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What’s Next for Graduate Training in Psychology in Canada? The November 2019 special issue of Canadian Psychology/Psychologie canadienne focuses on how academia, research, and graduate training have changed in the 21st century and the adaptations these changes require. Editor Vina Goghari takes a closer look at the issue’s significance and presents a few key takeaways. https://www.apa.org/pubs/highlights/spotlight/issue-163 |
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Professor Vina Goghari named Editor of Canadian Psychology Professor Goghari was recently named editor of Canadian Psychology (CP). Prof. Goghari will serve as Editor from 2019-2022. Link to Editor Spotlight on the American Psychological Association website: https://www.apa.org/pubs/highlights/editor-spotlight/cap-goghari |
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Professor Anthony Ruocco Receives 2019 NASSPD Mid-Career Investigator Award Professor Ruocco is the recipient of the 2019 Mid-Career Investigator Award from the North American Society for the Study of Personality Disorders (NASSPD). The award was established to “recognize an individual whose work has influenced the field through his or her overall professional and scientific productivity, and through contributions that have increased our understanding of personality and personality disorders or their treatment.” The award will be presented at the society’s conference in Pittsburgh, PA, on April 11-13, 2019. |
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Prof. Vina Goghari to give talk at Association for Psychological Science Convention Professor Vina Goghari will be presenting at the Association for Psychological Science Convention in San Francisco, May 24-27, 2018. In her talk, titled "Brain Abnormalities in Schizophrenia: A Neuroimaging Family Study", Dr. Goghari will discuss a program of research that examines brain abnormalities in individuals with schizophrenia, their relatives, and controls. Research from three different imaging domains: morphology, structural connectivity, and functional connectivity – has yielded complementary evidence for disease-specific, genetic risk and compensatory brain mechanisms associated with schizophrenia.
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Prof. Zindel Segal receives 2017 President's Impact Award The University of Toronto’s new President’s Impact Awards are designed to acknowledge and honour the achievements of researchers whose work has had significant impact beyond academia or a specific field of research. Winners will be members of the university’s newly created President’s Impact Academy, which will advise the university community, particularly to help develop programs and research collaborations and partnerships. Zindel Segal is Distinguished Professor of Psychology in Mood Disorders and a Senior Scientist in the Campbell Family Mental Health Research Institute at the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health. He is the recipient of several awards, including the Douglas Utting Research Prize and the Mood Disorder Association of Ontario’s Hope Award. Professor Segal is the creator and developer of Mindfulness Based Cognitive Therapy (MBCT), a novel treatment that prevents relapse in clinical depression. His work is already having an important impact on the treatment of mental health in North American and the U.K., and will soon be extended globally through the training of mindfulness-based therapists and the launch of online MBCT treatment programs. Professor Zindel’s relatively low-cost therapeutic technique has been shown to be as effective as antidepressant medication for preventing relapse of depression, without the serious side effects. MBCT can be delivered in person or online by trained therapists, reducing burdens on national health care systems in multiple ways, and the treatment is couched in the language of mindfulness and resilience which has been found to be significantly less stigmatizing than the languages of psychotherapy or psychopathology, promoting uptake in treatment. Globally, national health systems have adopted MBCT because it is both effective, and with its group structure, often significantly cheaper than the alternatives. MBCT is recommended in a number of national (USA, Canadian, UK) Depression Treatment Guidelines as a first line intervention for preventing depression relapse. Prof. Zindel’s work has reached the general public in impressive numbers. His 10 books, including The Mindful Way Through Depression and Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy, have sold over 350,000 copies worldwide and have been translated into 15 languages. |
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Dr. Ruocco receives AFSP's 2017 Young Investigator Research Award! The American Foundation for Suicide Prevention has selected Dr. Anthony Rucco to receive the annual Young Investigator Research Award for 2017 based on his AFSP-funded study, "Neurocognitive Predictors of Treatment Response to Dialectical Behavior Therapy for Suicidal and Non-Suicidal Self-Injury in Borderline Personality Disorder." He will be presenting his study results and related research at the 2017 American Association of Suicidology conference in Phoenix, AR on April 26- 29, 2017 (http://www.suicidology.org/annual-conference/50th-annual-conference). |
