Dr. Lisa Hsin awarded UA Fuse Grant for Baby Word Tracker project
The LECS Lab is excited to share that PI Lisa Hsin has been awarded a new grant under the Facilitating Uni-PI Science and Engineering (FUSE) Program at The University of Alabama. The $20,000 grant will fund the project, “Modernizing First Language Development Research with Baby Word Tracker.”
Starting in early 2025, Dr. Hsin's team will be looking for parents of infants and toddlers to partner with to help make sure their baby-language tracking app is useful and engaging for families from all across the community.
CLICK HERE to learn more about this project, and/or to to visit Dr. Hsin’s lab website.
Dr. Hyemin Han listed as Top 2% of cited researchers in report by Stanford University
Our program director, Dr.Hyemin Han, just got added to the list of the top 2% cited researchers in the field! 🙌🙌🏼🙌🏾
This report was compiled by Stanford researchers with the SCOPUS dataset and published in 2023.
His ranking is 133,909 in the list according to the score calculated without self-citations. If you want to learn more about the methodology, please visit this webpage:
https://elsevier.digitalcommonsdata.com/datasets/btchxktzyw/7
Congratulations Hyemin! 🥳👏🎉
Dr. Macarena Suárez Pellicioni presented about children's math attitudes and skills in Belgium
Dr. Macarena Suárez Pellicioni presented two posters at the International Mind Brain and Education Society in Belgium in July 2024!
Want to learn more?
Click the downloadable links below.
POSTER #1
Children with positive math attitudes and from high socioeconomic status show greater inferior frontal gyrus activation during a multiplication task
POSTER #2
Inter-hemispheric parietal functional connectivity is related to gains in math skill, but this depends on age.
Dr. Macarena Suárez Pellicioni presented about children's math attitudes at a D.C. Conference
Dr. Macarena Suárez Pellicioni presented the talk Temporal cortex activation during multiplication explains children’s longitudinal gains in math attitudes at the Math Cognition and Learning Society (MCLS) conference in Washington, D.C., USA in June 2024!
Her talk was part of the symposium dedicated to social factors involved in learning math, aptly titled titled “A Socio-Cognitive Perspective to Mathematical Development Across the School Years: The Role of Learners’ Motivations and Attitudes Towards Mathematics.”
Dr. Firat Soylu presents in Istanbul about the Use of A.I. in Cognitive Neuroscience
Dr. Firat Soylu was invited to talk on the “Use of Artificial Intelligence in Cognitive Neuroscience Research and Education” at the 9th Turkish Medical Congress in Istanbul on Oct. 21, 2023.
To learn more, click here for their English website. You can also find the conference program in Turkish here: https://tt dk.tuseb.gov.tr/
Communities Cultivating Character Conference
On September 25 – 27, 2023, over 200 people attended the Leadership for Character Conference hosted by The University of Alabama, in collaboration with The Hope Institute, Samford University, and the University of West Alabama. Teachers, educational leaders, higher education scholars, and others interested in moral and character development were invited to attend. The Communities Cultivating Character (CCC) Conference brought together interested parties to connect, inform, and further motivate communities wanting to cultivate character in Alabama, as well as across the United States.
According to Professor David Walker, Director of The Center for the Study of Ethical Development, this conference was a space where participants and presenters were encouraged to think beyond basic character education, including for example, how adults and leaders in a school can develop moral growth mindsets involving a commitment to their own continuous growth and development. “After all, it might be said that character development starts by looking in the mirror. Another way to think about communities cultivating character is to emphasize how different communities can come together around the aims of character development. Indeed, this conference is an example of just that for bringing together practitioners and leaders in schools with scholars and researchers at universities.”
Please click here for more information about the list of keynote speakers, topics covered at the CCC conference, and other pertinent information.
Dr. Firat Soylu interviewed by the Dana Foundation Neuroscience Career Network
Dr. Firat Soylu was recently interviewed about pursuing careers in Educational Neuroscience by NeuroxCareers of the Dana Foundation. (https://neuroxcareers.org/)
Whether you're a fan of Dr. Soylu or you wish to learn more about careers in Educational Neuroscience, you can CLICK HERE to see the full interview.
Julia Leskow from the Elden Lab wins first place at the 2023 URCA Conference!
Congratulations to Julia Leskow from the Elden Lab (PI: Dr. Firat Soylu) on receiving the 1st place award at the 2023 UA Undergraduate Research and Creativity Conference on April 11, 2023! Julia’s poster was titled “Neural Processing Differences for Social and Number Gestures,” and Raegan Windham‘s “EEG/ERP Differences in Processing Facial and Hand Gestures.” Julia is about the graduate and will start her master’s in Neuroimaging at the University of Southern California in Fall 2023.
Julia Leskow with Dr. Firat Soylu after winning first place at URCA 2023.
Undergraduate seniors in the Elden Lab, Raegan Windham and Julia Leskow presented their research at the 2023 UA URCA Conference.
