Volume 7, Spring 2012 UNCWPSYCHOLOGY
Department NewsleƩer
Faculty editor: Robert Hakan
Student editors: Alyssa Fritz & Kathryn Rankin
WELCOME FROM THE NEW CHAIR
INSIDE THIS ISSUE
NEW FACULTY
2
AWARDS
2
FACULTY
PROFILE
3
RESEARCH
SPOTLIGHT
4
FACULTY
HIGHLIGHTS
5
FOLLOW-UPS
6
NEW BUILDING
9
Greetings
alumni
and
friends,
and welcome to
the ap-
Mark’s tenure the department saw the addition of
a new Master’s concentration (ABA), the development of a doctoral program proposal, and most
notably, the building of
Rich Ogle
the new Teaching Laboraproximately 200 new
tory building that will
alumni we added this
house Psychology beginyear. It was an exciting
ning Fall 2012. Mark has
year in the Department of rejoined the faculty to
Psychology. In July 2011, focus on his research and
Rich Ogle became the
training of undergraduate
fourth chair in the history and graduate students –
of the department. He
he is a committed sciensucceeded Mark Galizio tist dedicated to his paswho stewarded the desion of training the next
partment through seven generation of psychologigreat years. During
cal scientists. We thank
him for his years of service.
This year marked the beginning of our new undergraduate curriculum.
This is especially exciting,
as we believe the new
curriculum is well-suited
to prepare critically thinking, psychologically literate individuals who embrace diversity and live
engaged lives.
While implementing the
new curriculum and enjoying the education of
over 700 undergraduate
majors, 500 undergraduate
Continued on page 10
mi-
FAREWELL FROM THE PAST CHAIR
For those of you
who remember
Mark as a
teacher, mentor,
chair, or all three,
you know how
much he will be
missed as chair.
In July 2011, Mark
Galizio stepped down as
Department Chair. For
seven years, he stood at
the helm and steered the
department through a
period of significant
change and growth. Prior to his stepping down,
the faculty came together to celebrate Mark as a
leader, a colleague, and
most importantly, a
friend. We all had a
great time reminiscing
and enjoyed looking back
over those seven years in
which, with his leadership, accomplished so
much.
psychology department
in January 2005 and
completed his second
term in June 2011. In his
time as chair, Mark accomplished a great deal.
He promoted the Applied
Behavior Analysis program that was developed
Mark Galizio became the by his predecessor, Andrew
Continued on page 8
third chair of UNCW’s
Page 2
VOLUME 7, SPRING 2012
N E W FA C U LT Y S P OT L I G H T: M E L A N I E B A C H M E Y E R
By: Kathryn Rankin
The UNCW Department of Psychology is pleased to welcome
Melanie Bachmeyer to our distinguished faculty.
Bachmeyer received her B.A. at
the University of North Carolina
Ashville. She received her master’s degree in educational psychology with an emphasis in applied behavior analysis at Georgia State University. She obtained her Ph. D. in school psychology with an emphasis in applied behavior analysis at the
University of Iowa. She focused
on behavioral assessment of pediatric feeding behaviors for both
her degrees. Bachmeyer worked
at the Kennedy Kreiger Institute
and Johns Hopkins University
School of Medicine for her postdoctoral fellowship.
Her research lab at UNCW will
focus on clinical work and research in behavioral assessment
and treatment of common childhood behavioral problems, such
as tantrums, habit disorders,
and toileting problems.
Bachmeyer developed this
strong interest in children with
developmental disabilities after
her experience at the Marcus
Autism Center in Atlanta that
provides ABA services to kids
with severe behaviors.
Bachmeyer, a board certified behavior analyst at the doctoral
level (BCBA-D), is currently
teaching undergraduate Applied
Behavior Analysis and is the clinical coordinator for the graduate
Applied Behavior Analysis practicum. She will teach a course in
developmental disabilities in the
fall semester.
Melanie Bachmeyer
The department is
proud to welcome her
as a fellow Seahawk,
and students and
faculty alike will
undoubtedly benefit
from her experience
and expertise in the
field of Psychology.