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Congratulations to the 2016 UTSC Research Award Recipients! Research Recognition Award - Professor Anthony Ruocco |
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Michael Inzlicht awarded 2015 Daniel M. Wegner Theoretical Innovation Prized Nomination Panel The 2015 Daniel M. Wegner Theoretical Innovation Prize Nomination Panel is awarded to Michael Inzlicht, Brandon Schmeichel, and Neal Macrae for their 2014 Trends in Cognitive Sciences article entitled “Why self-control seems (but may not be) limited.” To truly understand human behavior, one must first understand the processes through which people guide themselves toward desirable ends, and away from undesirable ones. This process of self-regulation is a linchpin that ties together a vast range of motivated social actions from altruism to the suppression of stereotypes. Inzlicht, Schmeichel, and Macrae (2014) provide an incisive step toward understanding the basic mechanisms underlying self-control and, in so doing so, substantially advance the literature on self-regulation. They propose that apparent failures of self-control reflect the motivated switching of task priorities as people strive to strike an optimal balance between using cognitive energy to pursuing “have-to” goals versus preferring cognitive leisure in the pursuit of “want-to” goals. This perspective is consistent with both functional evolutionary considerations, as well as with proximate observations of self-control success and failure as the product of dynamically shifting motivational priorities. Their work offers a multi-level process model that changes the way researchers think about the very nature of self-regulation. Inzlicht, M., Schmeichel, B., & Macrae, C. N. (2014). Why self-control seems (but may not be) limited. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 18, 127-133. |
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Konstantine Zakzanis wins CelebrateU Ambassador Award The 2015 "CelebrateU" Faculty Award was given to Dr. Konstantine Zakzanis in recognition of his contributions to the UTSC Arts & Science Co-op Program. This award is given to a faculty member for providing advice and guidance to students, fostering growth, advocating for, and representing co-op within the community. |
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Congratulations to the Principal's Awards Winner! Prof. SiSi Tran - Faculty Teaching Award |
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Marc Fournier wins "Professor of the Year" award Professor Marc Fournier, along with two other UTSC faculty members have been named Professor of the Year 2014-15 by the student run publication, The Underground. |
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Dr. Ruocco Receives Early Researcher Award from the Ministry of Research and Innovation Dr. Ruocco has been awarded a 2015 Early Researcher Award to support his research on neural systems dysfunctions underlying impulse control in borderline personality disorder. Funded by the Province of Ontario's Ministry of Research and Innovation, the purpose of the Early Researcher Award program is to help promising, recently-appointed Ontario researchers build their research teams of graduate students, post-doctoral fellows and research associates. |
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Psychology UTSC Professor and Undergraduate Student named 3M National Fellows! Professor Steve Joordens received the 3M National Teaching Fellowship for his innovative approaches to teaching and learning. |
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Dr. Jessica Dere spoke at the TEDxUTSC 2015 conference, presenting a talk titled "The challenges and rewards of a culturally-informed approach to mental health". Drawing on her recent reflections about how best to teach at the intersection of cultural and clinical psychology, Dr. Dere shared some central ideas that underlie her own approach to culture and mental health. After establishing that "culture matters", she encouraged her audience to take a stance of informed curiosity, and to work on asking different questions about mental health. |
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Dean Carcone, Master's Student in Clinical Psychology, Is Awarded The Prestigious Mackenzie King Open Scholarship Each year, one graduate of a Canadian university is awarded the Mackenzie King Open Scholarship to pursue graduate studies at any school in the country. Institutions nominate a small number of applicants to be considered nationally, based on their academic achievements, personal qualities, and demonstrated aptitudes. This year, Dean Carcone was selected to receive this prestigious scholarship as he begins his graduate studies in Clinical Psychology at the University of Toronto Scarborough, under the joint supervision of Dr. Anthony C. Ruocco and Dr. Andy Lee. Dean’s research will investigate the neural systems dysfunctions underlying cognitive deficits in patients with borderline personality disorder. |
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Esref Armagan, a blind painter who was involved in Prof. John Kennedy's study of human perception, was named one of 2014's Famous and Accomplished People with Blindness and Visual Impairment by International Business Times. Prof. Kennedy's Discovery Channel video with Esref Armagan is available here. |