PUBLICATION UPDATE: Read Dr. Macarena Suarez Pellicioni’s latest review on the Neurocognitive mechanisms underlying multiplication and subtraction performance
To read Dr. Macarena Suarez Pellicioni‘s latest review on the Neurocognitive mechanisms underlying multiplication and subtraction performance, CLICK HERE.
Suárez-Pellicioni, M., Prado, J., & Booth, J. R. (2022). Neurocognitive mechanisms underlying multiplication and subtraction performance in adults and skill development in children: a scoping review. Current Opinion in Behavioral Sciences, 48, 101228.
“WBRC” Interviewed Dr. Hyemin Han
Dr. Hyemin Han talks about the increased framing effect during the COVID -19 pandemic. His study shows how to frame the messaging better about how to persuade people to get vaccinated and take preventive measures to deal with COVID-19 spread, which could be a perfect way for the policymaker and health organization to release information better in the future. So, people will be more likely to take action on COVID-19 or some other types of diseases.
Here is the WBRC news link: https://bit.ly/3Fo962k.
Congratulations to Dr. Han for his research work on “Replicating the disease framing problem during the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic: A study of stress, worry, trust, and choice under risk.”
Here is a link to the research: https://bit.ly/3tydcQg
Graduate Student Mentorship Leads to Undergraduate Research Award
This past academic year, PhD student Cailee Nelson has been mentoring undergraduate student Madelyn Armstrong in the NERD Lab. Madelyn presented her research at UA’s annual Undergraduate Research and Creative Activity (URCA) Conference, where she was awarded “First Place Work in Progress” for the “Education” category. In collaboration with Dr. Laura Morett, director of the the NERD Lab, the group has been researching “The effect of transitioning to online classes on students with and without Autism Spectrum Disorder” (also the title of their project). Congratulations to Madelyn, Cailee, and Dr. Morett on their work.
See the University’s official news announcement here.
Graduate Students Showcase their Research this Year!
Throughout the 2020-2021 academic year, numerous graduate students have presented (or will present) their research at various conferences. Due to COVID-19, many conferences have been virtual, but that hasn’t stopped our students from continuing their great work. Congratulations to students on their research!
- Jacob Feiler presented a poster at the Annual Meeting for the Association for Psychological Science in May 2021.
- Feiler, J.B., Scofield, J. (2021, May). (STEM)bodying Cognition.Presented at the Annual Meeting for the Association for Psychological Science (Virtual).
- Cailee Nelson presented a research talk at the Southeastern Psychological Association (SEPA) annual conference on March 20, 2021.
- Transitioning Online: Challenges for College Students with ASD. Cailee Nelson, Laura Morett, Laura Stoppelbein, & Susan White, University of Alabama
- Kaitlyn May presented at the University of California, Berkeley’s Graduate School of Education Research Day.
- May, K.E. & Guyotte, K.W. (April 2021). Teaching Abstract Scientific Concepts Through Dance: The Perfect Pas de Deux?
- Sarah Hughes Berheim presented at the 61st Annual Meeting of the Psychonomic Society during November 2020.
- Hughes-Berheim, S. S., Morett, L. M., & Shelley-Tremblay, J. F. (2020, July). Representational Gesture’s Impact on Integration of Newly-Learned Words into Read Sentential Contexts.
Kaitlyn May Places as Finalist in Regional 3MT Competition!
After being awarded first place in the annual 3-Minute Thesis (3MT) competition at the University of Alabama (click for post), Kaitlyn May went on to place as a finalist in the 2021 Council of Southern Graduate School’s regional 3MT competition. Her talk is titled “Frontoparietal Network in Executive Functioning in Autism Spectrum Disorder” and represents Kaitlyn’s ongoing interests in executive functioning and autism spectrum disorder. Congratulations to Kaitlyn!
Dr. Firat Soylu is featured on NPR's "The Pulse"
Dr. Firat Soylu talks to Maiken Scott about the role of neuroscience research in education. Among other things, Dr. Soylu discusses how our brains and bodies interact with the environment to create a robust learning system. If you’re interested in how neuroscience research relates to education and how our brains (and our kid’s brains) learn and remember things in school, check out the article and listen to the full 2021 podcast ep here.
Kaitlyn May wins 1st Place in the University of Alabama's Three Minute Thesis (3MT) Competition!
First place in the annual 3MT competition was awarded to our own Kaitlyn May for her talk titled “Frontoparietal Network in Executive Functioning in Autism Spectrum Disorder.” Kaitlyn won $1,500 and will represent UA at the Council of Southern Graduate Schools 3MT competition in February 2020. See the UA news blurb about Kaitlyn here. Congratulations to Kaitlyn!
MRI Scanner Coming to the University of Alabama
We are thrilled to announce that a major research grant from the National Science Foundation was awarded to assist UA in purchasing an MRI machine! This will certainly enable increased collaboration among students and faculty in the educational neuroscience concentration with other departments and researchers at UA, as well as increased access to innovative neuroimaging methodologies.
“The research enabled through this MRI facility will boost our understanding of the neuroscience of learning and neurodegenerative diseases, bringing benefits to our entire state as well as the broader society. There’s a lot of collaborations we are developing not just on the biological side of neuroscience, but with computational researchers, as well.”
