character. “UAB changed everything for me,” Mokashi said. “I realized that my responsibility is to do better and do more, because I’ve had more.”

UNDERGRADUATE STUDIES

Joshua

Molly

LIM

CLAY

U N DER G R A DUATE S TU D E N T

U N D E R G R A D UATE S TUD ENT

Four Students Selected for Innovation Fellowship to Influence Change on UAB’s Campus

DSS Student Wins Karina Eide Memorial College Scholarship for Students with Dyslexia

by Alicia Rohan | in UAB News

in UAB Student Affairs News

From left: Alex Plazas, Haifa Al Harrasi, Joshua Lim and Callista Cox

Innovation and entrepreneurship are the focus of four students from the University of Alabama at Birmingham who were recently named University Innovation Fellows by Stanford University’s Hasso Plattner Institute of Design, or d.school. Haifa Al Harrasi, Alex Plazas, Callista Cox and Joshua Lim join 258 students from 64 higher education institutions in nine countries to become agents of change through innovation and entrepreneurship on campus. The students are trained in design thinking, a process for coming up with innovative solutions to unstructured problems. Their mission is to create new learning opportunities for other UAB students to engage with innovation, entrepreneurship, design thinking and creativity. The program’s philosophy is centered around believing students can change the world. “I have a deep passion for small businesses and startups,” said Lim, a junior from Mobile, Ala. in the UAB College of Arts and Sciences majoring in psychology and minoring in financing. “This fellowship provides me the opportunity to bring an entrepreneurial mindset to peers.” The University Innovation Fellows program empowers students to think out the box and find innovative solutions to fill voids around campus. Fellows work to ensure their peers gain the knowledge, skills and attitudes required to compete in the economy of the future and make a positive impact on the world.

Molly Clay, a junior psychology major, has been awarded the Karina Eide Memorial College Scholarship for Students with Dyslexia. The Dyslexic Advantage is the largest online network for dyslexic individuals, parents, teachers, and other professionals. Their mission is to foster positive identity, community, and strength for every dyslexic child and adult. They created this award in commemoration of Karina Eide, a woman who was dedicated to encouraging a passion for writing and mentoring young students. This prestigious scholarship awarded over $40,000 to students who have dyslexia. Clay was one of the 18 recipients for this year and was awarded $2,500. Clay has been an avid promoter of UAB’s Disability Support Services for two years. She is both an employee and user of the services. Clay has not let dyslexia impede her success. She maintains a spot on the dean’s list while balancing a job and participation in multiple campus organizations. She is also the winner for this year’s Student Excellence Awards in the Commitment to Campus Inclusion category. “This scholarship is allowing me to follow my dreams. The Karina Eide Memorial College Scholarship for Students with Dyslexia has made me realize that my disability might make it harder to read and write, but it makes helping others realize their potential so much easier,” Clay said. “My dyslexia is a part of me, but not all of me. This scholarship has allowed me to see I have so much potential and so many people that believe I can change the world by achieving my dreams.”

The third cohort of students from UAB traveled to Silicon Valley in March for the University Innovation Fellows’ fifth annual meetup after completing six weeks of online training. The students went through a rigorous application process to be selected for the fellowship program. SUMMER 2018 // PSYCHOLOGY UPDATE 09

GRADUATE STUDIES

Nathaniel

HARNETT GRADUATE S TUDENT

Discoveries: PTSD and the Brain by Sarah Graham | in UAB Graduate School

Imagine driving along I-20 west headed to Tuscaloosa for an Alabama football game. Suddenly, a car slams on the brakes in front of you and you can’t avoid it. You crash into it. Both you and the other driver survive the crash and are taken to the hospital with broken bones, scrapes and bruises. After the accident, you have normal feelings of fear, anxiety and anger, but over time, these feelings dissipate and you are left with a healthy respect for the dangers of the road. You are looking forward to a better drive to the next Alabama football game. But, the other driver has a very different recovery experience. Their initial fears don’t go away, but instead persist and even escalate. They have flashbacks about the crash, nightmares that disrupt their sleep and they are too fearful to drive. These are symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder, or PTSD. Why do two people who experience the same event have widely different responses? UAB doctoral student Nathaniel Harnett believes the answer to this question may lie in their brain. The structure and function of the human brain has fascinated Harnett since his introduction to neuroscience in an undergraduate psychology class. “The technology available today for scanning the brain is amazing,” said Harnett, a fifth-year graduate student in the UAB Department of Psychology’s Behavioral Neuroscience program. “We can look into the brain to learn why people have unique responses to events in their lives.” In particular, Harnett is interested in how people respond to stressful or traumatic events, and why most individuals cope and recover, but some develop PTSD, which affects about 8 percent of U.S. citizens. Harnett and his PhD mentor, Dr. David C. Knight, are using brain scans to identify people at risk for PTSD after they experience a traumatic event. Currently, treatments for PTSD are limited by gaps in our knowledge of the underlying neural mechanisms that lead to PTSD symptoms. A diagnosis of PTSD is made by a psychiatrist or psychologist based on symptoms like re-experiencing the traumatic event, avoidance and arousal lasting longer than a few months that interfere with relationships, work and other aspects of daily life. Once PTSD develops it can be hard to treat and involves counseling and medications.

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“If we could identify individuals in danger of developing PTSD using a brain scan, we could potentially intervene to reduce or prevent symptoms of PTSD before they appear,” Harnett said. Harnett’s research uses magnetic resonance imaging, or MRI, to look at brain structure and function. The brains of individuals with PTSD look different than those of individuals without PTSD. Brain regions of interest are those involved in the normal expression of emotions and memory like the amygdala, hippocampus and prefrontal cortex. In order to identify differences in these brain regions after a traumatic event, Harnett and his colleagues recruited individuals who have recently experienced a traumatic injury (< 1 month) from the UAB hospital trauma unit. They did not include people who have any other brain injury or condition that could affect their mental function. They conducted brain scans with research participants that look at brain structure and function and assess PTSD symptoms with a self-report measure called the Post-traumatic Diagnostic Scale (PDS). Study participants reported their PTSD symptoms with the self-report tool again at three months and six months after they begin the study. Harnett and his colleagues are trying to find a “signature of PTSD” or PTSD susceptibility by using this multimodal imaging approach that includes brain structure, function and biochemistry.“We are discovering that differences in brain structure, function and biochemistry early after trauma are related to the development of PTSD,” Harnett said. For example, decreases in size of the hippocampus could make it hard to discriminate between past and present experiences; decreases in prefrontal cortex size could impair fear-regulating processes; and hyperactivity in the amygdala could lead to anxiety. More work is necessary to better understand these changes and whether there are relationships between them. Harnett emphasized that the most rewarding aspects of this research include working with an underresearched population, and the prospect of finding ways to reduce disability associated with PTSD and improve quality of life for affected individuals. Ultimately, Harnett and his colleagues envision rehabilitation strategies that could be used before PTSD develops with individuals at risk based on their brain scans. Techniques like transcranial magnetic stimulation (a method of externally stimulating the brain) may be useful to positively influence communication networks in the brain and reduce PTSD symptoms. Harnett plans to continue this line of research during his postdoctoral research fellowship working under Kerry Ressler at McLean Hospital in Boston. His long-term goal is to be a faculty member and the principal investigator of his own lab. He wants to train and inspire the next generation of scientists. “This is a very cool area of science,” Harnett said. “How many different fields out there get to look at your brain and also have the potential to change lives?”

GRADUATE STUDIES

Slow Down and Evaluate the Risks of Driving Before Hitting the Road

Benjamin

by Alicia Rohan | in UAB News

PO ST D O C TO R A L F ELLOW

More than 32,000 people are killed and 2 million are injured each year from motor vehicle crashes, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Each time the car is cranked, it is important to think about the factors that increase the risk of motor vehicle crash, including drowsy driving, driving distractions such as driving with children and texting while driving, and keeping calm while on the road. Over the past year, researchers from the University of Alabama at Birmingham have found implications for each of these driving risks and provide tips to safely get to one’s destination.

Drowsy driving

Conservative estimates show that 21 percent of fatal crashes involve drowsy driving. “Drowsy driving can be considered a form of distracted driving,” said Benjamin McManus, recent Ph.D. graduate of the UAB Lifespan Development Psychology graduate program in the College of Arts and Sciences and current postdoctoral researcher at the UAB Translational Research and Injury Prevention Laboratory. “As with distracted drivers, cognitive resources are directed away from the task of driving in drowsy drivers.”

