May 6, 2019
Several students from both the Queens and Staten Island campuses presented research at the 2019 Eastern Psychological Association (EPA) Annual Meeting, which took place from February 28 – March 2, 2019 at the Times Square Marriott Marquis Hotel in New York. At the meeting, the students’ accomplishments, as well as the commitment by faculty and the University to student research were evident.
Senior Speech-Language Pathology and Audiology major Ashley D’Agosto won a second Psi Chi award for her research on college professors’ views of students who use “uptalk.” Uptalk is a speaking style in which declarative sentences are uttered with rising intonation at the end, as if they were questions. Ashley was one of 21 students to win this competitive award out of over 250 submissions, and she presented her research at the conference.
“It was such an honor to be awarded for my voice research with Dr. Miguel Roig for the second year in a row,” said Ashely. “It's actually unbelievable! All our hard work paid off. Presenting at the 2019 EPA conference was such a great experience. I was able to meet people from all around the East Coast, who specialize in various psychological subfields. My favorite part was the award ceremony, during which each award recipient presented a quick version of their research. I was surrounded by the best student researchers on the East Coast.”
Also among Staten Island students, senior Psychology major Kira Marshall presented twice at the conference: on “Relationships of PTSD with Suicidal Ideation, Emotionality in a College Sample” with Associate Professor Philip Drucker, Ph.D., and on “The Role of Topic Knowledge in Students' Ability To Paraphrase,” with Professor Miguel Roig, Ph.D. Senior Psychology major Larissa Oglesby presented on “Relationships of Adverse Childhood Experiences and Health-Risk Behaviors in Female College Students” with Dr. Drucker.
“The EPA conference was a great opportunity for real-world experience in presenting research,” said Kira. “I was able to gain a firsthand understanding of the novel and important topics in psychology at the undergraduate level.”
At the meeting, Associate Professor of Psychology and Associate Dean for Staten Island Carolyn Greco-Vigorito, Ph.D., was inducted as an EPA fellow.
Said Dr. Roig: “Students from St. John’s have been presenting at EPA for many years. Faculty and students from Staten Island have been attending the conference continuously since 1990. However, this may have been the year with the largest number of student presentations or student and faculty presentations. It was a real pleasure watching some of our best and brightest interacting with other conference delegates. It was also an honor to have one of our own, Dr. Carolyn Vigorito, awarded fellow status in recognition of the many contributions she has made to EPA over the years.”
Other EPA 2019 presenters from St. John’s included:
“Discrimination, Negative Relational Schemas, and Depression,” Daniel Dicarlo, Samantha Ippolito, Emilia Mikrut, Nicolette Perez, Samantha Seidman, and Dr. Brondolo
“Effects of Strength and Appearance-Based Advertisements on Attitudes toward Fitness Facility Quality,” Maria Zummo with Grace Anderson, Jane Burke, Emily Kerwin, Andrea Murcurio, and Rachel Woolf (Boston University), and Jane Melampy (Columbia University)
“Executive Function And Daily Emotional Reactivity,” Joni Brown, Lindsey Giunta, Julie Kittleman, Isabelle Oliva, Ali Perez, Melanie Popovits, Cameron Sacchet, Alexandra Spinelli, Ruby Wheaton, and Professor Elizabeth Brondolo, Ph.D.
“Language of Experience on Emotional Content and Specificity in Bilingual Autobiographical Narratives,” Yosef Amrami, Marko Lamela, and Professor Rafael Art. Javier, Ph.D., with Wilma Bucci and Bernard Maskit (New York Psychoanalytic Society And Institute)
“Longitudinal Analyses of the Effects Of Discrimination on Racial Centrality and Identity,” Jordan Hill-Rucker, Ammie Jurado, Seresa Matias, Maxine Marchidan, Isaiah Ojeda, and Dr. Brondolo
“Moral Self-Judgment Is Immune to the Ease-Of-Recall Bias, But Vulnerable to Conformity,” Alexandra Allam with Mahsa Ershadi (Boston College)
“Neighborhood Domestic Violence and Relational Schemas,” Samantha Ippolito, Emilia Mikrut, Samantha Seidman, Nicholas Stabile, Solomon Suh, Michelle Surajbali, and Dr. Brondolo
“Predictors and Mediators of Eating Disorder Symptoms,” Alexandra Allam and Associate Professor Wilson McDermut, Ph.D.
“Psychotherapy Outcomes in Children with Trauma Exposure Depend on Symptoms and Informant,” Danielle Miller and Linh L. P. Nguyen
“Racial Discrimination and Binge Drinking in a Multiethnic Community Sample,” Maxine Marchidan, Andrew Miele, Oscar Ruales, and Natalie Schettini
“Racial Discrimination and Unhealthy Food Consumption in a Community Sample,” Jeremiah Jones, Alyssa Oliva, Rebekha Simons, Rebecca Steele, and Dr. Brondolo
“Responses to Personality and Affect Measures across Six Languages: A Bilingual Study,” Linh L. P. Nguyen and Professor and Chair William Chaplin, Ph.D.
“Students’ Attribution of Responsibility for Combating Climate Change and Its Relationship to Frequency of Sustainable Behaviors Performed,” Kayla Jones and Zuzanna Osiecka with Mindy Engle-Friedman, Kristina A. Horne, and Kiranpreet Sawhney (Baruch College - City University Of New York), and Minkyung Lee (Dartmouth College)
“The Effects of Ethnic/Racial Centrality on Relational Schemas,” Christopher Huynh, Joy-Anne Persaud, Taylor Reid, Matthew Roland, and Dantong Xu ‘19G
“The Struggle is Real: Using Incorrect Examples to Support Science Text Comprehension,” Nahal Heydari and Alison Jaeger