The chair of the Psi Chi/J. P. Guilford Undergraduate Research Awards Committee, Christopher Koch, PhD, has announced the winners of the 2000-01 Guilford competition. The first-place winner is Kristina Denisova of New York University for her paper entitled "Visual Attention Affects How Much We Can See." The second-place winner is Sharin M. Palladino of the University of Evansville for her paper entitled "Factors Predicting Subclinical Eating Disorders: Do Gender Differences Still Exist?" The third-place winner is Amy Joh of Rutgers University for her paper entitled "The Minimum Duration for Reactivating a Forgotten Memory at 3 Months of Age."
     Psi Chi congratulates these 2000-01 winners of the Guilford Awards and wishes them continued success in their education and careers. Cash awards were as follows: $1,000 for first place, $650 for second place, and $350 for third place.

Kristina Denisova, the first-place winner, states that the ability to create new knowledge seems to her the ultimate of human endeavors. Ever since she emigrated from Russia in 1991, Ms. Denisova has tried various routes to research--learning a new language, assisting in resurrecting a newspaper in High School, and writing unorthodox English papers. However, only at New York University does she feel that she actually had the opportunity to investigate one area of research that has been of interest to her for some time--the human visual system (she currently does work in visual attention). Ms. Denisova is fascinated and excited when she realizes that we can uncover the mechanisms by which our visual system can process incoming information more efficiently. Last summer, she received an Undergraduate Research Grant from New York University to sponsor this research project, which focuses on how covert (no eye movements) attention can help the visual system to process visual stimuli more effectively.
     Currently, Ms. Denisova is graduating with honors in psychology with a minor in English from New York University. In addition, she has been on the Dean's list for the 1998, 1999, 2000, and 2001 school years. Her goal for the immediate future is to pursue a PhD in cognition and neural science; she will be applying to graduate schools this fall.

The second-place winner, Sharin M. Palladino, recently graduated from the University of Evansville and will be a first-year graduate student at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio beginning in the fall of 2001. She was born in Altoona, Pa., and grew up in Evansville, Ind. Ms. Palladino graduated with highest honors from F. J. Reitz High School in Evansville and graduated summa cum laude from the University of Evansville with a BS in psychology and a minor in music.
     Recent honors include the Margery Florence Kahn Scholarship, Clarence E. Brooks Scholarship, Legacy Scholarship, and Music Department Scholarship as well as two consecutive Undergraduate Advantage Research Grants at the University of Evansville. In April 2001, Ms. Palladino received the Outstanding Psychology Student Award from the Southwestern Indiana Psychological Association. She is a member of Phi Kappa Phi, Mortar Board, Psi Chi (chapter president for the 2000-01 academic year), and Pi Lambda Theta, and is listed in Who's Who Among American Undergraduate Students. She is a member of the American Psychological Association (student affiliate), Music Educators National Conference, International Double Reed Society, and Society for Personality and Social Psychology (student affiliate).
     Conference presentations and publications include a poster presentation on eating disorders at the annual meeting of the Society for Personality and Social Psychology (2001); a symposium presentation, "Involving Undergraduates in Research," at the meeting of the Mid-America Conference for Teachers of Psychology, Evansville, Ind. (2000); test item files for Prentice Hall texts with her father; and a recent manuscript on eating disorders that has been submitted for publication (2001). Her musical interests involve teaching oboe to students and performing with community organizations.
     Ms. Palladino's goal is to become a professor at a four-year university, as it offers the opportunity to pursue the two areas that are of most interest: teaching and conducting research. She has been inspired to pursue a career in psychology by her professors at the University of Evansville and her father, who is also a psychology professor. They have demonstrated the impact an excellent college professor can have on students, as well as their willingness to help students achieve their goals in psychology in any way possible. It is her goal to be as successful as her role models in the area of teaching.

Amy Joh, the third-place winner, was born in Korea and moved to the United States when she was in elementary school. She is currently a senior at Rutgers University in New Brunswick, N.J. She will be graduating in May 2001 as a Henry Rutgers Scholar from Rutgers College and with highest honors from Rutgers College and the Department of Psychology. Her departmental honors thesis won the Marilyn Shaw Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Research in Psychology.
     After graduation, Ms. Joh plans on finishing her research at the Rutgers Early Learning Project. She will then travel to Europe before starting graduate school at New York University. In graduate school she plans to continue working with infants and studying their cognitive development.