Chair’s Letter
Fall 2022
Dear Alumni and Friends of UF Psychology,
As I take a brief inventory of the past several months, it’s been an exciting 2022-2023 year thus far. We welcomed three new faculty members: Shanting Chen (Developmental), Corina Jimenez-Gomez (Behavior Analysis), and Chris Podlesnik (Behavior Analysis). Effective at the start of the Fall 2022 semester, Colin Smith was promoted to Associate Professor and Nicole Dorey was promoted to Instructional Professor (Full).
Our department continues to be a powerhouse in undergraduate education with over 2000 majors in the BS and online BA programs and our graduate program continues to thrive. With the generous support of donors, we have provided travel awards for 49 graduate students so far this year! This supports our trainees in important opportunities to disseminate their research and engage in a range of professional development activities. Our faculty continue to lead in research in Psychological Science with several newly funded projects; their work continues to be recognized in their field with national awards for excellence in research as well as mentoring. Our newsletter provides a few highlights of these achievements.
Perhaps the most exciting aspect to these accomplishments is the synergy. Our undergraduate students continue to engage in a range of experiential learning opportunities: immersed in labs working closely with their peers, graduate students, and faculty mentors; mentoring their peers as teaching assistants; and working onsite at community agencies. These experiential opportunities are particularly important for the career and skill development of our undergraduate majors, and we are thrilled to see several hundred students engaging with these opportunities every semester!
I would also call attention to our Alumni Spotlight. Dr. Puente serves as the Chair of our Psychology Advisory Board. This group has been instrumental in building engagement with our Alumni and new mentoring opportunities for our students. His leadership and expertise as a former President of the American Psychological Association have been invaluable to our program.
Moreover, our accomplishments would not be possible without the support of our Alumni and Friends. Thank you for your support as we build the future of Psychological Science and continue our 90-year legacy of excellence!
With gratitude,
Julia Graber
Professor & Chair