Psychology Colloquium Speaker Series
The PLU Psychology colloquium series aims to provide PLU students, faculty and staff rich, meaningful exposure to the state of the art in research in psychology. Each year, 5-6 invited speakers from a range of backgrounds, subdisciplines, and career stages are invited to present their current research. Our colloquium series is unique both in terms of its size and its scope; in addition to faculty development, the series is used for partial satisfaction of Research Familiarization requirements in PSYC 101 and other undergraduate courses.
2024-25 Speakers
Playing like a scientist: Building young children’s interest, skills, and self-identification in STEM
Emily F. Coyle, Ph.D.
Senior Research Associate, WestEd
April 4, 2025, 2-3pm, Xavier 201
For decades, scientists across the disciplines have sought to understand why certain demographic gaps in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) persist. Even as some gaps have closed, the majority of scientists and engineers working in their chosen fields continues to be mostly White, mostly men, and mostly from urban or suburban backgrounds (e.g., National Science Foundation, 2017; Carnegie Science Center, 2014). A lot of attention has been paid to supporting underrepresented groups across the STEM pipeline from schooling to the workforce. Yet, the earliest years of life may be key to supporting interest and participation in STEM, when social group membership stereotypes are being forged and before negative beliefs about one’s own group’s STEM performance emerge (Cheryan et al., 2015; Lei et al., 2019). In this talk, I will discuss examples from my own research to illustrate how children’s ideas about math and science careers are shaped subtly through play and messaging about who “does science,” including experiments that inform how we can best support children’s early self-identification and efficacy in STEM.
How can experiments on language learning contribute to learning theory?
Volya Kapatsinski, Ph.D.
Professor & Director of Graduate Studies Linguistics, University of Oregon
November 22, 2024, 2-3pm, Xavier 201
Learning theory aims to discover the mechanisms by which beliefs and behavior, across domains, are changed by experience. Research on language acquisition has been somewhat disconnected from learning theory since the mid-1950s when Noam Chomsky wrote a scathing review of B. F. Skinner’s book Verbal Behavior, which aimed to apply learning theory to language. However, since the mid-1980s, there has been increasing optimism about the applicability of domain-general learning mechanisms to language acquisition. This has resulted in numerous demonstrations that such mechanisms are sufficient to learn something about language that was claimed to require specialized linguistic knowledge and/or specialized linguistic mechanisms of belief updating. Most recently, we can witness the impressive success of large language models using the same mechanisms that can be used to produce sequences of actions in other domains. However, relatively little work has compared the performance of alternative, minimally different learning mechanisms on language learning data, or identified situations in which they make qualitatively different predictions. I will present some examples of such work from my lab, and argue that such work is essential if we are to have language data speak to learning theory, and to find out why successful language learning models are successful.
Past Colloquium Speakers
| Date | Speaker Name | Title | Affiliation |
|---|---|---|---|
| April 5, 2024 | Joshua Parmenter, Ph.D. | “It Takes a Village: Experiences of Intersectional Resilience and Liberation among Queer and Trans Black, Indigenous, and People of Color" | University of Missouri |
| March 1, 2024 | Elizabeth Wakefield, Ph.D. | "Unpacking the Role Visual Attention Plays in How we Learn from Gesture" | Loyola University, Chicago |
