Caitlin Taras '15 honed her research abilities and gained experience working as part of a team in the laboratories of theWilkens Science Center. Equipped with these skills, counsel from professors and professional preparation from the Career Center, Taras landed a position as a research assistant at Boston Children's Hospital before she began working in pharmaceutical representative sales at MilliporeSigma.

Jon began his college career at a large, public state school in western Massachusetts, but as early as his first semester, it became clear to him that he wanted something different-something closer to his home in Brookline, Mass., and to the city of Boston.

Psychology major Joy Houlder '19 has always "gravitated toward people." She hopes to combine her coursework in counseling and health and minor in studio art to eventually become an art therapist, and to get some hands-on experience as an intern in one of the Fenway's many hospitals and healthcare organizations.

Associate Professor of Psychology and department chair Linda Lin and Jonathan Gold '16 presented their paper,  "Appearance Conversations and Muscle Dysmorphia in College Men," at the annual meeting of the New England Psychological Association on October 10th.  Dr. Lin also presented "Appearance Comparison Patterns and Body Image" with Delaney O'Connor '17 and Courtney Burns '17.

On November 18th, the Psychology Department hosted an alumni panel featuring Emma Rosenbaum '13 (grad student, Tufts University), Liza Baxter '14 (research assistant, Outcome Referrals), Naldie Hendrick '15 (health coach, New England Quality Care Alliance), Christine Marano '15 (grad student, University of New Haven), and Sara Margolis (grad student, Worcester State University).

On November 19, 2015, Assistant Professor of Psychology Xiaowei Zhao gave an oral presentation on "Building bilingual semantic representations based on the Contextual Self-Organizing Map" at the 56th Annual meeting of the Society for Computers in Psychology (SCiP 2015). He was also elected as the President-Elect of the society for the 2016-2017 term.

Assistant Professor of Psychology Clare Mehta was selected to be the newsletter co-editor for the American Psychological Association's Society for the Psychology of Women: Division 35. Mehta also serves as the co-chair for the Early Career Caucus for the Association for Women in Psychology.

Five psychology students presented their Senior Distinction in the Field projects in April 2016. Candidates for Distinction include: Meaghan Brown, Meghan Farley, Joshua Head, Meghann Soby and Carissa Tuozzo.

Professor of Psychology Joyce Benenson's study on "Cross-Cultural Sex Differences in Post-Conflict Affiliation following Sports Matches," (Current Biology, August 2016) was featured in The Economist and on the BBC. The study used sporting matches to test the hypothesis that within a large community, following a conflict, males are predisposed to be more ready than females to repair their relationship via friendly contact.