– Dr. Sharlene Newman, ALRI executive director and co-lead on the NSF grant.
Read more about this exciting news from UA's official article here.
Ed Neuro Students Present at the Alabama Advanced Imaging Consortium Conference
Fourth-year student Kaitlyn May presented at the Alabama Advanced Imaging Consortium Conference in July 2020 and won “Outstanding Poster Presentation Award” along with $100. Her poster was titled “Frontoparietal Network in Executive Functioning in Autism Spectrum Disorder” and was in collaboration with Dr. R.K. Kana of UA’s Department of Psychology.
Ed Psych Graduate Students Receive Research Awards at SUGRS 2020
Six graduate students in the Educational Psychology PhD program received Research Awards at the 2020 Southeastern Universities Graduate Research Symposium (SUGRS).
Mona Anchan, a third year PhD student, received an Outstanding Paper Presentation Award for her paper Adding Marginalization, Subtracting Scores, Multiplying Inequities, Dividing People: Low Math Performance Predictors.
Two other doctoral students, Sarah S. Hughes-Berheim, a second year, and Kaitlyn May, a third year, received Outstanding Poster Presentation Awards for their posters How we teach vocabulary matters: Do gestures used during word learning influence reading? and Neurofunctional Indices of Executive Functioning in Autism Spectrum Disorder respectively.
Three additional PhD students Kelsie J. Dawson, Brian Rivera, and Nahide Gungordu received Poster Presentation Merit Awards for their posters Moral Growth Mindset Measure: Measurement Invariance Among Political Orientations, Neural Basis of Information Transfer in Autism Spectrum Disorder: A Pilot Study, and Infant Development and Cortisol: Partial Evidence of a Dynamic System respectively.
You can find the posters in the slideshow below or download them from their respective links for better resolution.
Congratulations to all award recipients!
Mona Anchan Receives Paul W. Terry Memorial Endowed Scholarship
Mona Anchan received the Paul W. Terry Memorial Endowed Scholarship awarded to a student in Educational Psychology based on academic merit. Mona Anchan is a third year doctoral student in the Educational Psychology PhD program in the Educational Neuroscience Concentration. Mona is part of the ELDEN lab where she works with Dr. Firat Soylu. You can learn more about Mona’s research here. Congratulations to Mona!
Jake Feiler Receives Outstanding Student Award
Educational Psychology graduate student Jake Feiler received the 2020 Educational Psychology Program Outstanding Student Award at the College of Education;s Honors Day. Jake is currently in his second year in the Ed Psych PhD program in the Educational Neuroscience concentration. He is part of the NERD lab where he works under Dr. Laura Morett. You can learn more about Jake’s interest and research in his personal website. Congratulations to Jake!
Sarah Hughes Berheim receives GRFP Honorable Mention
Second year EdPsych graduate student Sarah Hughes Berheim received an Honorable Mention for her submission to the National Science Foundation’s prestigious Graduate Research Fellowship Program (GRFP).
The NSF Graduate Research Fellowship Program recognizes and supports outstanding graduate students in NSF-supported science, technology, engineering, and mathematics disciplines who are pursuing research-based Master's and doctoral degrees at accredited United States institutions. You can read more about it here.
Sarah is part of the Educational Neuroscience concentration and works under Dr. Laura Morett as part of the NERD lab. Here is a description of Sarah’s current project titled Exploring the relationship between gesture and reading:
The purpose of the project is to investigate how words learned with representational gestures are later integrated into context during reading. We did this by creating an experiment that has undergraduate students learn fake words with both matching and mismatching gestures and subsequently read them in both congruent and incongruent contexts. By using electroencephalography (EEG) during the sentence-reading part of the experiment, we plan to track the N400 event-related potential (ERP), that occurs in response to processing incongruent information. The idea is that if gesture is implicated not only in word learning but also in subsequent reading, then the way we teach vocabulary in schools should reflect this, such that congruent representational gestures should be used to not only facilitate vocabulary acquisition but later comprehension.
You can learn more about Sarah and her research here.
Congratulations to Sarah!
The Center for the Study of Ethical Development awarded $2.5m grant from the Kern Family Foundation
The Center for the Study of Ethical Development has been awarded a grant of $2.5m from the Kern Family Foundation to develop character through school leadership in Alabama.
Core Team:
- PI – Dr. David Ian Walker (Educational Studies, Educational Psychology)
- Co-PIs – Dr. Brenda Mendiola and Dr. Yvette Bynum (Educational Leadership Department), Felicia Simpson
We are pleased to announce that this project to develop character through school leadership in Alabama started in January of 2020. Through collaboration with the Educational Leadership program and UA’s Superintendent’s Academy (SA), the project will prepare and support new administrators, principals and future educational leaders to apply a virtue-ethics approach to character development in schools, emphasizing the pursuit of student flourishing as the rightful purpose of education. The program will span four and a half years, and is designed to have a long-term positive impact on K-12 character education in Alabama.