| February 23, 2024 | Carly Leonard, Ph.D. | "Why dwell on it? Understanding variability in fixation duration during visual search" | University of Colorado, Denver |
| November 2, 2023 | Laura Shneidman, Ph.D. Melvin Rouse, Ph.D. | "The social self, the biological self: how biological phenotype and social behavior can inform one another." | University of Puget Sound |
| October 13, 2023 | Christina Zhao, Ph.D. | "Small children, big data: Using neuro- and data science to support early language acquisition" | University of Washington |
| October 6, 2023 | Jennifer Lindsay, Ph.D. | "Page by Page: Exploring How Gender Representation in Children’s Books Affects Cognition" | Pacific Lutheran University |
| Date | Speaker Name | Title | Affiliation |
|---|---|---|---|
| May 5, 2023 | Regan Gurung, Ph.D. | "According to the Evidence: What Psych Science suggests for Effective Teaching and Learning" | Oregon State University |
| April 21, 2023 | Heidi McLaughlin, Ph.D. | ”I Can See the Germs!” Insights into Children’s Contamination Sensitivity and Biological Knowledge | Pacific Lutheran University |
| March 3, 2023 | Mark Leary, Ph.D. | "We Can’t All Be Right: Psychological and Social Implications of Intellectual Humility" | Duke University |
| November 18, 2022 | Laura Shneidman, Ph.D. | "How important is child-directed input for supporting learning?" | Pacific Lutheran University |
| November 4, 2022 | Joy Losee, Ph.D. | ``Individual and Social Influences on Protective Decision-Making" | University of Dayton |
| September 30, 2022 | Rachel Weissler, Ph.D. | "Can racial stereotypes explain emotion perception better than acoustic cues? Evidence from studies on language and cognition`` | University of Oregon |
| Date | Speaker Name | Title | Affiliation |
|---|---|---|---|
| April 8, 2022 | Jaimie Krems, Ph.D. | ``Frontiers of friendships: Surprising findings on what we want in, how we compete for, and ways we keep our friends.`` | Oklahoma State University |
| February 25, 2022 | Cassandra Jacobs, Ph.D. | ``Language Shapes Memory: Insights from Behavioral and Computational Approaches`` | Department of Linguistics, University at Buffalo |
| November 5, 2021 | Ronald E. Riggio, Ph.D. | ``Applications of Nonverbal Communication in the Workplace (and Career Options)`` | Claremont McKenna College |
| September 24, 2021 | Eric Landrum, Ph.D. | ``All That (Undergraduate) Work Was for Something: Telling Your Story for the Psychology Workforce or Graduate School`` | Boise State University |
Unfortunately, due to Covid-19, the 2020-21 Colloquium Speaker Series was canceled for the first time in 25 years.
| Date | Speaker Name | Title | Affiliation |
|---|---|---|---|
| February 21, 2020 | Jonathan Adams, Ph.D. | "Individual and school-level predictors of perceived violence, victimization, and safety in middle and high schools" | Department of Psychology, Pacific Lutheran University |
| November 13, 2019 | Joseph McFall, Ph.D. | "Multilevel Modeling, a Basic Introduction using the EAMMi2 (Emerging Adulthood Measured at Multiple Institutions 2)" | State University of New York, Fredonia |
| October 18, 2019 | Amanda Elbassiouny | "What Are the Differences in the Impact of Religious and Moral Identity Priming on the Evaluation of Religious Ingroup and Outgroup Job Applicants?" | California Lutheran University |
| October 4, 2019 | Munro Cullum, Ph.D. | "Concussion: Facts, Risks, and Long-Term Outcomes" | University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center |
| September 20, 2019 | Alex Czopp, Ph.D. | "From Humiliation to Humility: Responding to the Bias of Others" | Western Washington University |
| Date | Speaker Name | Title | Affiliation |
|---|---|---|---|
| May 3, 2019 | David C. Funder | "Accuracy in Personality Judgment A (very) Long View" | University of California, Riverside |
| April 5, 2019 | Rihana S. Mason, Ph.D. | "Exploring Vocabulary Assessment Issues in Young Children from Diverse Linguistic Backgrounds" | Georgia State University |