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Prof. Zindel Segal receives NIMH grant Prof. Segal was awarded a four year grant of $1,835,463USD to collaborate with Kaiser Permanente CO and the University of Colorado, Boulder to conduct a randomized trial to evaluate an online mindfulness based program for reducing residual depressive symptoms in patients who have responded to treatment but still have lingering symptoms. |
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Congratulations to Cho Kin 'Tim' Cheng winner of the City of Toronto International Student Excellence - Entrepreneurship Award 2014 The award is designed to recognize the significant contributions that international students make to Toronto's economic and socio-cultural development. Categories include entrepreneurship, community service, academic excellence, sports, arts and culture and professional achievement. |
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Dr. Ruocco Receives 2014 NARSAD Young Investigator Grant Dr. Ruocco is the recipient of a 2014 NARSAD Young Investigator Grant from the Brain & Behavior Research Foundation in the United States, the largest non-government, donor-supported organization that distributes funds for psychiatric brain research. The purpose of this grants program is to facilitate innovative research opportunities for new investigators relevant to the understanding, treatment and prevention of serious psychiatric disorders. Dr. Ruocco's grant supported research will evaluate the effectiveness of a new brain stimulation technique called magnetic seizure therapy to treat suicidal thinking and behaviours in patients with borderline personality disorder, and to understand the potential effects of this treatment on neural systems responsible for emotion regulation and impulse control using functional magnetic resonance imaging. |
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Nadia Al-Dajani wins the 2014 Graduate Student Research Award. Nadia, a UTSC Clinical Psychology Graduate student, won the 2014 Graduate Student Research Award - Masters Level. Nadia's research interests include elucidating the role of identity in mental health and investigating disturbances in identity formation, particulary in the context of borderline personality disorder. Congratulation Nadia! |
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Celebrating Service - Psychology faculty recognized for their contributions to UTSC Congratulations to Prof. Steve Joordens who received Special Commendation for Educational Innovation! His contributions to the curriculum and his broad range of teaching and learning initiatives were recognized as significant and far-reaching. Prof. Joordens has revised and revamped the Psychology department's Introductory Psychology course, integrating new and innovative teaching strategies and technologies. He has brought new teaching innovations to his courses thorough three technologies designed to enhance and enrich the learning experience. Professors Mark Schmuckler and Ronald Smyth were honoured for their 25 years of service to UTSC. |
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UTSC Clinical Psychology Graduate Student Wins Ontario Women’s Health Scholars Award Tara Gralnick, Master’s student in Clinical Psychology at UTSC, was recently awarded the highly competitive Women’s Health Scholars Award from the Ontario Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care. The Scholar Awards Program in Women's Health was established to attract and retain pre-eminent women's health scholars in Ontario. The aim of this awards program is to excel, according to internationally accepted standards of scientific excellence, in the creation of new knowledge about women's health and its translation into improved health for women, more effective health services and products for women, and a strengthened heath care system. Under the supervision of Dr. R. Michael Bagby, Professor of Psychology at UTSC, Tara’s research will examine the role of rumination in the treatment and recurrence of depression in women undergoing cognitive-behavioural therapy or receiving antidepressant medication. This research has potential to guide clinicians in selecting a treatment type with the highest chance of immediate and long-term success in women suffering with depression. |
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Zindel Segal's TEDxUTSC talk The Mindful Way Through Depression is available online. |
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Michael Inzlicht's paper “What is ego depletion? A mechanistic revision of the resource model of self-control” wins the 2012 ISCON Best Social Cognition Paper Award. “What is ego depletion? A mechanistic revision of the resource model of self-control,” co-authored with Brandon Schmeichel and published in Perspectives on Psychological Science is the winner of the 2012 ISCON Best Social Cognition Paper Award. The award committee unanimously chose this paper from among many excellent submissions.
"We all felt that your research offers a decisive theoretical advance for our understanding of how self control operates. In particular, your article offers an original process-based account of ego-deletion phenomena and makes new predictions about the conditions under which self-control is likely to be successful and when it may fail. As such your paper exemplifies in an outstanding fashion the value of the social cognition approach for psychological research."
