Feautured Alumni

2021

Krystal St. Peter, Ph.D., Advisor: Alan Kersten, Ph.D.

Tenure-track assistant professor at Minot State University. 

Dissertation:  Memory for trivia facts and source identity: Effects of emotion and source characteristics.

Joseph Williams, Ph.D.,  Advisor: Robin Vallacher, Ph.D.

Dissertation: Sentiment Analysis of Tweets During the 2020 Presidential Election

Angalee Wilson, Ph.D., Advisor: Michael Maniaci, Ph.D.

Dissertation:  Daily Loneliness in Young and Older Adults

2020

David Cinali, Ph.D., Advisor: Robert Stackman, Ph.D.

Assistant Director of Community Engagement, and Assistant Director of MobileMinds, Stiles-Nicholson Brain Institute, FAU Jupiter.

Debarshi Datta, Ph.D., Advisor: Howard Hock, Ph.D.

Dissertation:  Top-down effects of Perceptual Grouping on the Perception of Motion.

Claire Kuchera Rice, Ph.D.,  Advisor: Robert Stackman, Ph.D.

Visiting Instructor of Psychology, Wilkes Honors College, Jupiter, FL.

Nicole Perez, Ph.D.,  Advisor: Elan Barenholtz, Ph.D.

Nate Shanok, Ph.D.,  Advisor: Nancy Jones, Ph.D.

Supervisor of the Delray Center for Brain Science (DCBS)

Dissertation: Inhibitory Control Performance as a Function of Preadolescent Anxiety and Resting-State Neurophysiology

Valeria Tores Solano, Ph.D., Advisor: Monica Rosselli, Ph.D.

Database researcher Broward County Public schools, Ft. Lauderdale, FL 

Olivia Valdes, Ph.D., Advisor: Brett Laursen, Ph.D.

Associate Principal Research Analyst, Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA), Boca Raton, Florida, Regional Office. 

Dissertation: Direct and indirect effects from aggression onto internalizing symptoms: A genetically controlled study.

2019

Dustin Cox, Ph.D., Advisor: Sang Hong, Ph.D.

Mixed Methods User Experience (UX) Researcher at Electronic Arts (highly possibly move to Facebook soon)

Dissertation:  Investigating the Temporal Dynamics of Advanced Information Processing During Interocular Suppression Using Electroencephalography and Pattern Classification

Charles Dukes, Ph.D.,  Advisor: David Bjorklund, Ph.D.

Professor of Education, FAU. 

Dissertation:  Children's Moral Sensitivity: An Examination of the Suspected Link Between Altruistic Punishment and Moral Judgements

David Giguere, Ph.D.,  Advisor: Erika Hoff, Ph.D.

Assistant Professor of Psychology, California State University at Sacramento. 

Dissertation:  Within-And Across-Language Effects of Oral Language Skill At School Entry On Later English and Spanish Reading Comprehension Growth Among Early Bilinguals

Corrine Gilad, Ph.D., Advisor: Michael Maniaci, Ph.D.

Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the U.S. Army Research Institute for the Behavioral and Social Sciences.

Dissertation:  The Interplay of Dominance, Power and Prosociality in Interpersonal Relationships

David Goldsztajn Farelo, Ph.D., Advisor: Andrej Nowak, Ph.D.

Senior Scientist at Boston Fusion, Lexington, MA. 

Dissertation:  Basic or Fabulous?  Developing a Life Complexity Scale

Michael Kleiman, Ph.D., Advisor: Elan Barenholtz, Ph.D.

Dissertation: Streamlining Clinical Detection of Alzheimer's Disease Using Electronic Health Records and Machine Leaning Techniques

Islam Mohammed, Ph.D., Advisor: Elan Baranholtz, Ph.D.

Dissertation: The Influence of Context and Perceptual Load on Object Recognition

Katherine Shanks, Ph.D., Advisor: Erika Hoff, Ph.D.