Dr. Macarena Suarez-Pellicioni joins Educational Psychology faculty
Dr. Macarena Suarez-Pellicioni has joined the Educational Psychology program for 2020. Her research interest include mathematical cognition, child development, and learning. She uses both EEG/ERPs and fMRI methods to study these topics. Previously, she had been a Postdoctoral Research Associate in the Brain Development Lab at Vanderbilt University. You can learn more about Dr. Suarez-Pellicioni’s research here.
We are excited to welcome her into the program!
Graduate Students Showcase ELDEN lab (with the help of Big Al)
Graduate students Mona Anchan and Brian Rivera showcased the ELDEN Lab at the 2019 Faculty Research Showcase. At the event, they got an eager volunteer (none other than Alabama’s mascot Big Al!) wanting to learn more about EEG research. They connected Big Al to a Brain-Computer Interface (BCI) which monitors the electrical brain waves produced by the brain. We are sure Big Al was able to learn all about brain imaging research conducted at the ELDEN Lab.
The Faculty Research Showcase is an inaugural event hosted by the Office for Undergraduate Research and the Office for Research & Economic Development.
The main goals for this event are to showcase research, research labs, and research personnel to undergraduate students who are looking to get involved and learn more about research in different disciplines. This event is designed to introduce undergraduates to the diversity of research conducted at UA and allow students to network with faculty and graduate students.
Freesurfer Workshop
Dr. Ian McDonough will give a Freesurfer workshop for students and faculty on Friday, Sept 6, 10am-11am, in Tom Barnes Room 1033. Freesurfer (https://surfer.nmr.mgh.harvard.edu/) is a free and open source software used for conducting surface-based structural MRI analysis. This workshop would be of interest, if you are interested in conducting research on the relation between structural brain features (e.g., gray/white matter volume) and behavioral indicators.
Faculty and students kick off new academic year over a potluck lunch
Educational Psych faculty and students came together to kick off the new academic year over a potluck lunch. The lunch followed the first meeting of the Ed Psych Brown Bag. This is the annual gathering organized by Ed Psych faculty and students to mark the beginning of the year. Thanks to everyone for the delicious food!
We wish everyone a successful academic year.
Faculty and Students attend the Annual Alabama Advanced Imaging Consortium Retreat
Dr. Firat Soylu and Dr. Laura Morett along with graduate students Jonjing Kim, Mona Anchan, and Brian Rivera attended the 8th Annual Alabama Advanced Imaging Consortium Retreat (AAIC) at Cheaha State Park in Alabama, August 2-3, 2019. The group joined faculty and students from UAB, Auburn, and the University of South Alabama. You can learn more about the Alabama Advanced Imaging Consortium here.
Below you can find pictures of the cohort, the Bald Rock Lodge, and Cheaha State Park.
Dr. Morett gave a talk entitled N400 magnitude and coherence reflect temporal integration of beat gesture and pitch accent during language processing. Graduate students Jonjing Kim, Mona Anchan, and Brian Rivera presented a poster entitled Gray Matter Correlates of Mathematical Fluency in Children showcasing a voxel-based morphometry(VBM) analysis on structural data from children assessing correlations between gray matter volume and a measure of math fluency. You can download a PDF of the poster here.
Faculty and students present at MCLS in Ottawa, Canada
ELDEN Lab PI Firat Soylu and graduate students Brian Rivera and Mona Anchan presented at the 2019 meeting of the Mathematical Cognition and Learning Society (MCLS) hosted at Carleton University in Ottawa, Canada from June 16-18, 2019.
Dr. Soylu presented a poster titled Testing the Motor Simulation Theory in Processing Canonical and Non-Canonical Finger Numeral Configurations summarizing an analysis of finger processing data. Both Brian and Mona presented pre-registered posters.
You can find links to PDF copies of the posters below.
https://edneuro.ua.edu/uploads/4/8/5/6/48568079/soylu_et_al.mcls_2019.pdf
Five students in the Educational Neuroscience Initiative receive recognition at graduate symposium
Five Educational Psychology doctoral students in the Educational Neuroscience Initiate received awards for their research poster presentations.
Jake Feiler, Kaitlyn May, Kelsie Dawson, Brian Rivera, and Nan Mu were recognized for their poster presentations during the ESPRMC Graduate Research Symposium. Congratulations to all of them!
You can find students’ specific awards as well as copies of their posters below:
First year Jake Feiler received the Outstanding Poster Presentation Award for his poster Neural Underpinnings of Lexical Tone Learning. You can learn more about Jake’s research here. Click here to view Jake’s poster.
Kaitlyn May, who is in her 2nd year, received a Merit Award for her poster Developmental Changes in the Early Childhood Executive Function and Language Relationship: A Preliminary Analysis. Click here to view Kaitlyn’s poster.
Kelsie Dawson, a 3rd year in the program, received a Merit Award for her poster Examining the Relationship of Moral Foundations with Empathy and Moral Identity. Click here to view Kelsie’s poster.
