2004-05 Allyn & Bacon Winners' Biographies
Psi Chi would like to thank Allyn & Bacon Publishers for sponsoring the 2004-05 research award competition. Cash awards were provided by Allyn & Bacon to the winners as follows: $1,000 for first place, $650 for second place, and $350 for third place. This year’s first place winner is Sumati Gupta of Duke University (NC) for her paper entitled "Difficulties With Emotion Regulation Predict Eating Disorder Symptoms: A Preliminary Study." The second place winner is Kyle Holleran of Binghamton University, SUNY for his paper entitled "An Interpersonal Model of Depression: Specificity to Symptoms of Depression Versus Anxiety." The third place winner is Mariko Yamaguchi of Yale University (CT) for her paper entitled "Infant Habituation Patterns Predict Later Theory of Mind: A Developmental Dissociation Between Social and Non-Social Domains." Psi Chi congratulates these 2004-05 winners of the Allyn & Bacon Awards and wishes them continued success in their education and careers.
Read abstracts of these award winning papers here.
Sumati Gupta, the first place winner, is from Savannah, Georgia and currently attends Duke University. She is a rising senior and intends to pursue a PhD in clinical psychology upon graduation. During her three years at Duke, she has volunteered with a domestic violence crisis line for South Asians and served on its board of directors. She has also worked as an intern at a domestic violence shelter and a university counseling center. In addition, Ms. Gupta has assisted with several research projects at Duke, Columbia, and Pace University including a treatment study for opiate addicts with borderline personality disorder, a follow-up study of Dialectical Behavior Therapy for depressed older adults, a study on the effects of the World Trade Center attacks on New York City citizens, and others. During her junior year, she also served as a teaching assistant for a Gender in Psychology course. Ms. Gupta would like to thank everyone at Duke’s Cognitive Behavioral Research and Treatment Program, particularly Dr. Rosenthal, Dr. Cheavens, and Dr. Lynch, for supporting her since her freshmen year.
Kyle Holleran, the second place winner, is 22 years old. He was born and raised in Binghamton, New York. Mr. Holleran completed his high school education at a small school called Susquehanna Valley High School and attended Binghamton University for his BA in psychology. He graduated in May with honors in psychology and cum laude latin honors. After graduation, Mr. Holleran plans on taking a few years off so he can conduct more research and gain some publication experience before applying to a PhD clinical psychology program. Currently, Mr. Holleran is interested in interpersonal and cognitive vulnerabilities to depression and would like to have a career in academia conducting research on adolescents while maintaining clients and teaching classes. He has recently completed an honors project examining interpersonal risk factors to depression/anxiety in undergraduates.
Mariko Yamaguchi, the third place winner, is originally from Japan, but has grown up in Tokyo, Toronto, and Los Angeles. She graduated in May 2005 from Yale University with a BA in psychology and molecular biophysics & biochemistry. As an undergraduate, Ms. Yamaguchi has worked with infants and preschool age children, as well as several species of primates, including capuchins, rhesus macaques, lemurs, and chimpanzees, under the supervision of advisors Drs. Karen Wynn and Laurie Santos. Specifically, she has been interested in the theory of mind and an understanding of animate agents.
After graduation, Ms. Yamaguchi is looking forward to being at Johns Hopkins University for graduate school, working with Drs. Lisa Feigenson and Justin Halberda.