The Academic Minute for 2018.11.12-11.16

Academic Minute from 11.12 – 11.16

Monday, November 12th
Kirsten Read – Santa Clara University
Effect of Rhyming Books on Children’s Vocabularies
Dr. Kirsten Read is an Assitant Professor of Psychology at Santa Clara University, specializing in cognitive psychology, research methods, and child development. She earned a doctorate in Psychology and a PhD Minor in Lingusitcs from Stanford University. Her research emphasis is early language development, looking closely at the processes through which preschool aged children develop their linguistic skills through natural everyday play and interaction with adults. Her most recent papers have uncovered some of the underlying reasons that shared book reading and the use of rhyme in children’s books can have such positive effects on vocabulary growth, preparing preschoolers for a strong start in school.

Tuesday, November 13th
Kesley Lucca – University of Washington
Infant’s Persistence
Kelsey Lucca is a postdoctoral researcher in the department of Psychology at the University of Washington in Jessica Sommerville’s Early Childhood Cognition Lab. Dr. Lucca received her PhD in Psychology from Duke University in 2017. She studies the active role that infants and young children play in their cognitive and social development, with a focus on how curiosity, or the drive to seek out information, shapes early learning experiences across domains (e.g., language acquisition).

Wednesday, November 14th
Tim Clydesdale – The College of New Jersey
Purposeful Learning
I was born and reared in Philadelphia (PA), received my B.A. (1986) from Wheaton College (IL), and my M.A. (1991) & Ph.D. (1994) from Princeton University.  From 1994-1996, I was assistant professor of sociology at Gordon College (MA), and since 1996, I have been a sociology professor at The College of New Jersey (Ewing, NJ).

Thursday, November 15th
Kate Sims – Amherst College
Land Conservation
Katharine Sims is an Associate Professor of Economics and Environmental Studies at Amherst College. Her research examines how land conservation policies simultaneously affect economic and environmental outcomes and how choices of management type, targeting, or enforcement can best balance conservation and development. She holds a Ph.D. in Political Economy and Government from Harvard University and a B.A. in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology from Princeton University. She has studied policies such as protected areas, payments for ecosystem services and community forests in countries including Thailand, Mexico, Nepal, and the U.S. She is a 2016-2018 Andrew Carnegie Fellow.

Friday, November 16th
Erin O’Mara – University of Dayton
Bragging and Modesty on Social Media
Dr. Erin O’Mara is an associate professor and the director of the Graduate Program in General Psychology. Dr. O’Mara’s program of research broadly focuses on self processes and social perception. She utilizes experimental and longitudinal designs to examine questions related to (a) the association between the motivation for a positive sense of self and individual/interpersonal functioning, and (b) how perceptions of the self and others vary as a function of hormonal changes associated with stress and fertility.