Brian Rivera, who is in his 3rd year, received a Merit Award for his poster The Effect of Shared Components In Fraction Comparisons. You can learn more about Brian’s research here. Click here to view Brian’s poster.
Nan Mu, also in her 3rd year, received the Outstanding Poster Presentation Award for her poster Gender, School SES, and Racial Makeup: Predictors of Social Perspective Taking. Click here to view Nan’s poster.
ALRI Grant
Drs. Evie Malaia (Communicative Disorders, A&S) and Firat Soylu (Educational Psychology, College of Ed) received funding from the Alabama Life Research Institute (ALRI) Pilot Project Program, for a project entitled “Brain pathways for perception-to-cognition in ASD: Reconciling divergent evidence from computational and emotional behavior”.
The project will inform a NIH R01 application, responding to a program announcement for research on autism spectrum disorders. Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) is a neurodevelopmental disorder that affects sensorimotor, cognitive, and socio-communicative abilities throughout the lifespan. Social deficits observed in ASD are linked to impairments in brain systems that support theory of mind: one’s ability to model mental states of other individuals based on observed physical features and behaviors, which requires recruitment of sensorimotor simulation systems. While sensorimotor simulations are hypothesized to underlie all components of higher cognition, these components are not affected to equal measure in ASD. For example, while ability to recognize and interpret emotional states is severely impaired in those on autism spectrum, number processing, which to some extent uses overlapping sensorimotor simulation systems, is often enhanced (the “Rainman phenomenon”). Drs. Malaia and Soylu will investigate neurobiological bases of sensorimotor simulations in emotion recognition vs. number processing in individuals with ASD, and their neurotypical peers. ASD is increasingly understood to be based on atypical signal transfer among brain networks. The study will form a foundation for re-framing the “theory of mind” hypothesis for autism in terms of domain-specific sensorimotor resonance. It will also provide pilot hypothesis testing for a Big Data investigation of sensorimotor resonance in specific domains of higher cognition in ASD and typically developing individuals using a national database of functional neuroimaging.
New Faculty: Dr. Macarena Suárez Pellicioni
We are happy to announce that Dr. Macarena Suárez Pellicioni will be joining the faculty in the Educational Psychology Program in August 2019! Dr. Suárez is currently a postdoctoral fellow in the Brain Development Lab at Vanderbilt University. Her research focuses on numerical cognition and mathematical development. She uses behavioral, fMRI, and EEG/ERP methods in her research.
Mona Anchan receives the Educational Psychology Program Outstanding Graduate Student Award
Mona Anchan, second year PhD student in the Ed Psych / Ed Neuro Concentration & the ELDEN Lab, received the Educational Psychology Program Outstanding Graduate Student Award. Mona was presented with the award during the College of Education's Honors Day at the Woods-McDonald Auditorium in Graves Hall. Congratulations to Mona!
Dr. Han receives the Kuhmerker Dissertation Award
Dr. Hyemin Han received the 2018 Kuhmerker Dissertation Award from the Association For Moral Education. The Association for Moral Education gives an annual award for an outstanding doctoral dissertation. The Kuhmerker Dissertation Award is intended to give recognition and commendation to a dissertation addressing moral cognition, moral development, moral functioning, and/or moral education.
More about the award can be found here.
Three undergraduate RA's represented the NERD lab at URCA
Autumn Christafore, Alyssa Schoonmaker, and Julia Hahn, three undergrad RAs working in Dr. Laura Morett's N.E.R.D. lab, presented a poster entitled “The Effects of Beat Gesture and Pitch Accenting on Discourse Comprehension and Memory” at the 2019 Undergraduate Research & Creativity Activity (URCA) Symposium. The presented poster can be found below. You can learn more about the Neuroscience of Education Research on Development (N.E.R.D.) and Dr. Morett’s work here.
ELDEN Lab Undergraduate Celia Somers presents at URCA
Celia Somers an RA in the ELDEN lab presented a poster at the 2019 Undergraduate Research & Creativity Activity (URCA) Symposium. In her poster titled “Let’s Face it-N170 Rules: Temporal Processing of Facial Features in the Brain Using Event-Related Potential” (see below) Celia investigated the presence of an Event Related Potential (ERP) occurring in the brain when participants view human faces. You can view Celia’s poster here. Congrats to Celia!
Doctoral student Mona Anchan presents
her research at CNS
Mona Anchan represented the ELDEN lab at the 26th annual meeting of the Cognitive Neuroscience Society (CNS) in San Francisco, CA, March 23-26. Mona presented some of her recent work in a poster titled, “Does it Add Up? Comparing Arithmetic Processing in Bilinguals and Monolinguals” (see below). Mona is the first ELDEN student to attend the CNS meeting. You can learn more about Mona’s research on bilingualism here and view her poster here.
First year doctoral students launch AGSES
First-year doctoral students in the educational neuroscience concentration started a graduate student organization called AGSES. The purpose the Association of Graduate Students in Educational Studies (AGSES) is to represent the broad interests of doctoral students in the Department of Educational Studies. Dr. Firat Soylu will be the group's faculty advisor. You can learn more about AGSES here.
