The Academy’s Psychology Section has announced the winners of the prestigious 2008 James McKeen Cattell Award for "Outstanding Dissertation in Psychology." The award, in its 38th year, draws a distinguished pool of candidates from around the United States.

This year, the awards committee honored three researchers:

Vicente Martinez, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Mich.; Dissertation: A Repeated Amphetamine Model of Impaired Attention in Schizophrenia; Mentor: Dr. Martin Friedrich Sarter

Tatiana Pollo, Washington University, St. Louis, Mo.; Dissertation: The Nature of Young Children’s Spellings; Mentor: Dr. Rebecca Treiman

Jason Reiss, University of Delaware, Newark, Del.; Dissertation: Object Substitution Masking: What is the Neural Fate of the Unreportable Target? Mentor: Jim Hoffman

The mentor and doctoral program that directed the winners will also be awarded a citation certificate. Dissertations are judged by the Section’s Steering Committee and in consultation with specialists in the area.

Mercedes A. McCormick, PhD, Vice Chair of the Psychology Section 2008-2009, was responsible for processing applications and distributing the dissertations to the panel of distinguished internal and external reviewers that decided on the Cattell Award winners. Also playing key roles in the process were Section Chair Ting Lei and Section Steering Committee members Richard Velayo, PhD; Florence Denmark, PhD; Bob Wesner, PhD; Ed Hollander, PhD; Uwe Gielen, PhD; Sheila M. Pfafflin, PhD; Frank Le Fever, PhD; Jeff Fish, PhD; Gwen Gerber, PhD; and Joanne Williams, PhD.

Interested applicants for the 2009 James McKeen Cattell award may send an e-mail of interest to Mercedes McCormick at mmccormick2@pace.edu.

Previous Cattell Award Winners

2007

Emily Amanatullah
"Negotiating Gender Role Stereotypes: The Influence of Gender Role Stereotypes on Perceivers' Evaluations and Target's Behaviors in Value Claiming Negotiations and Situation Moderation by Representation Role"
Mentor: Michael Morris
Columbia Business School

Katherine H. Karlsgodt
"Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging of Verbal Working Memory in Schizophrenia"
Mentor: Tyrone D. Cannon
University of California, Los Angeles

2006

Christopher Summerfield
"Cognitive Control During Episodic Memory Encoding"
Mentor: Jennifer Mangels, Columbia University

Nicole Avena (Honorable Mention)
"Evidence of Sugar Addiction in Rats: Links to Drug Abuse and Eating Disorders"
Mentor: Bart Hoebel, Princeton University

2005

Jennifer Quinn
"Dorsal Hippocampus Involvement in Fear Conditioning to Discrete Auditory Stimuli"
Mentor: Michael Fanselow
University of California, Los Angeles

Anne-Noel Samaha
"Effects of Rate of Drug Delivery on Brain and Behavior: Implications for Addiction"
Mentor: Terry Robinson
University of Michigan

Jessica Tracy
"Is There a Universally Recognized Pride Expression?"
Mentor: Richard Robins
University of California, Davis

2004

Adam Brickman
"Neuropsychological Functioning and Neuromorphometry in Non-Kraepelinian and Kraepelinian Schizophrenia"
Mentor: Joan Borod
Graduate Center of the City University of New York, Neuropsychology Subprogram at Queens College

Shayna Rosenbaum
"Investigations of Remote Memory for Topographical and Autobiographical Information: Evidence from Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging and Amnesic Patients"
Mentor: Morris Moscovitch
University of Toronto

2003

Evan Palmer
"Spatiotemporal Relatability in the Perception of Dynamically Occluded Objects"
Mentor: Philip Kellman
University of California, Los Angeles

2002

Laura Louise Eldridge
"The Role of the Medial Temporal Lobe in Human Memory"
Mentor: Michelle Craske
University of California, Los Angeles

Steven Most
"Sustained Intentional Blindness: What You See Is What You See"
Mentor: Daniel Simons
Harvard University