| November 16, 2018 | Maria Guarneri-White, Ph.D. | "Are Your Friends Making You Sick? Co-rumination and Peer Victimization in Two Adolescent Samples" | Psychology Department, Pacific Lutheran University |
| October 12, 2018 | Jennifer M. Roche, Ph.D. | "Affective Convergence of Intonational Punctuation During Text-Based and Computer-Mediated Communication" | Kent State University |
| September 21, 2018 | Melanie Domenech Rodriguez, Ph.D. | "Advancing Social Justice in Our University Communities: Using the Tools of Psychology" | Utah State University |
| Date | Speaker Name | Title | Affiliation |
|---|---|---|---|
| April 6, 2018 | Alexandra Paxton, Ph.D. | "Data, Data, Everywhere: How A Computational Perspective Can Help Psychology Harness the Data Revolution" | Institute of Cognitive and Brain Sciences, University of California, Berkeley |
| March 2, 2018 | Charlotte Vaughn, Ph.D. | "The Perception of Linguistic Variation: Expectations & Social Meaning" | Department of Linguistics, University of Oregon |
| February 16, 2018 | Kate Sweeny, Ph.D. | "Secrets to Waiting Well" | University of California |
| November 10, 2017 | Jenny Harris, Ph.D. | "Forensic Psychologist, Northwest University" | Northwest University |
| October 27, 2017 | Marzena Cypryanska, Ph.D. | "Ubiquity of Comparisons: Everything is Relative (Perhaps/Probably) | SWPS University of Social Science and Humanities, Warsaw, Poland |
| October 6, 2017 | Katie Corker, Ph.D. | "College Student Personality Traits and Motivation: Levels, Stability, and Change" | Kenyon College |
| September 22, 2017 | Laura P. Naumann, Ph.D. | "The Expression and Perception of Personality in Everyday Life" | Nevada State College |
| Date | Speaker Name | Title | Affiliation |
|---|---|---|---|
| May 5, 2017 | Christine L. Hansvick, Ph.D. | "Changing Realities: A Social Psychologist's Perspective" | Department of Psychology, Pacific Lutheran University |
| April 21, 2017 | Sanjay Srivastava, Ph.D. | "Personality is for Perceiving: Functions of Personality Impressions in Social Life" | Department of Psychology, University of Oregon |
| March 10, 2017 | Jennifer L. Howell, Ph.D. | "Avoiding Information: Prevalence, Causes, and Remedies" | Department of Psychology, University of Ohio |
| November 11, 2016 | Daniel P. Corts, Ph.D. | "Forgetting on Demand" | Augustana College |
| October 7, 2016 | John Alderete, Ph.D. | "Investigating Perceptual Biases, Data Reliability, and Data Discovery in a Methodology for Collecting Speech Errors From Audio Recordings" | Simon Fraser University |
| September 16, 2016 | Sunila Nair, Ph.D. | "DREADD'ed addiction: Investigating the role of the lateral habenula and its neuronal circuitry in cocaine addiction" | Department of Psychiatry, University of Washington |
| Date | Speaker Name | Title | Affiliation |
|---|---|---|---|
| May 6, 2016 | John Moritsugu, Ph.D. | "Curiouser and Curiouser" | Department of Psychology, Pacific Lutheran University |
| March 18, 2016 | Lynette H. Bikos, Ph.D. | "Re-entry from Abroad: Plotting the Pathway Home" | Department of Clinical Psychology, Seattle Pacific University |
| March 10, 2016 | Jennifer Howell, Ph.D. | "Avoiding Information Prevalence, Causes, and Remedies" | Ohio University |
| December 4, 2015 | Azim Shariff, Ph.D. | "Religion: How Social Psychology Can Help Us Answer the Big Questions" | Department of Psychology, University of Oregon |
| November 6, 2015 | Sherry L. Willis, Ph.D. | "Cognition and Aging: The Good, Not so Good, and Potential Plasticity" | Department of Psychology and Behavioral Sciences, University of Washington |
| September 11, 2015 | Melissa Baese-Berk, Ph.D. | "Factors Influencing Perception of Non-Native Speech" | Department of Linguistics, University of Oregon |
| Date | Speaker Name | Title | Affiliation |
|---|---|---|---|
| April 24, 2015 | Christine Moon, Ph.D. | "What does the very young brain need for favorable psychological development?" | Pacific Lutheran University |
| April 10, 2015 | Corey Cook, Ph.D. | "Are you Threatening me? How perceived threats influence stereotyping and prejudice" | University of Washington, Tacoma |
