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 Foundation2/11/2020
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-PI’s - 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 has joined the Educational Psychology program. 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 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. You can see more pictures of the event below. 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 is 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. ![]() The Educational Psychology Program at the University of Alabama invites applications for a tenure-track assistant professor position to expand its Educational Neuroscience Initiative. We seek a junior scientist with an interdisciplinary background whose research focuses on understanding neural mechanisms of learning and cognition, and educational implications of neuroscience research in one or more relevant domains (e.g., math learning & numerical cognition, science education, reading & literacy, motivation & affect, human development, learning technologies, cognitive and behavioral disorders). The ideal candidate can integrate developmental, neural, evolutionary and cognitive approaches to construct multi-level theories of learning and cognition, and can conduct experimental and learning design studies to validate these theories. Please see the job ad for more information -> https://facultyjobs.ua.edu/postings/45755 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.
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. 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. 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 see the poster below and download a PDF on the link. ![]()
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. 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. ![]()
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Five students in the Educational Neuroscience Initiative receive recognition at graduate symposium4/29/2019
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.
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