PSYCHOLOGY AWARDS
1. The Williams/Kowal Award, named for John Williams, who was the first chair of the Department of
Psychology and Kathleen Kowal, was one of the department’s first distinguished scientists. The Williams/Kowal award is given annually to an outstanding student focusing on basic science research.
This year’s winner is Sarah Carruthers.
2. The Bradley Award is named after Michael Bradley, the first faculty member of the department. Many
of you have had him as an instructor as he still teaches for us in his retirement. The Bradley award is
for an outstanding student with interests in applied psychology. This year’s winner is Diane Berth.
3. The Cape Fear Area Psychological Association Award is for basic science or applied research by an
outstanding student interested in graduate work in applied areas and this year’s winner is Jenna Ellison.
4. Martha Jo Clemmons was a dedicated administrative assistant in the psychology department for over
20 years. The Martha Jo Clemmons award is given to an outstanding student who has provided exceptional service to the department. This year’s winner is Allison Bradley.
UNCW PSYCHOLOGY NEWSLETTER
Page 3
FACULT Y PROFILE: JULIAN KEITH
Julian Keith
Julian Keith quoted Neil Young
“It’s all one song” and said, “To
me, it’s all about the same
thing” when describing his wide
variety of research topics. He
enjoys learning new things
about different aspects of psychology that he has not explicitly
been trained in, and believes
that when you know how to
properly execute experiments
you can study almost about anything. He believes there is no
need to be glued to one tiny aspect of the field.
Keith was inspired by his advisor
at the University of Colorado
Boulder, Jerry Rudy, who believed that you should reinvent
yourself every five years, and if
you haven’t you’ve become stagnant and it’s important to keep
changing yourself to be adaptive. This philosophy becomes
By: Kathryn Rankin
evident when taking a glimpse for mild cognitive impairments, in
of Keith’s career in psycholo- which the drug showed significant
improvement on memory abilities.
gy.
His current research interests are
Keith received his B.A. in psy- on changing EEG patterns with
chology from University of
operant principles, and has found
North Carolina Wilmington,
that certain EEG stages are causwhere he worked with Mark
ally related to attention. He has
Galizio on research with agalso been working with Len Lecci
gression and territorial behav- to study the correlation of personiors in Siamese fighting fish.
ality factors and susceptibility to
He attended the University of placebo and nocebo effects of an
Colorado Boulder for his docinnocuous treatment.
torate degree, and did research in learning psychology When asked about the constant
with respect to transitional be- evolution of research interests,
havioral neuroscience on how Keith says that he has never
the hippocampus is involved in spent a day working on something
long-term memory formation. he didn’t want to know the answer
to, and tries to answer questions
In 1990, Keith was hired at
that he really cares about. He
UNCW. During his first years says the UNCW psychology departof research here, he received ment has been a perfect fit for
a grant along with Ray Pitts
this goal. He believes that this
and Mark Galizio to do behav- department, in contrast to many
ioral and pharmacological re- places, encourages research on
search on learning and
genuine research questions inmemory. He has also received stead of focusing on attempts to
a grant from the National
earn more grant money and more
Heart, Lung, and Blood Instipublications. He describes worktute with Antonio Puente to
ing at the UNCW psychology deconduct research on the post partment as “a real gift and forsurgery effects of coronary ar- tune”, and considers this current
tery bypass surgery on cognijob as an ideal one.
tive performance. He received
a grant from the National Institute of Mental Health for five
years to research neurogenesis on the adult hippocampus.
He recently has done pharmaceutical and clinical research
on developing a drug designed
Page 4
VOLUME 7, SPRING 2012
RESEARCH SPOTLIGHT: LEE WIEGAND
As we pass through the town, I cannot help but notice the palm trees and shrubs planted in
the median. I never knew Iraq could be this pretty. The commander leads the way around the
T-barrier, and the convoy begins to follow. Trucks bunch up at the bottleneck. My driver necks
up so close to the PLS transport truck in front of us that I can read the bar code on one of the
pallets. Suddenly, there is a blast. I can taste it, smell it, and feel it. I think I am hit. I’m in a
daze. My first sergeant is riding in my truck. After we pull back to set up a defensive position,
he gets out and approaches the bombed vehicle. Then out of nowhere, there is a second
blast. This one is bigger, louder. It pushes me against the back of my turret and pins me there
for what feels like minutes, but is actually fractions of a second. My first sergeant, who was
walking toward the EOD team, is almost knocked over. His knees buckle, and he tries to keep
his balance.
