The University of Texas at El Paso-Psychology Department

UTEP Psychology faculty member, Dr. Laura O'Dell, and her team were recently featured in an article discussing their exciting new research, funded by a grant from the National Institute of Health. This research will explore why women experience more severe symptoms of withdrawal from ni****ne than men.

UTEP Awarded $2.5M NIH Grant to Study Ni****ne Dependence in Women EL PASO, Texas (Aug. 15, 2024) — Researchers at The University of Texas at El Paso will undertake a new study that could lead to improved ni****ne cessation treatments for women. The work is supported by a new $2.5 million grant from the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA), part of the Nationa...

📢 Students: Want to gain research experience and learn about applying to graduate school? Join us this Friday to learn about joining a research lab, Psi Chi, and graduate school - plus, we’ll have free pizza! 🍕🍕🍕

Welcome back Miners! ⛏️ You’re invited to join us for the first presentation of the year for our weekly Psychology colloquium speaker series. This week, Dr. Krystia Reed will share some of her research about psychology and legal decision making.

Paid research opportunity!

Join us in congratulating Nina Beltran on being selected for the Scientist Mentoring & Diversity Program for Biotechnology. The SMDP is a prestigious one year career mentoring program that pairs diverse early career individuals with mentors who work at companies in the pharmaceutical, medical technology, biotechnology and consumer healthcare industries. This is a fantastic opportunity for advanced graduate students who are interested in careers in industry, and will open doors for Nina to network with industry professionals as she wraps up her education at UTEP and prepares for the job market.

📣Attn: Dr. Tschumi is teaching a NEW upper-division seminar course in Fall 2024, “Neurobiology of Social Interaction.” Especially relevant for psych & neuroscience majors interested in how the brain mediates social behavior! Reach out to your academic advisor today to enroll!

Today (Thursday 5/2) at 12pm in the Psychology building, honors thesis students will present their posters. Come learn about their research and find out about what a thesis project entails!
Presentations will include:
“Exploring Associations between Juvenile Justice Involvement and Adolescents’ Future Orientation: Is the Link Exacerbated by Parental Justice Involvement?” by Melissa Hoffman (Dr. April Thomas’ Lab)
“Examining the Associations Between Parental Hostility and Adolescent Anxiety” by Destiny Morales (Dr. April Thomas’ Lab)
“Understanding the Influence of Collectivistic Coping: Exploring its Moderating Role in Intergenerational Conflict and Alcohol Problems among Hispanic Emerging Adults and Adults” by Debora Guerrero (Dr. Craig Field’s Lab)

Congratulations to Dr. Jennifer Eno Louden on receiving the Liberal Arts Community Engagement Award, which will fund her continued work with El Paso County by evaluating booking procedures at the jail.

Join us TODAY, Thursday, 4/25/24 at 12 pm MT for our weekly speaker series! This week will feature two presentations from legal psychology graduate students Kityara James and Chelsea Queen. 

Graduating soon? Not sure if Grad School is the right next step for you? Come to the UTEP Grad School tabling fair this week and learn more! Psychology’s Graduate Program will have representatives at a table on Tuesday and Wednesday where you can learn more about our PhD and MA programs in Psychology. Stop by or email [email protected] for more information about our programs!

UTEP Psi Chi will feature a presentation by Dr. Mitchell Kirwan about factors associated with sexual assault on 4/25.

Join us today, 4/18/24, at 12 pm MT for our weekly colloquium series! This week will feature a Quantitative presentation from Jennifer Castenada and a first-year project presentation from Colin Scholl.

This Friday (4/19), the Department of Latin-US and Linguistics and the Department of Psychology are having the second annual Symposium on Language and Bilingualism. The event is free of charge and features two keynote speakers and a poster session that includes several graduate and undergraduate student presenters from psychology. Please consider checking this out!

📣UTEP Giving Day is on Wednesday, 4/17! Please donate through the linked QR to help support graduate students. Funds will be put into an endowment for graduate student support needs (e.g., fellowships, travel funds, professional development, etc.). Any amount helps make a difference for our amazing graduate students!

The UTEP Psychology faculty joined together last month to celebrate the retirement of one of our esteemed faculty members and former department chair, the Helen M.C. and J. Edward Stern Endowed Professor, Dr. Edward Casteñeda. Dr. Casteñeda was a former UTEP undergraduate and graduate student, earning his MA in General Psychology at UTEP in 1980 before going on to earn his PhD at the University of Michigan in 1987. Dr. Castañeda’s research focused on understanding the neurochemical processes underlying changes in behavior associated with conditions like Parkinson’s disease and substance use disorder.