Inzlicht will present the research reported in the paper at the upcoming Social Cognition pre-conference during the next SPSP meeting (February 13, 2014 in Austin, TX). |
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Anthony Ruocco receives New Investigator Salary Award from CIHR! The objective of the New Investigator Salary Award program is to provide outstanding new investigators with the opportunity to develop and demonstrate their independence in initiating and conducting health research by providing $60,000 in salary support per year for five years. This award supports Dr. Ruocco's ongoing research program to isolate neurocognitive intermediate phenotypes in borderline personality disorder, and to use these biological markers to inform which interventions might be most beneficial for this disorder. |
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Congratulations to our 2013 Principal's Award Winners! It’s with great pleasure to announce that many of the winners of the 2013 UTSC Principal’s Awards are Psychology department members. Our Department is exceptionally well represented this year, which speaks to the high quality work that’s being done in our Department overall, and more specifically, to the excellence of our colleagues and students. And the winners are… Principal’s Research Award: Professor Mike Bagby |
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Michael Inzlicht elected to Fellow Status in the APS! In recognition of his sustained outstanding contributions to the advancement of psychological science, Michael Inzlicht has been selected for Fellow status in the Association for Psychological Science (APS) by its Board of Directors. As a Fellow of APS, he is in the company of the most prominent scientists in the discipline. Congratulations Mickey! |
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Congratulations to our 2013 Gordon Cressy Student Leadership Award Winners Sanat Sethi – Neuroscience and International Development Studies |
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Inventors of the Year Steve Joordens and Dwayne Pare are recognized for their work on the web-based assessment tool, peerScholar at the University of Toronto’s 2013 Inventors of the Year ceremony. Read more about their creation and those of the other winners in the U of T News: |
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Professor Page-Gould named Rising Star of Research by APS! The Association for Psychological Science recongizes the influence Professor Liz Page-Gould has had on the field of psychology at such an early point in her research career. Visit the April 2013 issue of the Observer to learn more about Professor Page-Gould's research interests along with those of her cohort of Rising Stars. |
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Steve Joordens wins "Professor of the Year" award Professor Steve Joordens, along with three other UTSC faculty members have been named Professor of the Year 2012-13 by the student run publication, The Underground. |
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In loving memory of John N. Bassili It is with great sadness that we let you know that Professor John Bassili, our |
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Announcing the new Graduate Department of Psychological Clinical Science! The University of Toronto Scarborough is pleased to announce that it is now offering an MA/PhD in clinical psychology. The new Graduate Department of Psychological Clinical Science will soon be accepting applications to this program from students wishing to enter at the MA level in the Fall of 2013. Visit the website for more information: |
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UTSC Psychology to join Coursera Steve Joordens has successfully secured a Gates Foundation grant which will help bring the study of psychology to thousands of people around the world via Coursera. Read more. |
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Recognizing research excellence Post-doctoral Fellow, Lisa-Marie Collimore, received a Mitacs award for her research on Cogneeto, the online educational tool and brainchild of UTSC professor Steve Joordens and graduate student Dwayne Pare. Mitacs is a Canadian research network that aims to bridge partnerships between companies, government and academia. Lisa's work is currently featured on the UTSC homepage and the Mitacs website. The department is also pleased to recognize PhD student, Marta Wnuckzo, who is the first UofT graduate student selected for the 2012 American Psychological Association Dissertation Research Award. This award program assists doctoral students with funding and promotes research excellence in psychological science. |
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Teaching Awards in the Department of Psychology Congratulations to Steve Joordens for winning the 2011-12 OCUFA Teaching Awardwhich recognizes exceptional contributions to the quality of higher education in Ontario. Read more. |
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Neuroscience and Psychology Student Wins CIHR Synapse Award Merujah Sivalingam, 4th year student and volunteer with Let's Talk Science, was recognized for her creativity and hard work in the development of the Neuron Board Game. This "Cranium" inspired board game teaches students about the nervous system by taking them on a progressive journey through the dendrites to the receptor sites of a neuronal cell! Congratulations Merujah! |
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New Course, WikiScholar, featured in The Star Originally conceived by John Bassili, WikiScholar is a new course that promotes learning by doing. Rather than being lectured to, students choose topics from within Psychology, research them, then produce Wikipedia articles describing what they have learned to the world. Some of their articles were read over 10,000 times within weeks of them going live! Read more. |
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Welcome Interim Psychology Chair, Professor George Cree! Please join us in welcoming George Cree to the role of Interim Chair of the Department of Psychology! George will serve a one-year term, from July 1, 2012 to June 30, 2013. A respected colleague, researcher and instructor, George has served the Department extremely well since joining UTSC in 2003. He has a strong record of service in his role as Associate Chair and we look forward to his leadership as Chair over the coming year. |