McMANUS Where other forms of distracted driving are externally influenced, like interacting with a cellphone, drowsy driving is an internally influenced distraction; but the result is the same — cognitive and visual resources are withdrawn from driving. In drowsy driving, alertness is drastically reduced, and attentional resources become less available for driving. McManus compiled research on the topic through his work in UAB’s TRIP Lab, which focuses on the prevention and control of unintentional injuries, particularly those resulting from motor vehicle crashes. “The statistics are pretty jarring,” McManus said. “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.”

in UAB Reporter

Knowing the signs of becoming drowsy behind the wheel, many of which are similar to distracted and drunk driving, could potentially be lifesaving. Signs of drowsy driving, include: • Increased frequency of blinking • Longer blink durations • Slower eye movements • Falling asleep while stopped in traffic or at a traffic light • Swerving • Slowed reaction time • Poor decision-making

Ten graduate faculty members were honored with the UAB Graduate Dean’s Excellence in Mentorship Award for exceptional work with graduate students and postdoctoral fellows during a ceremony April 2.

“Recognizing the signs is the first step in prevention,” McManus said. “Following recognition of those indications, you can employ a few different tactics prior to and during driving to help you stay awake.”

Each recipient has a different idea about what makes mentoring graduate students and postdocs special. Some say it’s the glimpse into the future of research and science. Others believe learning about encouragement and modeling a positive outlook has taught them just as much as they taught the young researchers.

The most common prevention and countermeasure techniques include: • Taking a nap • Drinking a caffeinated beverage • Engaging in alertness-enhancing activities while driving (radio adjustments, opening a window, engaging in conversation with passengers, etc.) • Stopping driving

What 10 Mentors Learned From Graduate Students and Postdocs

Dr. Sylvie Mrug “I have learned that students have different goals, aspirations, and needs, and that it is important to understand what these are to help students be successful. Likewise, it is important to support students in pursuing research questions they are passionate about – it makes their training and research more meaningful, and it makes them happier.”

“While these activities can help, they aren’t necessarily perfect solutions,” McManus said. “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. Research tells us that, as a supplement to sleep, naps can be effective for maintaining sustained attention, learning and memory.” SUMMER 2018 // PSYCHOLOGY UPDATE 11

GRADUATE STUDIES

Dr. David Schwebel’s

YOUTH SAFETY LAB Winners Share the Coalition’s Mission of Eliminating Roadway Deaths by 2050 from nsc.org/roadtozero

Itasca, IL – The Road to Zero Coalition, managed by the National Safety Council, is pleased to announce the recipients of the second annual Safe System Innovation Grants through the Road to Zero initiative. The grants are awarded to organizations with innovative approaches to make roadways safer and eliminate preventable roadway deaths – the mission of the Road to Zero initiative.

To qualify for a Safe System Innovation Grant, an organization must clearly explain how its program will improve safety on the roadways, set a timeframe for the reduction, outline how the program will be evaluated and detail how the organization intends to reach its target audience, among other elements.

Grant recipients are: • •

“Preliminary estimates indicate that as many as 40,000 people were killed last year in motor vehicle crashes, underscoring the need to act urgently,” said Deborah A.P. Hersman, president and CEO of the National Safety Council. “We had an impressive pool of applicants, but the creativity and carefully considered strategies of the grant recipients set them apart. We look forward to working with them on our shared journey toward zero deaths.”

•

The Road to Zero initiative was launched in October 2016 as a joint effort between the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, the Federal Highway Administration, the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration and NSC. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration at the Department of Transportation committed $3 million – $1 million annually from 2017-2019 – to fund Safe System Innovation Grants.

•

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• • •

•

America Walks: Accelerating Adoption of Safer Systems For All Road Users Bicycle Colorado: Bicycle-Friendly Driver and Confident Commuting Program Center for Latino Progress - CPRF: Cooperative Community Crash Reduction, Hartford, Conn. City of Boston Mayor’s Office of New Urban Mechanics: Boston’s Safest Driver Lorain County Public Health: Lorain Active Transportation Collaborative National Opinion Research Center (NORC) at the University of Chicago: Underutilized Strategies in Traffic Safety Texas A&M University Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering, in collaboration with Houston Methodist Hospital: A Systems Approach to Reduce Drowsy Driving Among Night-Shift Nurses University of Alabama at Birmingham, in collaboration with Safe Kids Worldwide: Improving Child Restraint Installation in Rural America through Interactive Virtual Presence

GRADUATE STUDIES

National Traffic Safety Program Invites UAB Graduate Student to Participate in Research Internship

2018-2019 Internship Placements 100% Match

by Alicia Rohan | in UAB News

Austin Svancara, a graduate student in the University of Alabama at Birmingham College of Arts and Sciences, was selected for a prestigious internship with the AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety in Washington, D.C. Svancara, a member of the UAB Department of Psychology’s Lifespan Developmental Program, will gain hands-on experience in preparing technical writeups, assisting in statistical analyses, and collaborating on projects with leading experts in transportation. The AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety is a not-forprofit, publicly supported, charitable research and education organization dedicated to saving lives by preventing traffic crashes and reducing injuries when crashes occur. The research institute places its focus on four main areas: driver behavior and performance, emerging technologies, roadway systems and drivers, and vulnerable road users, which are crucial to the improvement of transportation safety. Each of these areas is relevant to the work currently done in the UAB Translational Research for Injury Prevention Lab, particularly the work on driver behavior and vulnerable road users.

Lauren Bolden

Alexandra Cutillo

Harvard Medical School/ Massachusetts General Hospital Boston, Massachusetts Neuropsychology Track

A.I. duPont Hospital for Children Wilmington, Delaware Pediatric Psychology Track

Lindsey Elliott

Amber Fahey

Nationwide Children’s Hospital Columbus, Ohio Pediatric Psychology Track

James A. Haley Veterans Hospital Tampa, Florida Neuropsychology Track

Graduate Students Attend ISRA Conference Dr. Christina Rodriguez along with graduate students Doris Pu and Samantha Gonzalez represented the Department of Psychology at the 23rd ISRA World Meeting held at the Université Paris Descartes from July 10 to July 14. The scientific program of the 2018 World Meeting represents multidisciplinary research on aggressive behavior and included 4 days of presentations. Gonzalez won a prize for her conference presentation known as a Lagerspetz Award. The International Society for Research on Aggression (ISRA) is a professional society of scholars and researchers engaged in the scientific study of aggression and violence. The Society is both interdisciplinary and international, with biennial meetings that alternate between North America and Europe and, most recently, Australia. Members come from several dozen countries with disciplines including anthropology, behavior genetics, criminology, education, ethology and animal behavior, neuroscience, political science, psychiatry, psychology and sociology.

Samantha Henry

Mary Lynch

University of Chicago Medicine Chicago, Illinois Adult Neuropsychology Track

Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Cincinnati, Ohio Behavioral Medicine Track

Lindsay Niccolai

Brent Womble

Michael E. DeBakey VA Medical Center Houston, Texas Neuropsychology Track

Milwaukee VA Medical Center Milwaukee, Wisconsin Psychology Internship Program

SUMMER 2018 // PSYCHOLOGY UPDATE 13

GRADUATE STUDIES

From left: Farah Lubin, Kirsten Schoonover, Nate Harnett and Lori McMahon.

Nathaniel Harnett & Kirsten Schoonover Nathaniel Harnett and Kirsten Schoonover are at the Front of the Pack in a National Effort to Increase Diversity in Neuroscience

G R AD UATE S TUD ENTS

Neuroscience trainees from underrepresented backgrounds make up 14 percent of graduate school trainees, 9 percent of postdoctoral trainees and just 5 percent of those in the neuroscience tenure stream.

by Jeff Hansen | in UAB News

Roadmap Scholars

The two University of Alabama at Birmingham graduate students — and just 10 other predoctorates from underrepresented backgrounds across the United States — won inaugural neuroscience awards last year from the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke, or NINDS. This award provides two years of graduate school funding, followed by four years of continuous support through their critical postgraduate career stage.

Harnett and Schoonover were among the first UAB neuroscience students invited to join the UAB Neuroscience Roadmap Scholars, which now includes 33 graduate students.

These prestigious awards — which include stipends and funds for travel and supplies — enhance their freedom to pick and choose great postdoctoral positions. At the same time, the NINDS initiative requires them to work closely with mentors to map out research plans to finish their Ph.D. degrees and plot the courses of their postgraduate research. The aim is an enhanced pool of well-trained, diverse neuroscientists who will pursue academic research careers. 14 PSYCHOLOGY UPDATE // SUMMER 2018

The awards that Harnett and Schoonover won go by a bulky name: NIH Blueprint Diversity Specialized Predoctoral to Postdoctoral Advancement in Neuroscience Award, or D-SPAN. A special, NIH-funded program in the UAB Graduate School is one reason for UAB’s D-SPAN success.

“We provide a community that is supportive,” said Farah Lubin, Ph.D., associate professor in the Department of Neurobiology and co-director of the Roadmap Scholars program. “We provide an environment that allows them to express themselves, and we provide them tools to succeed, such as courses, professional workshops and mock NIH study sections.”