| February 13, 2015 | Mark Costanzo, Ph.D. | "The Psychology of Police Interrogations and False Confessions" | Center for Applied Psychological Research at Claremont McKenna College |
| November 14, 2014 | Anthony G. Greenwald, Ph.D. | "Societal Impact of Scientific Research Using the Implicit Association Test" | University of Washington |
| October 31, 2014 | Kalim Gonzales, Ph.D. | "How the Rich Multidimensional Environment Assists Early Bilingual Learners" | Guangdong University of Foreign Studies, Guangzhou, China |
| October 17, 2014 | Izabela K. Grey, Ph.D. | "Preschoolers' Play Narratives and Childhood Adaptation in an Ethno-racially Diverse Sample" | Pacific Lutheran University |
| September 26, 2014 | Philip Watkins, Ph.D. | "The How of Gratitude and Happiness: Exploring How Gratitude Enhances Subjective Well-Being" | Eastern Washington University |
| Date | Speaker Name | Title | Affiliation |
|---|---|---|---|
| May 9, 2014 | Scott Bates, Ph.D. | "The Opportunistic Generalist: Bunnies, Dropouts, Space Plants, and College Students" | Utah State University |
| April 11, 2014 | Ethan McMahan Ph.D. | "Lay Beliefs and the Experience of Well-Being" | Western Oregon University |
| March 14, 2014 | Carolyn Weisz, Ph.D. | "Anticipating Stigma: The Double Burden of Homelessness and Race" | University of Puget Sound |
| November 8, 2013 | Heidi Beebe, Ph.D. | "Health related knowledge in rural Maasai village: What is learned, who is sharing it?" | Pacific Lutheran University |
| October 4, 2013 | Courtney Stevens, Ph.D. | "Eavesdropping on the brain: Vulnerability and plasticity of selective attention to children at risk for school failure" | Willamette University |
| September 13, 2013 | Michael Zarate, Ph.D. | "Cultural Inertia and Immigration - or When Theory Goes Applied" | The University of Texas at El Paso |
| Date | Speaker Name | Title | Affiliation |
|---|---|---|---|
| May 3, 2013 | Laura Kemmer, Ph.D. | "Behavioral Investigations of Right Hemisphere Contributions to Syntactic Processing" | Pacific Lutheran University |
| March 15, 2013 | Russel Kolts, Ph.D. | "A Brief Introduction to Compassion-Focused Therapy" | Eastern Washington University |
| February 21, 2013 | Andrea Karkowski, Ph.D. and Erin McKenna, Ph.D. | "Speciesism: Philosophy/Psychology Dialog" | Department of Psychology, Capital University and Department of Philosophy, Pacific Lutheran University |
| November 9, 2012 | K. Warner Schaie, Ph.D., ABEPP | 'The Seattle Longitudinal Study" | Pennsylvania State University and University of Washington |
| October 12, 2012 | Kathryn C. Oleson, Ph.D. | "Self-Doubt" | Department of Psychology, Reed College |
| September 14, 2012 | Alice Eagly, Ph.D. | "Women as Leaders: Negotiating the Labyrinth" | Northwestern University, Evanston |
| Date | Speaker Name | Title | Affiliation |
|---|---|---|---|
| April 13, 2012 | Sarah Roseerry, Ph.D. | "Social Cues 'Mediate Media' for Language Learning" | Center for Learning and Brain Sciences, University of Washington |
| March 16, 2012 | Julie T. Kinn, Ph.D. and Kelly Blasko, Ph.D. | "Technology in Care for Posttraumatic Stress: Mobile Applications, Websites, and Virtual Reality" | National Center for Telehealth & Technology, Joint Base Lewis McChord |
| March 2, 2012 | Time Beyer Ph.D. | "Young Children's Interpretation of Standard American English Morphology Across Varieties of English" | Department of Psychology, University of Puget Sound |
| November 11, 2011 | Amani El-Alavli, Ph.D. | "Dr. and Mrs. Professor: Why do Students Use Less Formal Terms of Address for Female Versus Male Professors?" | Eastern Washington University |
| October 7, 2011 | Jillian McLellan, Ph.D. | "Choosing a Career Path: Spotlight on Industrial/Organizational Psychology" | Seattle Pacific University |
| September 16, 2011 | Travis L. Osborne, Ph.D. | "Making Sense of Compulsive Hoarding and Acquiring" | Evidence Based Treatment Centers of Seattle |