Dr. Soylu receives a second RGC Grant to study math performance in bilinguals!
Dr. Firat Soylu received a University of Alabama Level 1 RGC grant, titled “Mathematical Processing Differences between Bilinguals and Monolinguals.” Here is the abstract for his study:
With more than 25% of school students coming from immigrant households where the primary language spoken at home is not English, bilingual populations underperform in mathematics classrooms, where language of instruction in the classroom differs from their native language. In addition to sociocultural factors, this is partially due to bilinguals processing math knowledge differently compared to monolinguals. Differences between doing arithmetic in one’s native language and a second language have not been scrutinized extensively. To fill this gap, both behavioral and neural (Electroencephalography) measures will be used to examine how a group of adult bilinguals (Turkish/English) process simple and complex addition problems in their first (Turkish) and second (English) languages, and how arithmetic processing in bilinguals compare to English-speaking monolinguals. This study will be the first-step towards a research program that investigates bilingual math processing both in developmental and adult populations and will inform the needs of ESL (English as a Second Language) students in math classrooms.
New Undergraduate Program in Educational Neuroscience
We are excited to announce that the University of Alabama College of Education will soon start offering a B.Sc. Major in Educational Neuroscience. The undergraduate program in educational neuroscience was approved by the Alabama Commission on Higher Education on September 15, 2018, and by The University of Alabama Board of Trustees on September 21, 2018. The program will be the first of its kind in the world and will start enrolling students in the Fall 2020 semester.
Brian Rivera Receives STEM Forward Conference Prize
Congrats to Brian Rivera, second year PhD student in the Ed Psych / Ed Neuro Concentration & the ELDEN Lab, for getting the 3rd place prize in the 2018 UA STEM Forward Conference! This is the third award Brian received in a month. See http://training.ua.edu/stem/stem-poster.php for details.
Dr. Morett receives two research grants
Congrats to Dr. Laura Morett for being awarded two research grants to support her research on gesture processing in the NERD Lab!
- Neural mechanisms of gesture’s impact on L2 speech sound acquisition. Source: Language Learning Early Career Grant ($10,000)
- From Hand to Mind: How the Brain Supports Non-Native Speech Sound Acquisition. Source: UA RGC Level 1 Grant ($6,000)
Doctoral student Brian Rivera receives the 2018 Ed Psych Outstanding Graduate Student Award!
Brian Rivera, second year PhD student in the Ed Psych / Ed Neuro Concentration & the ELDEN Lab, received the Educational Psychology Program Outstanding Graduate Student Award. Congrats to Brian for this great accomplishment!
2018 Undergraduate Research & Creative Activity (URCA) Symposium
Two undergraduate RAs in the ELDEN Lab presented their posters in the 2018 Undergraduate Research & Creative Activity (URCA) Symposium on March 28, 2018. Congrats to both!
Rachel Remmes’s (secondary education major) poster is titled “Structural Brain Features Associated with Autism in Children: A VBM Study” and she received a second-place award in the education section. Double congrats to Rachel for getting this award for two years in a row!
Jakub Denkiewicz’s (pre-med & psychology major) poster is titled ”Structural Brain Features Associated with Mild Cognitive Impairment in the Elderly: A VBM Study”
ESPRMC Awards
Two of our students were recognized for their work in the 2018 UA ESPRMC Graduate Research Symposium:
Brian Rivera, second year PhD student in the Ed Psych / Ed Neuro program & the ELDEN Lab, won the Outstanding Paper Presentation Award, for his paper, titled “ERP Mass Univariate Analysis of Fraction Magnitude Comparison.”
Nan Mu, second year PhD student in the Ed Psych / Ed Neuro program & the ECS Lab, received an Honorable Mention for her poster presentation, titled “Examining Neural Activation During Music Perception and Imagination Using EEG Signals.”
Congrats to Brian and Nan!
Dr. Han receives an RGC Grant
Hyemin Han received a University of Alabama Level 1 RGC grant, titled “Why Do Some Stories of Moral Exemplars Increase Prosocial Behavior? —Neuroimaging Study.” Here is the abstract for his study:
The proposed research project aims to study when and why people are motivated to emulate moral saints, heroes, and other exemplars by conducting neuroimaging experiments. The proposed research project will examine how different types of moral stories, attainable-relevant versus unattainable-irrelevant stories, differently influence motivational processes associated with moral and prosocial behavior among participants at the behavioral and neural levels. By comparing behavioral and neural influences between different types of moral stories, I intend to consider which type of moral stories can effectively promote prosocial motivation.
Congrats to Dr. Han for this great accomplishment!
UA News Article on Firat Soylu’s Research
Firat Soylu‘s research on numerical cognition was featured in a UA News article: https://www.ua.edu/news/2018/03/this-many/
The story was also picked up by several other news websites:
http://neurosciencenews.com/math-fingers-8682/
https://medicalxpress.com/news/2018-03-relationship-early-math-ability-fingers.html
http://www.chinatimes.com/realtimenews/20180327002147-260405 (Chinese)
technews.tw/2018/03/26/finger-sense-arithmetic-ability-math-cognition/ (Chinese)
Firat Soylu’s talk at UAB
Dr. Firat Soylu will give a talk titled “Bodily and evolutionary origins of numerical cognition: Why you can count on your fingers to do math” in the UAB Department of Psychology colloquium on Feb 21, 2018, at 3:30 pm.