GRADUATE STUDIES

Neuroscience Trainees from Underrepresented Backgrounds Make up:

14%

14% OF GRADUATE TRAINEES

9% OF POSTDOCTORAL TRAINEES

Roadmap Scholars has helped Harnett and Schoonover flourish. “The Roadmap Scholars program has been fabulous,” Schoonover said. Harnett has published seven papers, four as first author. He will finish his Ph.D. defense by the end of summer, and then do postdoctoral training with Kerry Ressler, M.D., Ph.D., chief scientific officer and chair of Psychiatry at McLean Hospital in Massachusetts. “We are writing the transition application and hammering out the plan now,” Harnett said. Schoonover will finish her Ph.D. by next spring. She has published one first-author paper and has two more under review, and she has begun the search for her postdoctoral mentor. She also won the UAB Three Minute Thesis competition in 2017.

Falling in love with neuroscience

Harnett and Schoonover come from different backgrounds, but they both fell in love with neuroscience by chance. Harnett grew up in New York’s Southern Tier. He had an AfricanAmerican heritage and a grandmother who emigrated from Italy, and he chose Ithaca College for its music conservatory. Then the tuba and trombone player went to a neuroscience class. “It’s funny how one lecture can change your life,” he said. Schoonover grew up in Procius, West Virginia, where the high school has 200 students. She intended to be a lawyer and hated science, but became interested in psychology at the University of West Virginia. “When I took Biological Foundations of Behavior, a required course, I kind of fell in love with it, how genetics can modify animal behavior,” she said.

5% IN THE NEUROSCIENCE TENURE STREAM

Harnett and Schoonover credit their UAB mentors as linchpins of their success, including reviews of their D-SPAN applications and helping plan their thesis research. Harnett studies the effects of post-traumatic stress following acute medical trauma, such as blunt force injuries and stabbings, working in the lab of David Knight, Ph.D., associate professor of psychology, UAB College of Arts and Sciences. Schoonover studies the genetic regulation of copper homeostasis in schizophrenia, working in the lab of Rosalinda Roberts, Ph.D., professor of psychiatry and behavioral neurobiology, UAB School of Medicine.

Send the elevator back down

Both students are setting high goals for their postdoctoral training. “Part of the goal for the fellowship is to get us through the training path to become tenure-track faculty,” Harnett said. “Learn how to run our own lab, hire technicians, work with graduate students, work with postdocs, write grants and be successful.” Schoonover wants postdoctoral training where she can expand her methodological skills, do more molecular biology and equip herself with as many skills as possible. “Kirsten and Nate,” Lubin said, “are truly awesome individuals. I have watched them grow in their science, grow in their levels of professionalism and grow in their confidence. They kept submitting funding applications for graduate fellowships, and we’re very proud of them.” Lubin herself is part of the underrepresented in neuroscience, as a woman who emigrated from Haiti to New York City when she was young. She says she always has a message for Harnett, Schoonover and all the other accomplished Roadmap Scholars at UAB. “I tell the students,” she said, “that after you’ve ridden the elevator up, make sure you hit the button to send the elevator back down for someone else to follow.” SUMMER 2018 // PSYCHOLOGY UPDATE 15

FACULTY

Dr. Edward

TAUB

U NIVERS ITY P RO FES SOR

For Your Patients-Multiple Sclerosis: A Rehab Therapy Used in Stroke Recovery May Help in MS by Susan Fitzgerald | in Neurology Today

In two paired studies, researchers said constraint-induced movement therapy led to improvements in real-world function and white matter integrity on brain scans of patients with multiple sclerosis. Multiple sclerosis patients (MS) who do a rehabilitation intervention called constraint-induced movement therapy (CIMT) achieved greater use of their more affected arm and also showed more improvement in white matter integrity on brain scans than patients doing other therapeutic activities, two new studies published in tandem in the March issue of Neurorehabilitation and Neural Repair found. The positive trends were still evident at one year, suggesting that undergoing CIMT for a short period, just 10 days in all, may have a persistent payoff for MS patients experiencing diminished use of an arm. Previous research has shown that CIMT can be a productive rehabilitation technique for stroke and cerebral palsy, but its usefulness for progressive neurological diseases such as MS has not been fully explored. The new randomized, controlled trial, conducted at the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB), is small, but the researchers concluded the results were promising enough to warrant additional study. The findings appear in a pair of articles, one looking at real-world function and the other at white matter integrity. “These results suggest that CIMT can increase real-world use of the more affected arm in patients with MS for at least one year,” concluded the first article. The second one concluded “the findings suggest in preliminary fashion that the adverse changes in white matter integrity induced by MS might be reversed by CIMT.” While the articles present an upbeat picture of the potential for CIMT to boost the everyday function of MS patients, a rehabilitation researcher not connected to the studies urged some caution, noting that the study design and methodologies raise questions that need to be addressed.

16 PSYCHOLOGY UPDATE // SUMMER 2018

Previous clinical trials have demonstrated that various forms of exercise can benefit MS, but the studies tended to be short, usually under six months, and not particularly focused on whether what was learned in the rehabilitation clinic was effectively transferred to everyday life.

Study Design

This new phase 2 study, funded by the National Institutes of Health and the National Multiple Sclerosis Society, involved 20 adults with hemiparetic MS who were assigned to either 35 hours of CIMT or what was characterized as complementary alternative medicine (CAM). The CIMT intervention, done over 10 consecutive weekdays, had several components: intensive training with the more affected arm on movements and activities of functional significance for three hours a day with rest periods as needed; training with “behavioral shaping,” which involves approaching motor goals in small increments with encouragement to improve on personal best performance and positive feedback at each step; restraint of the less-affected hand with a padded mitt for about 90 percent of waking hours; and a set of behavioral procedures, called the “transfer package,” to facilitate the transfer of the gains in the clinic to the real world. The transfer package included a behavioral contract; homework practice assignments; keeping an activity diary; and a 30-minute daily interview with the therapist that included administering the Motor Activity Log (MAL) — a scripted interview to assess what was done relative to pretreatment — a review of the diary, and problem-solving discussions to overcome perceived barriers to arm use. The control group, also under the supervision of a physical therapist, did activities such as aquatic therapy, gentle yoga, and relaxation techniques like meditation and breathing. The main clinical outcome was a change on the arm use score on MAL from pretreatment to the one-year mark. All 20 participants completed the active phase of the trial and eight patients in each group were available for the final analysis. The mean change in MAL for the CIMT group was 2.7 at the one-year mark (1.7/5 improving to 4.4/5), compared to a 0.5 change for the other group (1.6 improving to 2.1). The researchers said a change of 1.0 is considered clinically meaningful. They said that overall “all of the CIMT patients but only three of the CAM patients had clinically meaningful motor improvement at both post-treatment and one-year follow-up.” The CIMT group also had better scores on another standardized test, the Wolf Motor Function Test (named after Dr. Wolf). The researchers wrote that the findings “suggest that the neuropathology of MS does not preclude long-term real-world functional improvement that is comparable to the responses of other nonprogressive neurologically debilitating illnesses (stroke, traumatic brain injury) in response to the same form of efficacious motor rehabilitation.”

FACULTY

Observed Brain Changes

In the second part of the study, the researchers assessed whether CIMT could induce changes in white matter integrity in MS patients. They noted in background material that other rehabilitation techniques have been found to do so. They analyzed the 20 participants’ white matter brain structure using magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), specifically T1weighted scans and whole-brain diffusion-tensor scans. “We observed significant pre-to post-treatment white matter improvements for the CIMT group but not the CAM group,” the researchers reported. They identified positive changes in white matter integrity in the corticospinal tract and in temporal, callosal, and visual areas of the brain. They reported that the positive changes were observed within the two weeks that CIMT therapy was administered, which they said was a relatively brief period but consistent with what has been observed in studies involving experimental monkeys. Study investigator Edward Taub, PhD, professor of psychology at UAB and a pioneer of CIMT, said the “transfer package” portion of the CIMT protocol seems to be key. “The important part is to get them to translate the improvement they achieve in the clinic into real life,” Dr. Taub said. “You have to get them to increase the use of the affected arm in real life, and that increased use of the arm can affect brain changes.” Dr. Taub said giving practical homework assignments, keeping a diary of home activities, such as turning off lights or opening a door, and then problem solving with the therapist afterward is important. If a patient is afraid to hold a cup of coffee with the affected hand out of fear of spilling it, a solution might be to only fill the cup halfway. Dr. Taub noted, however, that CIMT therapy is expensive ($6,000 at the clinic he runs at UAB) and may not be covered by a person’s insurance. The main clinical outcome was a change on the arm use score on MAL from pretreatment to the one-year mark. All 20 participants completed the active phase of the trial and eight patients in each group were available for the final analysis. The mean change in MAL for the CIMT group was 2.7 at the one-year mark (1.7/5 improving to 4.4/5), compared to a 0.5 change for the other group (1.6 improving to 2.1). The researchers said a change of 1.0 is considered clinically meaningful. They said that overall “all of the CIMT patients but only three of the CAM patients had clinically meaningful motor improvement at both post-treatment and one-year follow-up.” The CIMT group also had better scores on another standardized test, the Wolf Motor Function Test (named after Dr. Wolf). The researchers wrote that the findings “suggest that the neuropathology of MS does not preclude long-term real-world functional improvement that is comparable to the responses of other nonprogressive neurologically debilitating illnesses (stroke, traumatic brain injury) in response to the same form of efficacious motor rehabilitation.”

