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Graduate Student Update

Our graduate students continue to be the heartbeat of our department. We are incredibly proud of the hard work they put in to achieve their many successes! 

Welcome to Kent!

This fall, we warmly welcome our newest graduate student cohort. Dedication and hard work have brought them to us — we are so happy to have them join our Department for the next steps of their scholarly training! 

Congratulations to our incoming graduate students on starting their academic journey toward a PhD with us at ��������.
 

Graduate Excellence 

We also want to acknowledge the several graduate students in our Department who were awarded University, College, and Departmental Awards during AY 25-26 for their excellence across various domains. These include:

Brittany Baugher (Coifman Lab), was awarded the Jeanette and Louis Reuter Fellowship in Developmental Sciences. This award is given each year to one outstanding doctoral student who is contributing to the area of human development across the lifespan. This award will allow Brittany to work full time on her dissertation, which will utilize a developmental framework to investigate how protective childhood experiences influence emotional responses to brief priming interventions.

Ivy Cheng (Taber Lab), was presented with the David B. Smith Scholarship, a monetary award granted to one student each year in recognition of exceptional scholarship and teaching. Ivy’s work focuses primarily on health communication and uncertainty.

Katelyn McClure (Hamrick Lab) was granted the Mary Ann Stephens & John R. Graham Award for Excellence in Graduate Research and Scholarship, a monetary award based on the merit of the applicant's contribution to research and scholarship. Katelyn’s research investigates the linguistic processes of accented speech (both native and non-native) and how that interacts with daily activities, such as learning.

In addition, the Psychological Sciences 2026 Graduate Student Best Paper Awards were given to Ivy Cheng (Taber Lab) for her paper “The impact of hypothetical lottery structures on vaccine-hesitant adults’ flu vaccination intentions: A conceptual replication of Taber et al. (2023)” and to Megan Korhummel (Coifman Lab), for her paper “What drives psychological well-being in early-stage multiple sclerosis” and to several students who were also recipients of the Judie Fall Lasser Award during the 2025-2026 academic year. These research grants support mentored research and are awarded based on the merit of the students’ formal proposals. Being presented with this award is a testament to the student’s hard work, dedication, and innovative ideas. Awardees during the past year were: Arina Bratamidjaja, Brittany Baugher, Emily Connard, Hannah Duttweiler, Emily Forth, and Maddie Rosenthal. 

These awards are made possible through generous donations to the Department of Psychological Sciences from Alumni, Retired Faculty, and Friends. We are so grateful for your ongoing support!
 

Onward and Upward

We are happy to announce several of our students graduated this past year:

Master’s Degree Graduates:

Fall 2025:  Anna Crites, MA & Alyssa McGill, MA

Spring 2026:  Megan DuBois, MA; Hannah Duttweiler, MA; Kylie Gannon, MA; Kaetlyn Gottschalk, MA; Sharon Jaramillo, MA; Megan Korhummel, MA; Eleanor Rundus, MA; Elise Weber, MA; Samantha Zaborowski, MA

Summer 2026: Megan Smith (MA)

Doctoral Degree Graduates:

Fall 2025: Heather Neifert (PhD); Sydney Biscarri Clark, PhD; Alyssa McGill, PhD; Ashley Lahoud Wolfe, PhD

Spring 2026: Jackson Jin, PhD

Summer 2026: Christina Korth. PhD; Lindsay Kutash, PhD; Benjamin Mitchell, PhD; Theresa Peters, PhD; Karen Wetzel PhD
 

Congratulations to all our graduates -- please stay in touch and send us updates. We wish you the best in your continued pursuits as you contribute to the science and practice of psychology!