Congratulations Dr. Castañeda! We wish you the best on your new adventure and hope you enjoy retirement! 👏

Please join us in congratulating the following recipients of our departmental awards: Aitiana Sanchez, Minerva Rodriguez, Nina Beltran, Ariana Cervantes-Borges, Paola Zuniga, Samantha Saucedo, Brianda Vasquez, and Leslie Sullivan. Way to go! 👏🎉

Are you considering applying to graduate school in Psychology? Spring is a great time to start thinking about this process and identifying your list of potential school. Most applications for Psychology graduate programs are due in the fall, so now is a great time to reach out to get additional information about programs you’re interested in or talk to potential mentors!

Join us in congratulating Psychology junior Paulina Vargas on being named a Goldwater Scholar. This scholarship is highly competitive, and Paulina was the only student selected from UTEP. In addition to this achievement, Paulina will be attending the SURF program at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota. Congratulations Paulina on all of your hard work! 👏

Join us in congratulating the following students who have received the Dodson Grant to fund their research endeavors: Joshua Villanos (not pictured), Perla Perez, Chelsea Queen, Christian Ruiz, and Jennifer Castañeda.

Please join us in congratulating Dr. Eno Louden and her collaborators on two new publications. In the first paper, they examined probation officers’ perceptions of evidence based practices. The second paper is an introduction to a special issue on Emerging Issues in Correctional Policy, Research, and Practice in Psychology, Public Policy, and Law. Congratulations again to the Mental Health and Criminal Justice Lab, led by Dr. Jennifer Eno Louden.

Join us in congratulating the following students who have received the 2024 First-Year PhD Student Summer Research Fellowship from the College of Liberal Arts to fund their research endeavors over the summer: Tia Tourville, Angie Salas-Tobias, Colin Scholl, and Jayce Owens-Boone.

Join us TODAY, Thursday, 3/28/24 at 12 pm MT for our free, public speaker series . This week will feature a Quantitative presentation about LME from Liam Gleason and a first-year project presentation from Ashley Lindquist.

Congratulations to Drs. Laura O’Dell (Psychology), Ian Mendez (Pharmacy), & Arshan Khan (Biological Sciences) on their recently awarded R01 Grant from titled, “Sex Differences and the Influence of Ovarian Hormones on the Mechanisms that Promote Ni****ne Withdrawal.” 👏

Paid research study for women with criminal justice involvement in the past year.

Join us this Thursday, 2/15/24 at 12 pm MT for our free, public speaker series . This week will feature a talk from Dr. Casey Lew-Williams of Princeton University.

📣 New publication alert! Check out the latest work from the which validated the traditional social defeat stress model for the study of depression-related phenotypes in prairie voles.

Congratulations to recent PhD graduate, Dr. John Capps, for receiving the award for Outstanding Dissertation. His dissertation is entitled, “Demographic and Clinical Variables Associated with Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation Response in Depression: A Growth Mixture Modeling Study” and was advised by Dr. Osvaldo Morera.

🚨 New publication alert! This recent work from the at UTEP Psychology explored the influence of self-regulation on social support, protective behavioral strategies, alcohol use, and alcohol problems.

The indirect effects of self‐regulation on the association of social support with increased protective drinking behavior and decreased alcohol problems in a predominantly Hispanic college student sample Background Research suggests that self-regulation, which refers to one's ability to manage a behavior, and social support are related to alcohol use. Other research suggests that social support may ...

UTEP Psychology doctoral student Liam Gleason and mentor Dr. Wendy Francis recently published an article in the journal Memory. Their work explores why it is easier to understand speech in a noisy environment when it is repeated.

Check out their article, linked below, for more details about this interesting research!

Mechanisms of long-term repetition priming in recognising speech in noise Recognition of speech in noise is facilitated when spoken sentences are repeated a few minutes later, but the levels of representation involved in this effect have not been specified. Three experim...

UTEP Psychology faculty member, Dr. Jennifer Eno-Louden, was recently interviewed by Texas Monthly about police responses to mental health crises. Check out the article linked below! https://texasmonthly.com/news-politics/galveston-mental-health-first-responders/
Mental Health and Criminal Justice Lab- UTEP

In Galveston, a New First Response to Mental Health Crises Echoing a statewide trend, the team aims to prevent the tragedies that often result when armed police answer calls involving psychological emergencies.