The lead investigator for the two studies, Victor Mark, MD, a neurologist and associate professor in the department of physical medicine and rehabilitation at UAB, said he thought that the findings were noteworthy not only because “this treatment is very effective in improving spontaneous, realworld activity, but this improvement is maintained up to a year out.” He said the findings also show that the neuroplasticity of the brain can be influenced rather quickly, in just two weeks in this case. He noted that the treatment is specifically directed at improving limb use in MS. “Further research will be needed to determine whether different forms of rehabilitation will benefit other kinds of health concerns of persons with MS, including balance and eyesight,” Dr. Mark said. The study had limitations. It was very small, including only 20 people, and carried out at a center that specializes in CIMT, so whether the results would be reproducible in other populations of MS patients is not known. The study was not designed to assess how patients were faring otherwise with MS. The therapy was only directed at improving use of the arm and hand most affected by the disease.

Expert Commentary

Dr. Wolf, who has collaborated with Dr. Taub, said he was concerned about some of the methodology used in the study, including the fact that the MAL and the WMFT (Wolf Motor Function Test) have been validated for use in assessing stroke patients but not MS. He was also surprised by the large treatment effect that was reported, and would like to see those numbers confirmed by a larger study. He said measuring change in function in MS is complicated because the disease is so variable, with relapses and remission, depending at what point in time you are evaluating someone. But, Dr. Wolf added, “I think some of the brain information coming from the imaging data is very interesting.” Carolee Winstein, PhD, PT, professor of biokinesiology and physical therapy at the University of Southern California, told Neurology Today that the new findings on CIMT are important and could help inform how therapy programs are organized for MS patients. She said the “transfer package” components of the program, rather than simply the clinic workouts, seem to be critical to achieving a favorable outcome. By placing emphasis on out-of-clinic behavior, “it changes how people incorporate their weak side into what they do spontaneously in their natural environment,” she said. Being able to carry out routine tasks helps people maintain independence in the midst of a progressive disease, she said. Dr. Winstein, who does research on stroke rehabilitation, said the positive changes noted in white matter structure in the study participants who did CIMT should not be considered a reversal of the MS disease process per se, but perhaps a slowing down of motor deterioration, at least in the targeted limb, a sort of neuroprotective effect. Dr. Winstein said exercise in general is increasingly recognized as a critical component of MS care. “People can do very well with all kinds of exercise.” SUMMER 2018 // PSYCHOLOGY UPDATE 17

FACULTY

Dr. David

SCHWEBEL Hoverboard Injuries Sending Thousands of Kids to ERs by Lisa Rapaport| Reuters Health

Hoverboards, the motorized self-balancing scooters that took the nation by storm a few years back, have sent thousands of kids to the emergency room, a new study suggests. Soon after these flashy gadgets emerged as one of the hottest toys of 2015, incidents of batteries overheating and hoverboards bursting into flames prompted recalls. But burns accounted for just three injuries in the study, and two of these incidents involved crashing a hoverboard into a kitchen stove and getting doused with boiling water. Instead, falls appeared to be the main culprit behind the estimated 26,854 hoverboard injuries in kids under 18 treated in U.S. emergency rooms in 2015 and 2016. As reported in Pediatrics, fractures accounted for 40 percent of the injuries, followed by contusions, sprains and strains. Most often, kids injured their wrist, forearm or head. “Many of these injuries may be avoided with proper protective gear,” said lead study author Dr. Sean Bandzar, an emergency physician at New York-Presbyterian/Weill Cornell and Columbia University Medical Center in New York City. “Parental supervision is one of the best ways to reduce the risk of injury, in addition to having children wear helmets and wrist pads,” Bandzar said by email. Hoverboard injuries happened most often at home, the study found. With skateboards, more than half of the estimated 121,398 injuries in 2015 and 2016 happened in the street. Here, too, the wrist was the most commonly injured body part and fractures were the most common injuries. Overall, only about three percent of the hoverboard and skateboard injuries were serious enough to require a hospital admission. 18 PSYCHOLOGY UPDATE // SUMMER 2018

U N I V E R SI T Y PR O F E SSO R A SSO C I AT E D E A N F O R R E SE A R C H I N T H E SC I E N C E S

The study wasn’t a controlled experiment designed to show how skateboards or hoverboards cause injuries, and it also didn’t show what kids were doing or whether they wore any protective gear at the time of the accidents. And because researchers lacked data on how often kids used skateboards or hoverboards, it was impossible to calculate injury rates based on the amount of use or how dangerous these activities are compared to other sports. Still, the results add to the evidence that falls and fractures from hitting a hard surface are common injuries with hoverboards and skateboards, said Dr. Gary Smith, president of the Child Injury Prevention Alliance in Columbus, Ohio. “This is a well-known pattern seen for falls associated with many consumer products,” Smith, who wasn’t involved in the study, said by email. “Starting in the pre-school years, children have enough strength and coordination to use their out-stretched arms to attempt to break their fall,” Smith added. “The force of their fall often causes a fracture in one of the bones in their forearm near the wrist.” While all wheeled toys carry some injury risk, children can still benefit from using them and getting exercise outdoors, said David Schwebel, director of the Youth Safety Lab at the University of Alabama at Birmingham. But parents should supervise their kids, keep them away from roads, and insist all children wear helmets and other protective gear. “If children refuse to wear helmets, parents should prohibit them from riding/skating, It should be non-negotiable,” Schwebel added. “Parents also must set a good example and wear a helmet themselves when they bicycle or engage in other activities where helmets are recommended.”

FACULTY

Dr. Olivio

CLAY A S S OCIATE P R OFES S OR

Clay’s Research Inspires Second Opinion After attending the Caregiver’s Conference at Canterbury United Methodist Church this spring, Elisabeth Brock was so impressed by Dr. Olivio Clay’s presentation on racial differences in caregiving, it inspired her to adress the topic of caregiving in an episode on her series Second Opinion. Brock is the Executive Producer for Second Opinion, a national public television series now in its 15th season.

Second Opionion’s goal is to go beyond the typical 30-second sound bites that dominate popular media coverage to provide meaningful, in-depth information about important health topics. The program has welcomed experts from around the country, from agencies such as NIH to medical centers like MD Anderson, Massachusetts General and Johns Hopkins.

The intent of the episode is to focus primarily on the health and well-being of individuals who have assumed the caretaker role.

The series is hosted by Dr. Peter Salgo, Associate Director of the Open Heart ICU at New York Presbyterian Hospital. For more than two decades Peter was the Health and Science Correspondent for the CBS affiliate in New York and is a skilled television facilitator. Peter’s work earned the series a national Emmy nomination for Outstanding Informative Talk Show Host—a category typically dominated by lighter fare—and is a measure of our interest in presenting quality information in an accessible manner.

“In researching this episode we were struck by the frustration expressed by many of the caretakers we interviewed,” Brock said. “When I shared this with Dr. Clay—particularly the sense that for some caretakers, the network of wellintentioned social support all too often misses the mark--he was not surprised by this. Dr. Clay’s understanding of the complexities involved in assuming this role makes him so well suited for the program.” Second Opinion is a co-production of WXXI Public Television and the University of Rochester Medical Center and airs on PBS stations throughout the country--including Alabama Public Television. Each half-hour episode of Second Opinion focuses on a single topic anchored by an in-studio conversation among health care providers, scientists and patients.

You can view full episodes of Second Opinion by visiting: https://www. secondopinion-tv.org/ episodes

SUMMER 2018 // PSYCHOLOGY UPDATE 19

FACULTY

Across the Spectrum by UAB Digital Strategy & Marketing | in Arts and Sciences Magazine

Four female faculty members in the Department of Psychology study and treat Autism Spectrum Disorder Doctors Kristi Guest, Laura Stopplebein, Sarah O’Kelley, and Maria Hopkins. Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) is the term that is used to describe a wide range of developmental disorders, now including Autistic Syndrome and Asperger’s Syndrome, and diagnosis rates have risen steadily in the U.S. since researchers first began monitoring ASD nearly 20 years ago. In their 2014 report, The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) estimated that 1 in 68 children in the U.S. have autism, with a gender breakdown of 1 in 42 for boys and 1 in 189 for girls—or about five boys for every girl. That is a 30 percent increase over the prior report from 2008 and more than double the 2000 rate of 1 in 150. Although many people worry about an “epidemic” of autism, the increase in rates may be attributed to our growing awareness of autism as well as changes to the criteria used to diagnose ASD. Regardless, it is a reality for many Alabama families who are motivated to find the right care for their children. Several faculty members in the Department of Psychology study child and adolescent developmental disabilities, including Autism Spectrum Disorder. And four of those faculty members happen to be female: Dr. Kristi Guest, Dr. Maria Hopkins, Dr. Sarah O’Kelley, and Dr. Laura Stoppelbein. While they all have different concentrations, they have many years of experience in the field. Their profiles offer fascinating insights into their work, the ASD interdisciplinary research platform at UAB, and what they have learned about the disorder over the course of their careers.