Data Management Specialist/Data Analyst, David Lawrence Centers for Behavioral Health - Naples, Florida

2018

Melissa Huey, Ph.D., Advisor: Brett Laursen, Ph.D.

Assistant Professor of Psychology, New York Institute of Technology in New York.  Dissertation: Self-Esteem Mediates Over-Time Associations From Parenting Practices to Adolescent Adjustment

Alyson Myers, Ph.D.,  Advisor: David Bjorklund, Ph.D.

Director of Research and Development, Calcean. 

Dissertation:  The Development of Synchronous Vocalizations and Behaviors in Juvenile Make Wild Atlantic Spotted Dolphins

Idaly Velez Uribe, Ph.D., Advisor: Monica Rosselli, Ph.D.

Postdoctoral fellow in Neurosciences at FAU and Alzheimer’s Disease Research Center, Miami, FL. 

Dissertation: Electrophysiological Correlates of Emotion Word Processing in Spanish-English Bilinguals

2017

Maria Corbett, Ph.D.,  Advisor: Nancy Jones, Ph.D.

Dissertation: Stress Reactivity in Children Following an Academic Stressor: Associations and Interactions with Intrapersonal Characteristics

Daniel Dickson, Ph.D.,  Advisor: Brett Laursen, Ph.D.

Post-doctoral Fellow, School of Psychoeducation, University of Montreal - Canada.

Dissertation: Maternal Involvement in Math Homework and Its Influence on Adolescents' Math Outcomes During Their Transition to Middle School: Who Profits From Homework Assistance?

Ashley Belle Jones Cooper, Ph.D.,  Advisor: Rhyne Sherman, Ph.D.

Daniel LaCombe, Ph.D.,  Advisor: Elan Barenholtz, Ph.D.

Melanie Pineda Platt, Ph.D.,  Advisor: Nancy Jones, Ph.D.

Dissertation: Behavioral Expressions of Jealousy Across the First Two Years of Life: Associations with EER Asymmetry, Cortisol Reactivity and Attachment Security

Stephanie Welsh, Ph.D.,  Advisor: Erika Hoff, Ph.D.

Assistant Professor of Psychology, Carson-Newman University. 

Dissertation:  The Out-Of-Home Dual Language Exposure of Children From Spanish-Speaking Homes: Changes from 2 To 5 Years.

2016

Chris Aults, Ph.D., Advisor: David Perry, Ph.D.

Shrija Dirghangi, Ph.D.,  Advisor: Brett Laursen, Ph.D.

Assistant Professor of Child Development, California State University, Chico, California.

Dissertation:  On the importance of being fun: Over-time associations between perceptions of fun and changes in peer preference and popularity.

Amy Hartl, Ph.D.,  Advisor: Brett Laursen, Ph.D.

Senior Statistician at SHL Group (Scandinavian Health Limited), Fort Lauderdale, Florida and Stockholm, Sweden.  Dissertation:  A longitudinal latent profile analysis of adolescent popularity: A test of the bistrategic hypothesis.

Lauren Mavica, Ph.D.,  Advisor: Elan Barenholtz, Ph.D.

Instructor, Psychology Dept, - FAU, Boca Campus. 

Dissertation:  Informational Aspects of Audiovisual Identity Matching

Andres Paz, Ph.D.,  Advisor: Monica Rosselli, Ph.D.

Independent data analyst and free-lance UX researcher in San José, Costa Rica. 

Dissertation: The Assessment of Inhibitory Subcomponents in Relation to Young Adult Binge Drinking

Nicholas Schipper, Ph.D.,  Advisor: Robin Vallacher, Ph.D.

Instructor, Lake Superior College, Duluth, Minnesota

Derrick Schlangen, Ph.D.,  Advisor: Elan Barenholtz, Ph.D.

Dissertation: Peripheral Object Recognition in Naturalistic Scenes

Alex Wong, Ph.D.,  Advisor: Robin Vallacher, Ph.D.

Assistant Professor, California State University at Chico. 

Dissertation:  Daily Feedback of Self-Concept Clarity and Grit