Dr. Laura Morett was named an APS Rising Star!
Dr. Laura Morett, Assistant Professor in the Educational Psychology Program, was named an APS (Association for Psychological Science) 2018 Rising Star. We congratulate Dr. Morett for this great accomplishment!
Dr. Han will be attending a meeting for moral exemplarity and character virtue development organized by the John Templeton Foundation
The John Templeton Foundation invited Dr. Han to a meeting for moral exemplarity and character virtue development as a commentator. Dr. Han will be attending the meeting between January 21st-22nd, 2018, in Marina Del Rey, CA. He will discuss how to utilize the stories of moral exemplars in moral education to promote students’ moral motivation effectively.
Related links:
The Beacon Project at Wake Forest University
Exemplarist Moral Theory by Linda Zagzebski
The Power of Ideals: The Real Story of Moral Choice by William Damon and Anne Colby
The UA Educational Neuroscience PhD Concentration is recruiting PhD students for Fall 2018!
The University of Alabama invites applications for its unique interdisciplinary Educational Neuroscience PhD Concentration (edneuro.ua.edu). As part of the educational Psychology Ph.D. program, the concentration emphasizes the cognitive, affective, and neural mechanisms of learning as well as exploration of educational implications in one or more domains (e.g., math learning and numerical cognition, science education, reading and literacy, second language learning and bilingualism, morality education, learning disorders). Faculty in the educational neuroscience concentration use behavioral methods (eyetracking) and neuroimaging techniques (EEG, fMRI, fNIRS) to examine the neural bases of learning in populations varying in age, expertise, and diagnosis. The educational neuroscience concentration is highly collaborative; faculty and students routinely work together to conduct innovative research spanning their content and methodological expertise, resulting in an intellectually stimulating and collegial environment.
Faculty in the educational neuroscience concentration (*actively recruiting for 2018-2019):
- *Dr. Laura Morett (lmorett@ua.edu): Neurobiology of language, embodied cognition, second language acquisition, autism spectrum disorders, developmental cognitive neuroscience. Lab website: http://nerdlab.ua.edu/
- *Dr. Audrey Lustig Michal (almichal@ua.edu): Visuospatial processing, STEM learning, data visualizations, diagrams, cognitive neuroscience, scientific reasoning. Lab website: http://steplab.ua.edu/
- *Dr. Hyemin Han (hyemin.han@ua.edu): Educational neuroscience, social neuroscience, social development, positive psychology, computational simulation, educational intervention. Lab website: http://seed.ua.edu/
- Dr. Lisa Hsin (lisa.b.hsin@ua.edu): Cognitive development, bilingualism, adolescent literacy, language acquisition, psycholinguistics. Lab website: http://ecs.ua.edu/
- Dr. Firat Soylu (fsoylu@ua.edu): Educational neuroscience, numerical cognition, STEM learning, embodied cognition, learning design. Lab website: http://elden.ua.edu
- Dr. Stephen Thoma (sthoma@ua.edu): Moral judgement development, personality and social development, neuropsychology of moral reasoning and decision making. Lab website: http://ethicaldevelopment.ua.edu/
Prospective students are encouraged to visit the websites of faculty members listed above (http://edneuro.ua.edu/people) to learn more about their research and to contact them via email with questions. For general questions about the Educational Psychology Ph.D. program and admission requirements, prospective students may contact the Program Coordinator, Dr. Steve Thoma (sthoma@ua.edu).
The University of Alabama is located in Tuscaloosa, a city of approximately 100,000 residents in western central Alabama. Aside from hosting the winningest football team in the Southeastern Conference (Roll Tide!), Tuscaloosa offers a low cost of living and Southern hospitality and charm complemented by a vibrant downtown with a variety of restaurants and family-owned shops, a farmer’s market, an outdoor amphitheater, and a folk art center and festival. Proximity to several state parks and the Gulf Shore provide numerous possibilities for outdoor activities including hiking, mountain biking, trail running, spelunking, fishing, and camping. Nearby cities include Birmingham (< 1 hr.), Atlanta (2.5 hrs.), Chattanooga (3 hrs.), Nashville (3.5 hrs.), Memphis (4 hrs.), and Knoxville (4 hrs.).
Review of applications for fall 2018 admission will begin on January 15 and will continue until April 15. For best consideration for fellowships and graduate assistantships, please apply by January 21. Applications are accepted online via the following website:http://graduate.ua.edu/prospects/application/.
EdNeuro people attending the ERP Boot Camp
Dr. Laura Morett and Nate Shannon will be attending the ERP Boot Camp at the UC-Davis Center for Mind & Brain, held July 10 – 19, 2017.