Events like this one described by
Sgt. Chase Weston have been all
too common an occurrence with
our Military Veteran population.
Approximately 35,000 soldiers
have been wounded due to combat actions in Iraq and Afghanistan as of Jan 26th, 2012. 78%
of these injuries are caused by
the IED or Improvised Explosive
Device, which is trademark
weapon of both wars. Studies in
the psychology department at
UNCW have shown an additional
cost of these blast exposures.
tiple blast exposure. This multidisciplinary collaborative study
also involves our alumni, Allen
2012 aimed to better describe
the cognitive and psychological
deficits associated with traumatic brain injuries in the military
population and attempted to define differences seen in traumatic brain injuries coupled with
blast exposure versus the traditional traumatic brain injury
caused by other mechanisms
such as blunt force trauma. A
Lee Wiegand
subject database of over 1,100
Steed and Karen Johnson. As
individuals was created for this
clinical Neuropsychologists in
study, possibly the largest of its
Jacksonville, NC, they have accu- kind ever created. Each subject
mulated enormous amounts of was administered over 13 neurodata on Military Veterans and
psychological tests, in a process
the deficits they incur due to
that took over 7 hours per subblast concussions.
ject.
Research being done at UNCW
by Lee Wiegand, under the supervision of Antonio Puente, is
aimed at describing the cognitive deficits associated with mul- A study completed in May of
Continued on page 6
UNCW PSYCHOLOGY NEWSLETTER
Page 5
FACULT Y HIGHLIGHT S
 Melanie Bachmeyer completed a successful first year as an Assistant Professor. She published an article on feeding disorders in children with developmental disabilities.
 Katherine Bruce inaugurated the role of Director of the UNCW Honors College
 Caroline Clements was awarded a Distinguished Faculty Scholar Award.
 Dale Cohen completed his five-year $692,000 grant from the National Institute of Child Health
and Human Development, and was awarded a grant along with Julian Keith and Len Lecci from
Alzheimer’s NC entitled, “A New Approach to Identifying Patterns of Cognitive Decline in Patient’s
with Dementia of the Alzheimer’s type.”
 Karen Daniels was elected to the Board of Directors for Alzheimer’s North Carolina, Inc and
was interviewed for a WHQR 91.3 radio program on memory, dementia, and cognitive training.
 Graciela Espinosa-Hernandez served as a founding board member for the Society for Research in Emerging Adulthood.
 Mark Galizio was appointed to the North Carolina Practice Improvement Collaborative by the
director of the NC Department of Health and Human Services Division of Mental Health and Substance Abuse. He was also celebrated as the faculty member who has supervised the most honors thesis (34) in the history of UNCW.
 Cameron Gordon was promoted to Associate Professor with Tenure and received national media coverage for his research on marital gratitude. He also received a UNCW Discere Aude
Award for Student Mentoring.
 Christine Hughes served as President of Division 25 (Behavior Analysis) of the American Psychological Association and an Associate Editor for the Journal of the Experimental Analysis of
Behavior.
 Andy Jackson co-chaired the long-range planning committee for the North Carolina Psychological Association.
 Julian Keith was awarded a grant along with Len Lecci and Dale Cohen from Alzheimer’s NC
entitled, “A New Approach to Identifying Patterns of Cognitive Decline in Patient’s with Dementia
of the Alzheimer’s type.”
Continued on page 7
Page 6
VOLUME 7, SPRING 2012
PREVIOUS GRAD STUDENT FOLLOW-UPS
Since the founding of the psychology department there have
been thousands of students who
have graduated from the undergraduate and graduate programs.
A common question is, “What can
you do with a psychology degree?” In answer to this, we contacted UNCW psychology majors
and previous graduate students
to see where they are now and
how UNCW helped them to get
there.
the country. Alumni have positions in graduate schools from
Massachusetts, to Florida, to California, to Washington, and a
great deal in between. Our students are pursuing a similarly diverse range of degrees. There are
students in both Master’s and
Ph.D. programs in everything
from neuroscience, clinical, to
social. UNCW alumni occupy a
variety of career positions as well.