O N T H E C OV E R Pictured above from left to right: Dr. Kristi Guest, Dr. Laura Stoppelbein, Dr. Sarah O’Kelley & Dr. Maria Hopkins

20 PSYCHOLOGY UPDATE // SUMMER 2018

FACULTY

Dr. Sarah

O’KELLEY A S S I S TA N T P R OFES S OR

• • • •

Director of the Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD) clinic at UAB Civitan-Sparks Clinics Training Director of UAB Maternal and Child Health Leadership Education in Neurodevelopmental and Related Disabilities (LEND) Associate Director for Training for the UAB University Center for Excellence in Developmental Disabilities (UCEDD) Secondary appointment, Department of Pediatrics, UAB School of Medicine

Q: What kind of research do you do, and how does your research impact our understanding/ treatment of ASD? A: I have nearly 20 years of research and clinical experience with individuals with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) and other developmental disabilities. My research interests and areas of expertise include cognitive and behavioral characteristics of individuals with ASD (previous collaborative and independent studies have included evaluating implicit learning, central coherence, and theory-of-mind paradigms), screening and early identification (i.e., evaluating validity of screening tools), sibling and family functioning (i.e., the broader autism characteristics and behavioral difficulties in siblings of children with ASD), group social skills interventions, and issues across the lifespan for individuals with ASD. I actively collaborate with investigators on campus and across the country on funded research projects and co-direct an ASD research group at UAB that involves multiple studies evaluating clinical data on children referred for ASD assessment.

Q: What is happening developmentally in the brain to a child who has a spectrum disorder? Can you describe how their brains may work differently than those of us who don’t have an ASD diagnosis? A: I often explain to families that the brains of individuals with ASD aren’t wrong, they are just wired differently, which leads to the different ways of interpreting and responding to the world. For example, they may use a different area of the brain to think about a specific problem or challenge, and this may take some longer than people without ASD, but the end result is similar or sometimes superior (or faster). Much of the research on brain development suggest a different course and pattern of development that may begin prenatally, that sometimes results in too many or too few neurons in certain parts of the brain, which leads to different functioning. Q: What role do stress and anxiety play in the individuals with ASD? What about the impact of stress on families? A: Anxiety is a common co-occurrence in individuals with ASD. Some of the repetitive or ritualistic behaviors may have an underlying anxious component, and anxiety has been implicated in many of the difficulties that individuals with ASD experience (e.g., feeding, toileting in young children, social difficulties). In addition, many individuals with ASD also having symptoms that result in a diagnosis of an anxiety disorder (e.g., generalized anxiety, social phobia, specific phobia). Research has also suggested that families of individuals with ASD experience significant and unique stress, even in comparison to families of individuals with other significant, chronic illnesses. Much of this is due to the misunderstanding of the diagnosis and lack of support and resources for families. There is often a significant financial burden to families, which is compounded when one of the parents feels they have to stop working to provide the care and/or transportation to services their child needs. This is one of the things that the Alabama Regional Autism Networks (RAN), including the one at UAB housed at Civitan-Sparks, is trying to improve for families.

Q: What do you anticipate for the future of research and treatment for ASD? A: Research will continue to focus on contributions to the development of ASD (e.g., genetics) and how it presents differently across individuals. My hope is that intervention research will continue to identify evidence-based practice for individuals across the lifespan and the full range of the autism spectrum. I do think that this will lead to better acceptance and understanding. Autism awareness has come a long way in the last 10 years or so, but there is still much to do in terms of fully including and accepting individuals with ASD in their home communities, and particularly as they exit school-based services, enter the workforce, and seek to live independently.

Q: How is UAB uniquely positioned to advance our understanding and treatment of ASD? A: UAB has an incredible core of researchers and clinicians who are not only uniquely trained and knowledgeable about the diagnosis but also who are extremely passionate about the population they work with. UAB has great community and state connections that have potential to impact individuals, families, and systems important to improved support, understanding, independence, and satisfaction for all involved.

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Dr. Maria

HOPKINS A S S OCIATE P R OFES S O R

• •

Director of Undergraduate Programs, Department of Psychology Faculty Advisor, Psi Chi Psychology Honor Society

Q: What kind of research do you do? How does your research impact our understanding/ treatment of ASD? A: My research is focused on social development in children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). I am particularly interested in issues of emotion recognition and social cognition, as well as technologies designed to assist children with these difficulties. My early research directly addressed emotional development in children with ASD and other developmental disorders. These projects found that ASD children had difficulties recognizing emotions in others, particularly from the eye region of the face. Given these findings, I collaborated with Drs. Frank Amthor and Fred Biasini in the Department of Psychology and developed a computerized gaming platform designed to teach specific skills such as joint attention, face processing, and facial recognition. We documented the effectiveness of this computer-based intervention for ASD children in a series of studies. My most recent work involves a social robot for children with autism. The robot, Socially Animated Machine (SAM), is designed to teach social skills such as emotion recognition and identification. Our lab research shows that children with ASD enjoy and are motivated by interventions using technology. This is particularly important for children with ASD who often have difficulty with attention and motivation. Q: Over the years that you have been researching ASD, what have you learned about the nature of these disorders? A: The increase in reported prevalence and overall awareness has brought about a significant expansion in the field of autism research. We are starting to get a much better picture of what this disorder is and the extent of its complexity. We now know there is not one autism but rather a spectrum of disorders that have different causes and different manifestations. Q: What is happening developmentally in the brain to a child who has a spectrum disorder? Can you describe how their brains may work differently than those of us who don’t have an ASD diagnosis? A: We know that autism is a highly heritable neurodevelopmental disorder. But while research is focusing very heavily on the genetic basis for autism, we have not yet identified either the specific genetic sites or the mechanisms of effect. 22 PSYCHOLOGY UPDATE // SUMMER 2018

Imaging studies of people with ASD have found differences in the development of several regions of the brain. Studies suggest that ASD could be a result of disruptions in normal brain growth very early in development. These disruptions may be the result of defects in genes that control brain development and regulate how brain cells communicate with each other. Q: What role do stress and anxiety play in individuals with ASD? What about the impact of stress on families? A: Parents of children with ASD score higher on levels of stress than other groups of parents. The daily challenges of caring for the child are endless and affect all aspects of the family’s mental health and ability to manage the needs of the child. Q: What do you anticipate for the future of research and treatment for ASD? A: The past few years have witnessed breakthroughs in the understanding of ASD. However, the increase in reported prevalence highlight the need for continued efforts to translate research discoveries into effective interventions. Much treatment research is now heading toward understanding the variables that affect treatment response and predictors of treatment outcome, and using this information to help tailor treatments for individual children. This should lead to an overall higher positive treatment response across all children with autism. Just two decades ago, autism was a mysterious and somewhat obscure disorder, commonly associated with savants. Today, thanks to awareness and advocacy efforts, people have a much better understanding of autism. However, many people still conceptualize autism as a disorder where the child sits in a corner rocking or banging his head. I think recognition and appreciation of the much more common lesser forms of the disorder is still lacking. There is a need to provide support for individuals with ASD to successfully transition into adulthood and become valued and valuable members of their communities, such as increased vocational and post-secondary educational support for young adults with autism and expanding job opportunities. Q: How is UAB uniquely positioned to advance our understanding and treatment of ASD? A: As a world-renowned research institution, UAB allows for multidisciplinary collaborations to further enhance our understanding of ASD. In order to understand this multifaceted disorder, we need to engage people across disciplines such as geneticists, molecular scientists, child psychologists, neuroscientists, and brain imaging researchers. We need a comprehensive approach in understanding the complexity of the disorder. There is a remarkable amount of expertise here, which makes UAB uniquely positioned to advance our understanding and treatment of ASD.

FACULTY

Dr. Kristi

GUEST A S S I S TA N T P R OFES S OR

• • • •

Disabilities Services Coordinator for the UAB Early Head Start Program Research Coordinator for the UAB Civitan-Sparks Clinics and the UAB Leadership Education in Neurodevelopmental and Related Disabilities (LEND) Executive Board Member, Central Alabama Early Intervention Council Secondary Appointment, Assistant Professor, Department of Neurobiology, UAB School of Medicine

Q: What kind of research do you do? How does your research impact our understanding/treatment of ASD? A: Throughout my career as a developmental psychologist, I have worked as a Co-Investigator on federally-funded projects focused on providing clinical services to multiple vulnerable populations of children, including children and their families living in poverty, children with disabilities, children at risk for Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD), children at risk for abuse and neglect, and children of adolescent mothers. Overall, the themes of my research within these at-risk populations have been to explore the clinical presentation of children referred for an ASD assessment at the UAB Civitan-Sparks Clinics/LEND program, the effectiveness of screening measures in discerning ASD from other developmental delays or disorders, and the behavioral characteristics and development of individuals with the rare genetic syndrome Pitt-Hopkins Syndrome (PTHS), to differentiate the clinical presentation from that of other developmental disabilities. Research to better understand the clinical presentations and development of individuals with ASD or similar symptoms is important to guide more informed recommendations for needed services and intervention. Q: Do you see patients/work in a clinical setting? If so, what is the purpose of those interactions/ assessments and treatments? A: My career passion has been to serve children with disabilities and their families, to form partnerships with families and children to enhance developmental outcomes for children, and to promote the well-being of children and families. My education as a developmental psychologist and my clinical expertise has allowed me to fulfill this aspiration for the last 18 years. As a clinician, my service is concentrated in providing intensive intervention services for young children and their families who are low-income and service coordination for children with disabilities through the UAB Early Head Start Program as well as providing diagnostic evaluations of children presenting with symptoms of ASD with the UAB Civitan-Sparks Clinics.