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UTSC Teaching Awards Janelle LeBoutillier has been honoured with the 2012 UTSC Faculty Teaching Award to recognize her excellence in teaching. Janelle is a Departmental treasure and an extraordinary resource in the University’s quest for teaching excellence. There is no greater testament to the quality of Janelle’s contribution to the student experience at the University of Toronto Scarborough than all the grateful embraces she receives at Convocation from her students. Over the years, she has mentored many students, published many high quality papers, and provided substantial administrative service to the department, the university and the community. The Department is also proud to announce that Sarah Johnson, graduate student with Suzanne Erb has won the 2012 UTSC Teaching Assistant Award. Since joining the Department in 2007, Sarah has been an effective Teaching Assistant in demanding neuroscience courses such as Neuroanatomy Laboratory, Drugs and the Brain, and Advanced Neuroanatomy Laboratory. She is continuously praised by instructors, colleagues and students for being very approachable, available, organized and innovative. It is clear that Sarah takes a genuine interest in her students and cares about the quality of her instruction. Janelle and Sarah are highly deserving of their awards, and we would like to both congratulate and thank them for their contributions to the Department. They will be honoured in front of colleagues and students at the annual Celebration of Distinguished Services on June 26th. |
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Congratulations Timour Al-Khindi Tim Al-Khindi won the 2011 Governor General's Silver Medal for science, earning the highest marks among all science students graduating from U of T in 2011. Tim has also won the Gordon Cressy Student Leadership Award, which recognizes graduating students for outstanding contributions to improving the world around them and inspiring others to do the same. A student in the neuroscience specialist co-op program and a major in psychology, Al-Khindi is well known to many professors in the Department, having worked on research under their supervision and having assisted the Department at recruitment and student academic events. Tim will be attending Johns Hopkins University for their combined MD/PhD program. |
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The Office of the Dean Presents a Special Evening with Noam Chomsky Noam Chomsky, one of America’s leading scholars, intellectuals, lecturer, and activist will be presenting a lecture titled "Academic Freedom and the Corporatization of Universities" on Wednesday, April 6, 2011, 6:30 pm – 8:00 pm, Arts and Administration Building, AA112, University of Toronto Scarborough, 1265 Military Trail, Toronto. For more details visit www.utsc.utoronto.ca/~vpdean |
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Laura-Ann Petitto's research given broad coverage in Toronto Star The Toronto Star, which is publishing a series on the brain, provided extensive coverage of Laura-Ann Petitto's research in its Saturday July 17, 2010 edition. You can read the article here. |
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Social Psychology students selected for Rising Stars of Research Conference Jennifer Khoury and Tim Al-Khindi, two senior undergraduate students who worked, respectively, under the supervision of Liz Page-Gould and of Mickey Inzlicht, have been selected for participation in the Rising Stars of Research Conference. They will present a poster at the conference, which is held at UBC, and will contend for a first-prize award in one of the seven theme areas (Psychology being under Social Sciences). http://www.risingstars.ubc.ca |
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Steve Joordens Receives President's Teaching Award Steve Joordens is one of five winners of this year's President's Teaching Award. The President's Teaching Award, which is the highest teaching honour awarded by the University, recognizes sustained excellence in teaching, research on teaching, and the integration of teaching and research.provost.utoronto.ca/Awards/presidentaward.htm |
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Gerry Cupchik Honoured with Rudolf Arnheim Award Gerry Cupchik has received the Rudolf Arnheim Award from Division 10 (Psychology and the Arts) for distinguished research over the years (apa.org/divisions/div10/awards.html). To mark the award, Gerry has been invited to deliver an address at APA next August in San Diego. |
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Mickey Inzlicht wins Ontario Government's Early Researcher Award Mickey Inzlicht will receive $140,000 to further his research in social neuroscience, stigma and self-control. The funds will help him take his fascinating research in new and exciting directions. |
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Dr. Laura-Ann Petitto's pioneering fNIRS work featured in JoVE The Petitto Brain Imaging Team describes in detail for the first time its new |
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John Kennedy named University Professor John Kennedy has been named University Professor. This is a prestigious honour that the University bestows on its most distinguished faculty in recognition of their exceptional scholarly achievement and pre-eminence in a particular field of knowledge. |
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Steve Joordens, Dwayne Paré and Ada Le honoured Steve Joordens punctuated his promotion to Full Professor by winning, in collaboration with Dwayne Paré, a National Technology Innovation Award for the creation of peerScholar. This web-based program, now published by Pearson, allows students in large courses to engage in writing and critical analysis in the context of peer evaluation exercises. Ada Le, an undergraduate student who has contributed to the creation of the Psychology and Neuroscience Departmental Association (PNDA) and to coordinating the webOption team in recent years, has been named UTAA Scholar. |