Mount Allison psychology students fare well at APICS Conference
2009-05-20 09:48:50
SACKVILLE, NB — Eleven Mount Allison students recently attended the annual Atlantic Provinces Council on the Sciences (APICS) psychology conference, held at Mount Saint Vincent University in Halifax, and walked away with rave reviews about their research endeavours.
Mount Allison psychology professor Dr. Gene Ouellette, who accompanied the students to the conference said, “This is a wonderful organization and event, set up as a full blown scientific conference, but where all presenters are undergraduate students. Our students fared very well, with all faculty judges commenting favourably on their presentations. These kind of events really give our students the opportunity to present their research to their peers, which is great practice for future endeavours.”
Megan Fisher of Bathurst, NB won the Karen Nicholson Memorial Award for best presentation in the area of Human Neuropsychology for her talk entitled, “The Impact of Incongruent Information on Novel Stimulus Identification.” The prize is named after Mount Allison psychology professor Dr. Karen Nicholson, who passed away in 2007 following a courageous battle with cancer. An anonymous donor established the APICS prize in her name in 2008. Megan’s presentation was based her thesis work completed with Mount A psychology professor Genevieve Desmarais.
Other Mount Allison students presenting included Michelle Gallant (“The Effect of Ultra-low Dose Naltrexone on Wheel Running Rates in Rats”), Ally Haley (“The Impact of Alphabet, Decoding and Vocabulary Knowledge on Phonemic Awareness”), Greg Trevors (“Children’s Invented Spelling as a Predictor of Later Literacy Acquisition”), Natasha Gosselin (“Family Members’ and Imagined Patients’ Perception of the Importance of Different Kinds of Support from Hospice Palliative Care Volunteers”), Laura Stephensen (“Navigating, Surviving, and Perhaps Enjoying the Freshman Year: What can we learn from the relations between daily hassles, social support, and anxiety?”), and Mallory Mayes (“Learning and Study Strategies of Postsecondary Students with Dyslexia”) who gave oral presentations. Sarah A. Smith (“Does Maternal Affect Effect Perceptions of Infant Health or Infant Health Outcomes”), Stephanie Landry (“Intergenerational Communication: Who likes them?”), Scott MacDonald (“The Impact of Semantic Information on Action Production”), and Anna MacKinnon (“Individual Differences in Spelling and Working Memory: Does it look right or sound right”) all presented research posters.
The Atlantic Provinces Council on the Sciences (APICS) was originally established in 1962 as The Atlantic Provinces Inter-University Committee on the Sciences. Its goal was to strengthen research and technology in the Maritimes by providing a link between scientists in the universities and the government lab sector, and by fostering communication and co-operation among science students in the region's universities.
Photo caption: Front row (left to right): Mount Allison Psychology professor Dr. Gene Ouellette with students Stephanie Laundry, Ally Haley, Michelle Gallant, Laura Stephenson. In the middle row are: Mallory Mayes, Natasha Gosselin, Megan Fisher, Anna MacKinnon, and in the back are Greg Trevors, Scott MacDonald, and Sarah A. Smith at the 2009 APICS Undergraduate Psychology Conference.
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