| Date | Speaker Name | Title | Affiliation |
|---|---|---|---|
| April 29, 2011 | Karen Povey | "Cooperative Care: Application of Operant Conditioning in a Zoo Setting" | Point Defiance Zoo & Aquarium |
| March 25, 2011 | Jungsik Kim, Ph.D. | "Culture's Influences on Self-Evaluation and Presentation" | Kwangwoon University, Korea |
| February 25, 2011 | Dianne Learned, Ph.D. | "Imagination and False Memories for Childhood Events" | Experimental Psychologist |
| November 19, 2010 | Key Sun, Ph.D. | "Working with offenders with mental disorders and other correctional clients" | Law and Justice Center, at Central Washington University, Pierce |
| October 8, 2010 | Ryne Sherman, Ph.D. | "A Psychological Assessment of Situations" | Department of Psychology, University of California |
| September 17, 2010 | Agnes Kwong, Ph.D. | "Walking the Bicultural Tightrope" | Counseling Center, University of Washington |
| Date | Speaker Name | Title | Affiliation |
|---|---|---|---|
| May 14, 2010 | James Shepperd, Ph.D. | "Information Avoidance: Exploring Who, What, When and Why" | University of Florida, Gainesville, FL |
| April 30, 2010 | Mike Hawrylycz, Ph.D. | "The Allen Brain Atlas: Gene Expression and Neuroanatomy in the Brain" | Allen Institute for Brain Science |
| February 12, 2010 | Marieka Miller, Psy.D. | "Can Marital Satisfaction of Parents Raising Children with Autism be Predicted by Child and Parental Stress?" | Private Practice, Issaquah, WA |
| November 13, 2009 | Jon Hammermeister, Ph.D. | "Sports Psychology at the Winter Olympics" | Army Center for Enhanced Performance |
| October 16, 2009 | Rich Furman, Ph.D. | "Toward a Transnational Human Services" | University of Washington, Tacoma, WA |
| September 25, 2009 | Mark Russell, Ph.D. | "The Origins of the Military Mental Health Crisis" | Antioch University, Seattle, WA |
| Date | Speaker Name | Title | Affiliation |
|---|---|---|---|
| April 3, 2009 | Garrett Gilchrist, Ph.D. | "Body image and muscularity in male bodybuilders and exercisers" | PLU Counseling Center |
| March 13, 2009 | Alvah Bittner, Ph.D. | "Adventure in Statistical Power Analysis" | Bittner and Associates |
| March 6, 2009 | Rich Furman, MSW, Ph.D. | "Transnational social work: Practice in the new global context" | Social Work Program, University of Washington, Tacoma |
| February 20, 2009 | Christine Moon, Ph.D. | "Newborn infants and vowel movements: Learning language in the womb" | Pacific Lutheran University |
| November 21, 2008 | Leigh McGraw, RN, NP-C, Ph.D., LTC, AN | "Psychological Stress and Cardiovascular Disease" | Nursing Research Service, Madigan Army Medical Center |
| October 17, 2008 | David Ward, Ph.D. | "Making Hope Happen: A Theory of Hope and Its Application to Relationships" | Marriage and Family Therapy Program, Pacific Lutheran University |
| September 19, 2008 | Michael Brown, Ph.D. | "Burden, Bonding, and Youth: Suicide in Evolutionary Perspective" | abc |
| Date | Speaker Name | Title | Affiliation |
|---|---|---|---|
| April 18, 2008 | Lisa Thomas, Robin LW Sigo, Gidget Lincoln | "Re-Indigenizing Our Science: Ethical and Respectful Research Partnerships with Tribal Communities" | University of Washington & Suquamish Wellness Program |
| March 14, 2008 | Kevin King, Ph.D. | "Alcohol Dependence in the Absence of Drug Dependence" An Issue of Severity of Disorder or a Case of Unique Etiology" | Child Clinical Program, University of Washington |
| February 22, 2008 | Christina Graham, Ph.D. | "The Practice of Health Psychology in a Regional Trauma Center" | Pacific Lutheran University |
| November 20, 2007 | Christine Hansvick, Ph.D. | "Fostering Cognitive Complexity: Study Abroad within the Liberal Arts Context" | Pacific Lutheran University |
| October 12, 2007 | Patricia L. Linn, Ph.D. | "Learning That Lasts a Lifetime: A Mixed-Method Study of Learning in Cooperative Education" | Antioch University, Seattle |
| September 14, 2007 | Sara Hodges, Ph.D. | "The Me in Understanding You: Self-ish Empathy" | University of Oregon |