Civitan- Sparks Clinics are a fundamental part of the University Centers for Excellence in Developmental Disabilities (UCEDD) and the Maternal and Child Health Bureau’s Leadership Education in Neurodevelopmental and Related Disabilities (LEND) programs. Within these programs, my clinical responsibilities include providing intensive and comprehensive intervention services for young children, disability services management, comprehensive health services, program management, clinical diagnostic evaluations, and clinical training and mentorship. In my clinical roles, ultimately I strive to improve developmental trajectories for children; to increase family knowledge about child development, diagnoses, and recommendations for services for children with disabilities; and to enhance the quality of life of children and families while concurrently providing clinical training for future leaders specializing in serving individuals with disabilities. Q: How is UAB uniquely positioned to advance our understanding and treatment of ASD? A: The UAB Civitan-Sparks Clinics really exemplify how UAB is positioned to advance the treatment of ASD. Since the UAB Civitan-Sparks Clinics are home to the UCEDD and LEND training programs, a core responsibility that faculty provide through clinic activities is instructing and guiding graduate students and interns in the area of neurodevelopmental disabilities to become future leaders in the field. Our Maternal and Child Health Bureau’s LEND role is to impart knowledge in the field of development and disabilities through exemplary clinical service and education. Our clinical mentoring of graduate students on evaluation and diagnosis of ASD as well as research on developmental disabilities through the LEND training program at UAB have the ultimate outcome of building service delivery systems for individuals with neurodevelopmental disabilities by equipping new leaders with clinical competency and leadership abilities. UAB is a comprehensive university that is nationally and internationally respected in regard to our research, education, and clinical programs. UAB consistently ranks in the top 25 nationally with regards to funding from the National Institutes of Health. Additionally, UAB is regularly ranked as one of the best medical schools in the U.S. Within the College of Arts and Sciences in the Department of Psychology, we offer graduate training programs in the areas of Lifespan Developmental Psychology, Medical/Clinical Psychology, and Behavioral Neuroscience; a prominent strength of UAB programs is that they are interdisciplinary and collaborative across departments and schools. This collaboration among researchers, clinicians, and educators across disciplines, departments, and schools is what uniquely positions UAB to advance our understanding of ASD. SUMMER 2018 // PSYCHOLOGY UPDATE 23

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Dr. Laura

STOPPELBEIN P R OFES S OR

• •

Clinical Psychologist Director of Outpatient Services, Glenwood, Inc.

Q: What kind of research do you do? How does your research impact our understanding/ treatment of ASD? A: My research focuses on stress/coping within families and factors that influence stress/coping as well as the outcomes of ongoing stress. Within the area of Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD), our recent research has focused on how family functioning, such as parental adjustment and parenting styles, impact children with ASD. It seems that specific types of parenting may have an important role in helping to mitigate the potential anxiety and depression that children and adolescent with ASD often experience. Thus, treatment approaches could help focus on building these parenting strengths. Q: Do you see patients/work in a clinical setting? If so, what is the purpose of those interactions/ assessments and treatments? A: I see children and adolescents at Glenwood, which is a non-profit organization that provides behavioral health care and educational services for individuals with ASD and severe emotional disturbances. At Glenwood, my role is largely administrative as I oversee the outpatient programming which includes psychologists, nurse practitioners, and master’s-level therapists. As a clinician, my primary clinical functions are in the area of early identification and assessment of ASD among children and adolescents. Q: Over the years that you have been researching ASD, what have you learned about the nature of these disorders? A: Although there are common themes that you see across individuals with ASD (e.g., certain types of symptoms), each person is very unique. If you have seen one kid with ASD, you have only seen one kid with ASD. You can not necessarily generalize the experience of one child or family to another. Q. What role do stress and anxiety play in individuals with ASD? What about the impact of stress on families? A: Stress/anxiety always tend to exacerbate symptoms. They are more than likely not causal, but can cause significant increase in symptoms when they are present within a child with ASD or within the family.

24 PSYCHOLOGY UPDATE // SUMMER 2018

Oftentimes, families of children with ASD feel isolated and lack social support because they have limited resources for assistance. Additionally, the stress of having a child also has indirect impacts on things such as a family’s ability to attend church, or their ability to maintain gainful full time employment (if they are frequently being called to come get their child from school or daycare). Q: How is UAB uniquely positioned to advance our understanding and treatment of ASD? A: We have a number of excellent researchers and clinicians in the area of ASD who are employed at UAB. This is true across the basic sciences, applied/social sciences, as well as in the area of clinical practice. I think supporting a collaborative effort across all three areas is a strength that UAB could capitalize on to help us further our knowledge in this area.

UAB Study of Individuals with Pitt-Hopkins Syndrome (PTHS) Limited clinical studies of individuals with PTHS have shown most display severe intellectual and developmental disabilities, motor and communication delays, restricted and repetitive movements, and characteristics that appear similar to autism. Due to the overlap in symptoms of individuals with PTHS and those with ASD, and because of UAB’s expertise in the clinical diagnosis of individuals with ASD, Drs. O’Kelley and Guest partnered with Drs. Elizabeth Rahn, Andrew Kennedy, and David Sweatt in the School of Medicine to conduct a research study focusing to describe the social, communication, adaptive, developmental, and repetitive behaviors of individuals with PTHS. Currently, 26 families have enrolled in the study and data collection is ongoing. Since PTHS is so rare, it is vitally important that researchers and clinicians understand the behavioral characteristics and development of individuals with this syndrome in order to differentiate from other developmental disabilities and to guide recommendations for intervention. Study data was presented at the Civitan International/Simpson Ramsey Neurodevelopment Symposium and at the International Society for Autism Research conference.

FACULTY

Dr. Despina

STAVRINOS A SSI STA N T PR O F E SSO R

Driving Simulator Set to Visit Birmingham Park and Recreation Centers by Alicia Rohan | in UAB News

With distracted driving becoming more and more prevalent, the University of Alabama at Birmingham continues to offer distracted driving education to the Birmingham community. A partnership with Birmingham Park and Recreation and the Regional Planning Commission of Greater Birmingham allows the UAB Translational Research for Injury Prevention (TRIP) Lab to take driving safety education to local communities. “We believe this program will go a long way in making our patrons aware of the immense responsibility of being behind the wheel of a car,” said Shonae’ Eddins-Bennett, director of the Birmingham Park and Recreation Board. “I want our young people to be safe to enjoy recreation programs for a lifetime of healthy living.” Beginning in July, the UAB TRIP Lab will take its portable simulator to nine Birmingham Park and Recreation facilities to educate students and adults on distracted driving and driving safety. “With our driving simulator, we are able to safely and ethically demonstrate errors on the road due to distracted driving,” said Despina Stavrinos, Ph.D., director of the UAB TRIP Lab and assistant professor in the UAB College of Arts and Sciences Department of Psychology. “Adults and students receive firsthand experience on how they drive and how they are putting themselves and others at risk for a motor vehicle crash.” The Birmingham City Council Transportation Committee provides funding for the UAB TRIP Lab’s current driving safety community outreach efforts.

To better provide outreach programs to the community, the TRIP Lab has a full-time community outreach coordinator, Valencia Moss. As the lead field representative in community and outreach programs, Moss is responsible for designing, developing and directing the operations of all community outreach events and programs. “In partnering with the Birmingham City Council, we are able to take the UAB TRIP Lab’s research into the community,” Moss said. “Awareness is such a crucial part of driving safely. The city council enables us to provide awareness of the dangers of distracted driving by helping us educate Birmingham communities through hands-on experience with our driving simulator.” The UAB TRIP Lab’s portable driving simulator realistically simulates distracted driving scenarios and measures braking reaction time, revealing how quickly driving hazards can occur. To date, the UAB TRIP Lab has provided education to the community at the McAlpine Recreation Center, Ensley Recreation Center, Hawkins Recreation Center, North Birmingham Recreation Center and Memorial Recreation Center. The simulator will visit nine Birmingham Park and Recreation facilities, including: •July 23: District 9, McAlpine Recreation Center •July 23: District 6, Harrison Recreation Center •July 24: District 1, East Pinson Valley Recreation Center •TBD: District 5, Fountain Heights Recreation Center; and District 7, Wiggins Recreation Center

In addition to the partnership with Birmingham Park and Recreation, the second annual Science of Distracted Driving workshop for high school students will take place July 16-27 at the UAB TRIP Lab headquarters on the UAB campus. SUMMER 2018 // PSYCHOLOGY UPDATE 25

FACULTY

Dr. Christianne Art Therapy Helps Liberate Emotions When Words Fail

STRANG

R E SE A R C H I N ST R U C TO R

in UAB Reporter

When Carrie Ezell was fresh out of college, she spent some time hiking from Maine to Georgia along the Appalachian Trail and worked in an art store. Little did she know that parttime job would have a full-time impact.