NSF Graduate Research Fellowship – Honorable Mention
Nate Shannon, first year PhD student in the Ed Psych / Ed Neuro Concentration, was accorded with an Honorable Mention by the NSF GRF program. Congrats Nate!
Two new faculty to join our program in Fall 2017!
Our program is continuing to expand! Drs. Audrey Michal and Laura Morett will join our faculty in the Educational Psychology Program / Educational Neuroscience Concentration in Fall 2017. We look forward to seeing them among us in the Fall semester!
Michael Anderson’s Talk on Evolution of Brain and Cognition
As part of the UA ALLELE talk series, Michael Anderson will give a talk titled “Neural reuse in the evolution and development of the brain” at 7:30 pm on Thursday, Feb. 23, 2017, in North Lawn Hall auditorium.
http://evolution.ua.edu/2016-17-series.html/#Anderson
https://www.ua.edu/news/2017/02/neuroscientist-to-discuss-brain-development-at-ua-allele-lecture/
UA Educator Article on the EdNeuro Initiative
Check out 2016 UA Educator magazine article on the UA Educational Neuroscience Initiative:
https://issuu.com/ua_educator/docs/ua_coe_november_2016
New Faculty
Our program is expanding. Drs. Hyemin Han and Lisa Hsin will be joining our faculty in the Fall 2016 semester. We are excited to have them!
Medicine, Mind, Biology and Culture (MMBAC) Meeting
Firat Soylu will give a talk, titled “Bodily and evolutionary foundations of numerical cognition” for the Medicine, Mind, Biology and Culture (MMBAC) Meeting at 12pm on Monday, March 29th, 2016, in ten Hoor Hall – Room 21. All is welcome to attend.
UAB-UA-Auburn Neuroimaging Club
Grab your lunch and join us for the Neuroimaging Journal Club talks, at 12pm in Lloyd Hall 317 on select Fridays (see schedule below). All is welcome to attend.
| 9/25/15 | Wenjing Yan (AU) | Hemodynamic alterations in Autism |
| 10/9/15 | Elyse Cadena (UAB, Lahti lab) | |
| 10/23/15 | Pradyumna Lanka (AU) | Prospective motion correction for RS-fMRI connectivity |
| 11/13/15 | Gopi Deshpande (AU) | Machine learning in neuroimaging |
| 11/27/15 | Thanksgiving | |
| 12/11/15 | Hao Zou (AU) | Discovering coherent sub-populations in spectrum disorders |
| 12/25/15 | Xmas | |
| 1/8/16 | Nat Harnett (UAB, Knight lab) | |
| 1/22/16 | Ranga Deshpande and Sinan Zhao (AU) | From Connectivity Models to Region Labels: Identifying Foci of Neurological Disorders |
| 2/12/16 | ||
| 2/26/16 | Firat Soylu (The University of Alabama) | You can count on your fingers: The relation between fingers and numbers |
| 3/11/166 | Tuo Shi (AU) | Dynamic Windowing for Connectivity Analysis |
| 3/25/16 | Wesley Burge (UAB, Visscher Lab) | |
| 4/8/16 | Sinan Zhao and Bhavitha Ramaiahgari (AU) | Dog Imaging |
| 4/22/16 | Adam Goodman (UAB, Knight Lab) | |
| 5/13/16 | Xinyu Zhao (AU) | Unsupervised learning methods in neuroimaging |
| 5/27/16 | ||
| 6/10/16 | Yun Wang (AU) | Cortical layer specific resting state networks |
| 6/24/16 |
EdNeuro Seminar: “Gender differences in spatial processing”
Please join us for a talk by Sharlene Newman, on gender differences in spatial processing.
Speaker: Sharlene Newman, Indiana University
Where: Graves Hall 202
When: Thursday, July 30, 2015; 11:30am – 12:45pm
Topic: Gender differences in spatial processing
Abstract
Title: Gender differences in spatial processing
Gender differences have been observed in visuo-spatial processing, particularly mental rotation (Weiss et al., 2003). This has been observed both behaviorally, with female participants performing worse on mental rotation, and neurally with brain activation difference observed between men and women (Jordan et al., 2002; Weiss et al., 2003). There have been a number of hypotheses proposed to explain the source of these gender differences including those related to hormonal influences. However, I will argue that the differences are experience based, specifically experience with toys played with during childhood. Behavioral and MRI data will be presented.
Developmental CI Talk
Firat Soylu will give a talk for the UA developmental contemporary issues group, titled “You can count on your fingers: How and why we use fingers for number processing”, on Friday, April 10, 2015, at 11:30am in GP (Palmer Hall) 347.
7th Annual ESPRMC Graduate Student Symposium
Students from the Research Methods and Trends in Educational Neuroscience course are presenting their project posters in the ESPRMC symposium on April 9, 2015, between 2:30-4:15 (Graves Hall).
Society for Research in Child Development Conference
Stephen Thoma, Rick Houser, Erin O’Connor and Yangxue Dong are presenting their poster, titled “Finding social domain distinctions at the neuro level: A tDCS study of moral and conventional responses” at the SRCD conference on March 19, 2015.