Giving in Action: Psychology & Neuroscience

Every gift to the Department of Psychology and Neuroscience makes a difference. Your donation helps our students succeed, opens avenues for innovation, and funds research that benefits our communities among numerous other avenues that matter most to our donors, students or faculty.

 

Thank you for your contribution to the Department of Psychology and Neuroscience at the University of Colorado Boulder. Through teaching, learning, research and community outreach, we seek to promote scholarship at the intersection of psychology and neuroscience. Driving this mission is a deep, shared commitment to improving the human condition for all people. Your support helps us provide ongoing programming for psychology and neuroscience majors. Our department has the largest number of majors on CU Boulder’s campus, providing the highest quality education to a diverse group of students. Our faculty and students conduct cutting-edge research that transcends traditional disciplinary boundaries, spanning basic science, prevention and treatment, education and social policy. Our research is globally and nationally recognized as having the highest impact. We excel in our scientific, educational and outreach missions with your invaluable support.

Leaf Van Boven, Chair, Department of Psychology and Neuroscience

Student Support

 

25

Fellowships Awarded

 

17

Scholarships Awarded

 

Receiving these undergraduate scholarship awards from the psychology department has allowed me to successfully continue my education as a double major in psychology and sociology by helping me financially and providing me with the ability to spend more time working on my honor's thesis. Additionally, this support has provided me with the opportunity to focus on my academics and the internship opportunities I’ve had the past two summers working alongside forensic psychologists and for the Boulder district attorney's office. I am grateful for the acknowledgement and support from the department and its extremely meaningful impact on my education at CU Boulder.

Carly Glasson (‘23), David Drutz Scholarship and Imogene Jacobs Award (2022) Bourne/Yaroush Award (2021)

Donor-Supported Improvements

The Learning Hub

When looking to name the brand new undergraduate academic resource center for psychology and neuroscience majors, we were struck by a particular definition of the word, hub—‘the effective center of an activity, region, or network’. True to its name, The Learning Hub provides welcoming spaces for all our majors, with the goal of encouraging them to engage in both formal and informal learning. Students not only interact with learning assistants, teaching assistants and faculty in this center, but also network and foster relationships with one another.

 

I was honored to be selected for the Dosier/Muenzinger Award for my research in translational models of neurobiological and behavioral mechanisms of substance use and co-occurring psychiatric disorders and the neurobiology of aging, with an emphasis on underrepresented groups. The underrepresentation of diverse groups is well-documented in biomedical and psychological research, and we need to combine equity-focused research designs with rigorous scientific approaches in these fields to ensure our work is translatable. I feel proud that our department can engage in these important areas with the support of our donors.

Renée Martin-Willet, Winner of the Dosier/Muenzinger Award for Outstanding Contribution to Translational Research

 

It is an honor to be one of the recipients of the Dosier/Muenzinger Award for Outstanding Contribution to Translational Research. I conduct basic and clinical research on emotions with the goal of translating these findings to real-world contexts across diverse communities to improve diagnosis and treatment of mood disorders for underserved communities of color. This award will support participant compensation for my dissertation research examining emotion processes and psychological health among Latinx young adults at risk for bipolar disorder and related mood disturbance.

Cynthia M. Villanueva, Winner of the Dosier/Muenzinger Award for Outstanding Contribution to Translational Research

Emerging Faculty Research

Thanks to generous donor support, faculty in the Department of Psychology and Neuroscience are able to conduct cutting-edge research like that highlighted below.

Joshua Correll

Joshua Correll joined the faculty in 2012. He studies the way people perceive one another across the divide of social categories like race and gender. His research examines how race can capture our attention and lead us to misidentify the people we meet. As a developer of the Chicago Face Database (www.chicagofaces.org), his work provides critical tools for research on face perception across disciplines like psychology, law, computer science, and communications. His most recent studies use eye-tracking, morphing, and machine learning to explore the way the physical features of a face (e.g., the size and shape of the eyes or nose) promote recognition, and how this process goes awry when viewing members of an outgroup. He is also developing and testing interventions, including training via an iPhone app, to help people perceive and conceive of each other as individuals rather than just as members of a category.

June Gruber

June Gruber joined the faculty in the Department of Psychology and Neuroscience in 2014. Gruber is a leader in clinical psychology and the science of happiness, where she and her students conduct research to understand how our emotions play a role in understanding bipolar and depressive mood disorders and severe mental illness. Discoveries in her lab include understanding the emotional ingredients—using surveys, facial behavior, and brain imaging—that predict optimal happiness and well-being as well as better understanding the features of challenges of emotional difficulties adolescents and adults face in current societal times. Some current projects are exploring how mental health has been impacted by the pandemic and global stressors and expanding diversity and inclusion of clinical psychology research towards understanding mental health disorders among historically under-studied and marginalized communities (e.g., Latinx/e young adults) and studying mood disorders across cultures. Another area of Gruber’s work focuses on studying gender disparities women face in the sciences and elevating the experiences and their role in psychology.

Listen to Gruber on The Ampersand podcast.

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