“It’s the process of getting an emotion out of yourself,” Ezell said. “Putting a shape to it can be powerful. It becomes ‘the other.’ Instead of ‘I feel anger,’ it becomes, ‘This is the anger.’ It creates distance.”

At work one day, she noticed a book highlighting various jobs for artists. It was the first time she’d heard of art therapy, an integrative mental health practice to support personal and relational treatment goals.

Art therapists typically begin with activities such as coloring with pencils or markers because “we’ve all held a pen, so it’s not too strange,” Ezell said.

“I already knew art as therapy for myself,” said Ezell, a longtime artist. “So I went home, found a grad school online that night and applied to it.”

“As comfort and confidence grows, we’re able to climb those steps into more abstract work,” she said. In this way, clients can address their problems and express their feelings.

In 2014, Ezell, who earned her masters at UAB in 2006 and her doctorate in 2016, joined UAB’s Employee Assistance and Counseling Center (EACC) as its art therapist. Only 12 art therapists in Alabama are credentialed, and UAB is home to two of those — Ezell and Christianne Strang, Ph.D., a research instructor and part-time art therapist.

Science behind the art

A creative outlet

Art therapy enables people to translate their emotions into physical shapes — a process called sublimation — through exercises such as drawing, painting and sculpture.

26 PSYCHOLOGY UPDATE // SUMMER 2018

The connections between art therapy and the brain are relatively simple. The brain likely processes basic emotions, especially fear, in the amygdala, which is connected to both sensory and motor systems. ”One of the advantages of art therapy is that it can provide relief by pairing fear-arousing emotions with positive, new sensory experiences. Successfully coping with fear helps regulate and integrate affective experiences.”

FACULTY

“We all have those experiences where we can’t find the words - words don’t carry what we’re feeling,” Strang said. “Art is one way to work through those thoughts and feelings.” Because there are so few art therapists in the state, people often have misconceptions about art therapy, Ezell said. One is that participants have to have a certain level of artistic ability or talent to benefit, which isn’t true. Art therapy is a regulated mental health fieldwith specific goals for patients. “It’s not about what the final product looks like. It’s not an art class,” she said. “It’s about a different and unique way to look at an issue or problem.” Much like Ezell, Strang had a passion for art but knew she’d never be a full-time artist. In high school, she was drawn to psychology and discovered art therapy as a career option in a college course catalog. By 1987 she had earned her master’s degree in art therapy and began practicing. About 10 years later, Strang had a realization that would change the trajectory of her career: She wanted to learn how art therapy worked — at a neurological level. Strang applied to and earned her doctorate in UAB’s behavioral neuroscience program in the Department of Psychology. Now she is a research instructor and co-directs the same introductory neurobiology courses in the Dauphin Island Sea Lab in which she participated as a student. Her research explores the role of neurotransmitter receptors in visual processing and the effect of Alzheimer’s disease on that processing. “It turns out I love science, but I always wanted to stay connected to art therapy,” said Strang, who also was installed as board president of the American Art Therapy Association in November 2017.

Finding a voice

Strang has continued art therapy as a side practice, and about four years ago she began teaching a course, PY 426 “Creative Arts Therapies,” which provides an overview of the educational, ethical and credentialing requirements. “When I’m talking to students who study neuroscience, I have to give them an idea why art therapy matters. Feelings are neuroscience — everything is all in your head. Thinking about it that way can normalize many patients’ experiences,” Strang said. In the past 30 years, Strang has worked in inpatient psychiatric facilities and residential treatment centers and with HIV/AIDS patients and individuals who struggle with eating disorders or traumatic experiences. They can be some of the most creative and intelligent people, she said.

“Art can become a voice for a patient,” she said. “Patients with eating disorders often use food or a relationship with food as a voice. If we can use art as an alternative to understanding things and better communicating them, then food can just become food again and their body can just be a body again and not a cry for help.” For Strang, the goal is to help instill in them the ability to use creativity to process feelings. “They can keep the connection to creativity and self-esteem and can integrate that into the rest of their lives,” Strang said. “If they continue to do art, just appreciate art more or have better overall access to their own creativity, that creativity becomes healing.”

Providing encouragement

Art therapy can be a one-on-one exercise with a therapist or can be done as part of a group, Ezell said, and some clients mix art therapy in with other types of counseling. “We do have clients that are only art therapy, but some use a mixture of different kinds,” she said. “Some are referred to me from another EACC therapist, some do family art therapy and some do it as couples and or in groups.” The EACC offers a monthly public art therapy group. The next session will be held 3:30-4:30 p.m. April 17 in the WPCC Room G. To enroll, login uab.edu/learningsystem and select the class in the catalog tab. In the Employee Assistance and Counseling Center, Ezell works with UAB employees and their immediate families, who are entitled to 12 free sessions per calendar year. The EACC also offers a monthly public art therapy group, open to all UAB, UAB Medicine and VIVA employees, which Ezell teaches. The next session focusing on self-care will be held 3:30-4:30 p.m. April 17 in the West Pavilion Conference Center Room G. To enroll, login uab. edu/learningsystem and select the class in the catalog tab. Whether clients participate individually or as part of a group, art therapy can help people reconnect to a part of themselves they may have long left behind, Strang said. “If you look at children, they love crayons and love coloring. Somewhere along the way, they learn that only artists can ‘do’ art, so they stop,” she said. “Part of our role is getting people to understand they don’t have to be an artist or that they are more of an artist than people give them credit for. We’re teaching people to re-access that.”

SUMMER 2018 // PSYCHOLOGY UPDATE 27

ALUMNI

Ann Bridges

STEELY A LU MNA

Taking a Leap by UAB Digital Strategy & Marketing | in Arts and Sciences Magazine

Psychology and Public Administration alumna Ann Bridges Steely says her biggest career risks brought the greatest rewards. Growing up in Homewood, Alabama, as the oldest of three daughters, Ann Bridges Steely never saw herself as terribly adventurous. Though she began her undergraduate studies out of state, she came back to Birmingham and finished at UAB with a bachelor’s in psychology in 1976. She took a job with the Jefferson County Personnel Board right after graduation where she administered testing to various county employees. But she found herself wanting to enhance her skills and knowledge, so she started looking for graduate programs. “I really wanted to be certified in testing, so I started looking at programs with different schools of education,” she says. “But about that time, I found out about the new Master’s in Public Administration that UAB was offering. It was just starting and I was in the first class to graduate in 1980.” In the new MPA program, Steely found herself surrounded by professionals who worked in the public sector and for nonprofits. “They were seasoned professionals who were just waiting for a master’s program like that to come around,” she says. “I learned so much from them about administration, bureaucracy, and holding my own in a male-dominated environment.”

Off She Goes

Ann packed up her meager belongings, said goodbye to her parents and sisters, and drove herself to San Antonio, a city she’d never even visited. “My parents were crying when I left with my little U-Haul,” she recalls. “It was hard for them to let me go, but they knew I was happy and they knew I had a good job.” It was a bold and brave move for a young woman in her early 20s, who had never considered a civilian military career and who had no experience working for the federal government. “I hit it at the right time,” she says. “I went in with a master’s degree right when the military was trying to professionalize their work force. Plus, Reagan was president and there was a lot of spending on defense.”

Steely didn’t know it then, but those lessons would come in handy when she took her first big leap off the professional high dive. She had applied for the White House Internship Program, but during the economic recession of the early 1980s, funding for the program had been cut. Unbeknownst to Ann, however, the list of applicants was circulating through the federal government, including the Air Force.

Ann’s first job allowed her to use her undergraduate and graduate degrees, along with her work experience at the county personnel board. She stayed at Kelly Air Force Base in San Antonio for 18 years, eventually moving into contract negotiations. “I liked the military environment,” she says. “I liked the structure and the professionalism. As a contract negotiator, I helped define requirements for personnel positions, I solicited proposals, I really negotiated the terms and conditions for all kinds of contracts and services.”

“The list landed on the desk of an Air Force Colonel who happened to be from Anniston, Alabama, so he took a liking to me,” Ann says. “Maybe because we were both from Alabama, I don’t know. But he called me and offered me a job with the Air Force. He convinced me to move to San Antonio and make a career.”