We have students who work as
There are UNCW students across insurance claims specialists,
By: Alyssa Fritz
counselors, behavior specialists
for children with developmental
disabilities, hair stylists, therapists, teachers and more.
Faculty in this department take
their role as mentors seriously.
Many advisers here treat their
graduate students as junior colleagues. Former graduate students say again and again the
experience they gained here both
set them apart in Ph.D. applications and provided them with the
foundation
Continued on page 9
LEE WIEGAND, CONTINUED
Severe deficits were noted in individuals who experienced a traumatic brain injury in the line of
duty. Many measures were a
standard deviation or more below
normal function. The deficits can
mostly be related to significant
decreases in speed of cognitive
processing. The subjects when
asked to complete a task in a
certain time period were slower
across the board on almost all
tests that held time as a component. Multiple emotional problems were noted as well; severe
depression, hysteria, anxiety, unusual thoughts or attitudes and
extremely poor judgment. These
individuals were also likely to
experience intense anxiety,
nightmares, problems with concentration, headaches, and feelings of hostility and aggressive.
One of the most intriguing finding
of the study were the differences
noted in blast versus non-blast
TBI. Blast related injuries
seemed to be more detrimental
to cognitive function than nonblast TBI.
capita, and thirty-eighth in Reserve and National Guard. There
are currently 120,000 active duty
personnel based at one of seven
military bases or deployed overseas. North Carolina is likely to
receive another 15,000 active
duty members by 2013. This
suggest a great need to help
those veterans living in our community, and through research
and training the UNCW PsycholoStudies like this have implication gy in committed to veterans in
need.
for those in our region. North
Carolina ranks third in total mili
tary personnel per capita, third in
WE’RE ON THE WEB!
active duty military personnel per
WWW.UNCW.EDU/PSY
UNCW PSYCHOLOGY NEWSLETTER
Page 7
FACULT Y HIGHLIGHT S, CONTINUED
 Len Lecci was awarded a grant along with Julian Keith and Dale Cohen from Alzheimer’s NC, entitled
“A New Approach to Identifying Patterns of Cognitive Decline in Patient’s with Dementia of the Alzheimer’s type.”
 Bryan Myers served his first year as Graduate Coordinator and continued work on his National Science Foundation Grant to study jury decision-making.
 Simone Nguyen received a UNCW Discere Aude Award for Student Mentoring.
 Rich Ogle received a Distinguished Teaching Professorship award.
 Tony Puente received the American Psychological Association Award for Distinguished Professional
Contributions to Independent Practice. He also received the President’s Award from the North Carolina Psychological Association. He also received a UNCW Discere Aude Award for Student Mentoring.
 Jeff Toth was interviewed for a WHQR 91.3 radio program on memory, dementia, and cognitive training.
 Carole Van Camp successfully earned re-appointment at the rank of Assistant Professor and received a UNCW Discere Aude Award for Student Mentoring.
 Wendy Donlin Washington was elected President of the South Eastern Association for Behavior
Analysis.
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VOLUME 7, SPRING 2012
Page 8
GALIZIO, CONTINUED
Mark Galizio
new level: 1) The quality and size
of the departmental faculty has
reached the point where we are
comparable in research and
grant productivity with most doctoral programs already. 2) The
success of our MA programs has
been amazing—demand for the
programs is overwhelming (we
had over 150 applications for
about 30 openings this year) and
graduates are going on to great
things! 3) The new building will
give us state of the art facilities
needed to train students at the
doctoral level.”
Jackson. This concentration has
continued to set UNCW apart. In
addition, he organized a complete overhaul of the undergraduate academic curriculum,
something that had not happened since the 1970s. The major benefit of this new curriculum
is to “add exciting new courses
that reflect changes in the field
such as forensic psychology, evolutionary psychology, and brain
and behavior.” Within the new
structure, undergraduates complete course in six critical domains of psychology before advancing to upper-level courses;
this ensures that undergraduates have a broad and comprehensive background. During
Mark’s time as chair, he helped
culminate a decades-long discussion about developing a
Ph.D. program at UNCW. According to Mark, “Three things make
this the right time to move this
However, Mark considers his
greatest accomplishment to be
helping psychology find a new
home in the brand new psychology building. When the department moved into S&B in 1982
there were twelve full- and parttime faculty members, currently
there are thirty-three full-time
and over twenty part-time faculty
members. These individuals are
now housed across campus in
eight different buildings and
once the department moves to
the new building in August, every
faculty member will finally have
their own state-of-the-art laboratory and classroom facilities.
