Assistant Professor Ryan Watson is recipient of InCHIP’s first ever InCHIP Junior Faculty Research Excellence Award!

This award recognizes a pre-tenured InCHIP-affiliated faculty member who has made significant scientific contributions in their area of research in a health-related domain consistent with the mission of InCHIP.  Research excellence is defined as “work that reflects a high degree of scientific contribution in terms of its substance, quality, originality, and impact.”

Congratulations to Abdul Khaleque, HDFS adjunct professor and senior scientist in the Ronald and Nancy Rohner Center for the Study of Interpersonal Acceptance and Rejection.  Abdul’s book, Intimate Relationships Across the Lifespan: Formation, Development, Enrichment, and Maintenance, by Abdul Khaleque, won silver in Psychology/Mental Health and bronze in Sexuality/Relationships from the 2019 Independent Publisher Book Awards (IPPY).

During her time at UConn, Associate Professor Annamaria Csizmadia has received 3 different grants for teaching (from the Honors Core Course Grant Competition; General Education Course Enhancement and the Provost’s Academic Mini-Grant Competition). In the past 5 years, she has taught 31 sections of 6 different courses, as well as supervising students in field experience, undergraduate and graduate research practicum, honors theses, and masters theses. In the words of one of her former students, “Dr. Csizmadia is a once in a lifetime professor. She has the ability to turn a classroom into a life changing experience that challenges and inspires her students to reach and achieve greatness. I know her teaching methods are only successful because of her! Her humanistic approach, supportive nature, her natural ability to provide clarity, and her enthusiasm for teaching is unbeatable. To all of her students, she is more than a professor. She is a motivator, a woman of inspiration, a mentor, an educator, and a friend. I feel that I write on behalf of all Dr.Csizmadia’s students when I say we want to express our unconditional support for Dr. Csizmadia’s nomination.”

Assistant Professor Ryan Watson received a K-01 award from National Institute on Drug Abuse. His project, PrEP and substance use among sexual minority young adults, is a 5-year research career development award. These are very prestigious awards from NIH designed to provide mentorship and research support to relatively junior scholars.

HDFS Professor Rebecca Puhl was quoted in recent Huff Post article, 10 Everyday Ways to Foster A Healthy Body Image in Your Child

Professor Kim Gans received a new grant from National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute/University of Rhode Island. The grant is titled ‘A Home-Based Video and Motivational Interviewing Intervention to Improve Preschoolers Diet Quality and Parental Food Parenting Practices’.

Congratulations to Assistant Professor Laura Mauldin, recipient of the 2019 UConn-AAUP Teaching Excellence Award: Early Career. This award is a prestigious university-wide award for faculty with 3-6 years of service at UConn.

The podcast, Parsing Science recently interviewed Assistant Professor Laura Mauldin on the topic of whether “coming out” could be a useful analogy for the process of coming to identify as Deaf.  Watch the podcast here.

Associate Professor Alaina Brenick received a grant titled, Development and evaluation of a school-based intervention program to promote a sense of belonging, well-being, and achievement amongst culturally diverse students from the Antrag auf eine Kooperationsförderung, “KoUP 1” zur Förderung von Kooperationen mit Universitäten in den Schwerpunktregionen USA und Russland (Grant to Promote Cooperation with Universities in Priority Regions of the USA and Russia), Potsdam University.

The grant is a collaboration between Drs. Maja K. Schachner and Linda Juang of Potsdam University, Germany, Adriana Umaña-Taylor, Harvard University, USA, and Alaina Brenick, University of Connecticut, USA.  Congratulations Alaina!