Congratulations to this year’s winners of Yale Psychology’s annual graduate student awards.
The James Grossman Dissertation Award is given to the author of an outstanding Ph.D. dissertation in Psychology, with preference for an author and dissertation embodying characteristics of James B. Grossman’s scholarship. This year the award goes to two students: Joan Ongchoco for her dissertation titled, The Continuous vs. the Discrete in Mental Life: Studies in Perception, Attention, and Decision-making, and Siqi Fan for her dissertation titled, The Functional Role of Primate Prefrontal-Amygdala Networks in Live Social Gaze Interaction. Joan heads off to start her own lab as Assistant Professor at the University of British Columbia, and Siqi to a postdoctoral position at The Rockefeller University under Winrich Freiwald.
The William Kessen Teaching Award is presented to a graduate student in psychology who best exemplifies the spirit, vitality, and commitment to teaching that Professor Kessen was known for. This years recipient is Emily Cohodes. One of her nominators writes “I have been continually amazed by her talents and dedication to teaching throughout her time at Yale, as well as by the considerable number of students whose education she has impacted.”
The Jane Olejarczyk Service Award is given to the graduate student in our program who has contributed most significantly to the quality of graduate student life in the Department. This year’s recipient is Ryan Carlson. One of his nominators writes “For the last 3+ years, Ryan has been working to compile a history of the origins of the Yale Psychology Department and share this work broadly with the department. On the basis of his efforts, Ryan has been asked repeatedly to share his work with the department.”