For those of you who remember
Mark as a teacher, mentor,
chair, or all three, you know how
much he will be missed as chair.
However, Mark is not going anywhere soon. He is now happily
back as full-time scientist, teachIn addition to his numerous oth- er, and mentor. His dedication
er responsibilities, Mark contin- to these pursuits equals the dedued to be a productive research- ication he had as chair and we
er. He obtained grant funding
are all better for it.
from the National Institute on
Drug Abuse to study drug effects
on memory, published ten articles and one book. Throughout
this time, he had seven graduate
students complete Master’s deThree things make this
grees, and mentored over twenty
the right time to move
undergraduates. Three of his forthis new level:
mer students recently completed
their Ph.D.’s, one completed an
1) The quality and size
M.D., and seven former students
are currently enrolled in graduof the departmental
ate programs.
faculty
2) The success of our
MA programs
3) The new building
UNCW PSYCHOLOGY NEWSLETTER
Page 9
F O L L O W - U P, C O N T I N U E D
they needed in order to be successful. One alumna from the program and currently enrolled in
doctoral program said that her experience in
UNCW Master’s program allowed her to begin her
comprehensive exam process two years ahead of
the rest of her cohort. Another student’s favorite
memory was her ability to engage in philosophical conversations about the underlying concepts
of psychology. She remembers these conversations continuing on outside of the classroom and
even into social situations.
sors are able to get to know their undergraduate
and graduate classes. This allows students the
unique opportunity to learn from professors who
know them as individuals as opposed to simply
test scores.
Students credited the faculty in the psychology
department as being instrumental for their continuing success. The common open-door policy
that the faculty practice and the genuine support
and guidance that they provide were crucial to
learning what it takes to thrive, no matter what
Size is another benefit of our department. Profes- field.
THE NEW BUILDING
The Teaching Laboratory Building, the new home of the Psychology Department
VOLUME 7, SPRING 2012
Page 10
WELCOME FROM THE CHAIR, CONTINUED
nors and over 60 graduate students, we began the process of
preparing for our move into our
new building. This is a monumental undertaking, as we have
been involved in all stages of
the planning process. As of
this writing, we stand approximately 6 weeks from our move
date and faculty are busy deciding what to pack and what to let
go after over 30 years in the Social and Behavioral Science
Building. We have many fond
memories of time spent in SB
and we are sure you do as well;
we will take them with us as we
create new ones in the Teaching
Laboratory.
members. New members bring
cutting-edge training, new ideas, and energy into the department that invigorate both faculty and students. This year, we
hired three new faculty members – an amazing feat, as
much time and effort is involved. We are so pleased to
have added two clinical psychologists, Kate Nooner and
Anne-Marie Iselin, and a neuroscientist, Rachel Kohman to the
departmental family. All three
are very strong psychologists
and we are looking forward to
welcoming them in Fall 2012.
We are also looking forward to
the final approval of our proOne of the most exciting and
posed doctoral program. After a
important endeavors for the de- lengthy moratorium on new propartment is hiring new faculty
grams, the proposed doctoral
program is set to be reviewed
for its final approval. As it
stands, we will present our final
proposal to the UNC General
Administration in late August
2012, and after that we will be
reviewed by the UNC Board of
Governors in September or October. We are looking forward
to good news and will share it
with you as soon as we know.
All in all, it was a great year that
was full of much change – exciting change. We hope you enjoy
the updates included in this issue and we look forward to
hearing from you in the future.
FORT Y YEARS OF THE PSYCHOLOGY CHAIRS
From left to right, Richard Ogle, 2011-present, John Williams, 1972-1991,
Andy Jackson, 1991-2004, and Mark Galizio, 2005-2011