BECA (Building Equity in the Community of Academics) Fellowship
Cassandra Blew. Cassandra Blew was recommended by multiple faculty for the BECA Fellowship. Cassandra’s thesis examined an important marker for age-related disease, Neurofilament Light, in relation to cognitive task performance in healthy older adults. Through her written thesis and oral defense, Cassandra demonstrated a keen understanding of the relevant theoretical and empirical literature and her committee was unanimously impressed with her sophisticated command of the important issues she investigated, as well as other theoretical and clinical implications involved in this area. Cassandra has received several highly competitive national scholarships and completed intensive summer research internships via the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus’s BRAiN program and NIH’s Medical Scientist Training Program. Cassandra’s nominators underscore her impressive track record and promise as a future physician-scientist in the area of cognitive decline and neurodegeneration. Congratulations, Cassie!
Imogene Jacobs Psychology Thesis Award
Tanja Gens
Honors Thesis: Longitudinal Relationships between Cannabis and Sleep Quality
Thesis Advisor: Angela Bryan
Tanja’s honors thesis explored the association between cannabis use and sleep quality in the context of a longitudinal design. She utilized data from a larger ongoing trial in which participants used specific cannabis flower products selected for THC and CBD ratios. Tanja’s interests lie in the health effects of sleep and as part of the measures assessed in the larger project participants are asked about their subjective sleep quality. Tanja did a thorough literature review to learn about the extent to which individuals with sleep problems say they use cannabis and about the potential effects of exogenous cannabinoids on aspects of sleep quality. She generated hypotheses based on those data and then set about testing them. Her analyses included the interpretation interaction effects in a mixed effects analysis of variance model, and she showed an impressive level of skill in interpreting these effects. Tanja’s written thesis was outstanding; on par with the quality of writing one would expect of a doctoral student. Tanja gave an excellent presentation of her thesis that was polished and professional, and she was completely at ease and extremely knowledgeable when answering questions from the committee. Though her findings regarding the differential effects of cannabinoid content on sleep quality were equivocal, Tanja’s sophisticated understanding of this research area and the experience she gained in doing her thesis make her poised to make enormous contributions to our understanding of the determinants of the critical health behavior of sleep and sleep quality. Congratulations, Tanja!
Dosier/Muenzinger Award for Outstanding Contribution to Translational Research.
Renée Martin-Willett. Renée Martin-Willett is a third year PhD candidate in Clinical Psychology who conducts research on the role of the endocannabinoid system in the overlap of affective symptoms and substance use. She has a five year National Research Service Award from NIH/NIAAA to study these overlaps with an emphasis on representative and equitable research designs. She also both led and contributed to 15 published peer-reviewed manuscripts, ten of which are first-author, including validation studies, technical manuscripts, and original empirical research. The committee noted Renée’s unique research niche that is grounded at the intersection of clinical translational neuroscience, equitable research design, and community engaged research. Congratulations, Renée!