When she had the opportunity to move to D.C. to work for the Federal Deposit Insurance Commission (FDIC), her husband agreed to follow her. After three years with the FDIC, she moved into defense contracting, working for Raytheon for another six years. “I had such a fulfilling, worthwhile career,” she says.

28 PSYCHOLOGY UPDATE // SUMMER 2018

ALUMNI

“I took jobs that other people didn’t want. Those are the kinds of risks that give you the greatest rewards.”

“I loved it, the entire 22 years I was in the Air Force and the Department of Defense. I had never been exposed to the military when I was growing up, but I wish I had been, because for young professionals it’s a wonderful opportunity. Especially if you do any ROTC training, they give you a lot of responsibility at a young age, more than the civilians.” Although as a young woman Ann had to stretch herself to take a job with the Air Force in an unfamiliar city, her long and successful career is proof that her bravery paid off. From early professional recognition to many years of personal travel with her husband Phillip Steely and friends and family, Ann has had a rich life that she attributes in part to her willingness to take risks.

Rising to the Top

While Steely didn’t benefit from the acceleration that ROTC training could have given her career, she nevertheless rose quickly through the ranks. And she says much of that had to do with her independence and her willingness to take risks. “It really started with that first decision to take the job with the Air Force,” she says. “I paid my own way to move and I didn’t know a soul in San Antonio. I took jobs that other people didn’t want. Those are the kinds of risks that give you the greatest rewards.”

“

“But at the same time, as I was moving up the ranks, there were no women at the G-13 level, which is mid-management, by the time I got [to that level]. After four years there were a handful, but I was also the youngest to reach the G-15 level, which is equivalent to a colonel. But there were plenty of times when I was young and the only woman in the room and I was asked to get their coffee. I moved up every year for five years and they would look at me and couldn’t believe I was in the position I was in. The bias was there, but I’ve always thought it’s often how you respond to it.”

Giving Back

Steely is in the process of establishing a program in the Department of Political Science and Public Administration that will enable MPA students to have an internship in D.C. “I want to give people the opportunities to do the things they may not have thought of,” she says. “I loved my career with the federal government and want our UAB MPA students to be able to explore the same pathways. It’s important that students feel safe taking that risk.”

As a young woman in a primarily-male work environment, Steely was aware of both her gender and her age as she advanced to higher-level jobs.

Steely says that, just as she had strong mentors during her career, she wants to be able to play the role of supporter and advisor to younger people entering the professional workforce. “It’s important they realize that you don’t know what you will excel at until you try,” she says. “You can feel that you don’t have control, but you sometimes have more control than you think. You have to really try to learn from what you fail at, and find some mentors. You can never outgrow a mentoring relationship, and you can learn from anybody, just as you can mentor anybody.”

“I never felt like being a woman—whether in uniform or not—was an issue. I saw plenty of women be successful,” she says.

After a long and successful career, her biggest piece of advice? “There’s a great big world out there. Take a leap off the high dive.” SUMMER 2018 // PSYCHOLOGY UPDATE 29

ALUMNI

Dr. Virginia Wadley

BRADLEY ALU MNA

The results of the SPRINT study, which were published in 2015, found that heart attacks, strokes, acute coronary syndrome, heart failure and death due to cardiovascular causes were reduced by almost one-third and risk of death was lowered by almost one-quarter in participants randomized to a systolic blood pressure goal of 120 mm Hg compared to those randomized to the usual goal of 140 mm Hg. More than 9,300 participants age 50 and older with high blood pressure were assigned to the trial.

Lowering Blood Pressure reduces Risk of Mild Cognitive Impairment, Dementia

UAB has participated in the SPRINT trial since it began in 2010, when it was selected by the NIH as one of five hubs to recruit and direct the 100 medical centers and clinics participating in the trial around the United States and Puerto Rico.

in UAB Mix

“UAB was selected and is able to be a part of this remarkable study because we put together a great team of investigators and staff to run the hub,” said Cora E. Lewis, M.D., chair of the Department of Epidemiology in the School of Public Health and the co-principal investigator of the UAB hub. “We recruited a good diversity of clinics that could bring in diverse patients and achieve the study recruitment goals, we wrote an outstanding application, and we have a lot of relevant experience for all aspects of the trial. We are able to provide all of the logistical support, and we have the infrastructure to handle a trial of this scope and magnitude.”

Lowering one’s blood pressure is beneficial not only for the heart, but also for the mind. For the first time, researchers have proved that lowering systolic blood pressure to 120 mm Hg or less reduces the risk of mild cognitive impairment, which in turn, reduces one’s risk of developing Alzheimer’s disease or dementia. The findings were the result of the Systolic Blood Pressure Intervention Trial’s (SPRINT) Memory and Cognition in Decreased Hypertension (MIND) study. The preliminary results of the SPRINT MIND study were presented at the Alzheimer’s Association International Conference on July 25. The preliminary results of the trial, in which the University of Alabama at Birmingham and the UAB School of Medicine played major clinical and leadership roles, is the first time it has been proved that the risk of mild cognitive impairment and dementia can be reduced through high blood pressure treatment. “We previously found that treating blood pressure intensively, to a goal of 120 mm Hg systolic, reduces cardiovascular events and mortality in people with hypertension,” said Virginia Wadley Bradley, Ph.D., professor of medicine in the Division of Gerontology, Geriatrics and Palliative Care, and the co-lead of the committee that oversaw the SPRINT MIND trial. “Now the preliminary results of SPRINT MIND show that treating systolic blood pressure to this goal is better for the brain as well. Participants in the intensive treatment group (target 120 mm Hg) had a 19 percent lower risk of mild cognitive impairment (MCI), which is often a precursor to dementia, than participants in the standard treatment group with a systolic blood pressure goal of 140 mm Hg.” Researchers also discovered that treating hypertension by reducing systolic blood pressure to 120 mm Hg also reduces the total volume of white matter lesions in the brain.

30 PSYCHOLOGY UPDATE // SUMMER 2018

For the MIND study, the SPRINT participants, 270 of whom were enrolled at UAB, participated in the trial. The findings were accomplished through the help of a team of various physicians and nurses. “We used a battery of standardized evaluations of memory and other thinking skills,” Bradley said. “Staff in each clinic went through a rigorous certification process annually that allowed them to administer the tests. The results and performance over time were reviewed by a team of neurologists, neuropsychologists and geriatricians who were masked to participants’ treatment goals.” In additional to clinical roles, UAB faculty also have leadership roles in the SPRINT MIND trial. Suzanne Oparil, M.D., principal investigator for the UAB hub of the SPRINT trial, UAB professor of medicine, and director of the Vascular Biology and Hypertension Program in UAB’s School of Medicine, and Lewis are on the trial-wide steering committee and co-lead the morbidity and mortality committee. Lewis also leads the measurement procedures and quality control committee and serves on the executive committee for the study. The study is also examining kidney disease function and, according to preliminary results, has found that there appears to be no serious harm to kidney function due to lowering systolic blood pressure to 120 mm Hg.

ALUMNI

Kevin

SAWCHAK Goal Oriented: Former Blazer Soccer Player Goes From Finnish League to Finishing his Degree by Matt Windsor | in The Mix

“I realized I wasn’t going to play soccer forever.”

ALUM NUS

But first, he needed to finish his undergraduate coursework. He reached out to Coach Getman, who put him in touch with academic advisors. They recommended UAB Finish — a program specifically designed for adult students to be able to complete their degrees online.

Kevin Sawchak was standing on a soccer field in Finland when he came to that conclusion a few years ago. Today, he’s getting ready to graduate from UAB with a bachelor’s degree in psychology, which he earned through the UAB Finish online program.

The program’s one-on-one assistance was invaluable, Sawchak says. “They made it super easy for me, which was great, because if it was difficult I probably wouldn’t have done it. They even mailed books to me in Finland one semester!”

Sawchak, a former Blazer Soccer midfielder, left school early to play as a professional, first in Canada and then in the top Finnish leagues. The Atlanta native was recruited to UAB in 2007 by head coach Mike Getman. When he left, he had about 10 classes left on his psychology degree. “I had the chance to go pro,” he says. “I had to take it.”

Sawchak was eventually traded back to his hometown Atlanta Silverbacks, and he moved into youth coaching. “I was working, coaching and my wife was pregnant,” he says. “It was a full gig, but I pushed through and finished up early this year.” Although he has four games scheduled for graduation day, he is working to be in Birmingham for the commencement ceremony on Saturday, April 28.

“Super easy”

“Just do it”

But after a series of injuries during his time at FC KooTeePee, FC Honka and other Finnish clubs, “I wanted something to fall back on,” Sawchak says. “I was interested in coaching at the college or professional level, and realized that I could set myself apart by getting a master’s degree in sports psychology.”

Sawchak has some advice for others with missing credits standing between them and a degree: “Just do it,” he says. “The schools and the advisors are there to help you. They guided me in the right direction, showed me which classes I needed to take. I didn’t have to figure out a whole lot.” SUMMER 2018 // PSYCHOLOGY UPDATE 31

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