Dr. Bunmi Olatunji

(See other alumni profiles)

1. Where are you from originally? Where did you grow up?
I was born in Nigeria but grew up in Wisconsin.

2. Where did you do your undergraduate work at and when did you get your degree?
I did my undergraduate work at the University of Wisconsin Stevens Point and got my degree in 2000.

3. When did you get your Ph.D.?
Got my Ph.D. in 2006.

4. Who was your faculty mentor and what kind of projects did you work on while at the University of Arkansas?
Jeff Lohr was my faculty mentor and we primarily worked on research evaluating the role of disgust in various anxiety disorders.

5. What was the title of dissertation
The title of dissertation was Evaluative Learning, Emotional Responding,and Extinction of Fear and Disgust in Blood-Injection-injury Phobia.

6. Describe some of the work you published (i.e., Representative publications)

7. Why did you choose the U of A to do your graduate work?
I choose the U of A to do your graduate work because of Dr. Lohrs excellent reputation in mentoring graduate students.

8. What did you think of the U of A campus and the Fayetteville area?
I loved the U of A campus and the Fayetteville area, it still surprises me how much i miss it at times.

9. What sorts of things did you do for fun as a graduate student?
Intramural basketball

10. What sorts of research, teaching and clinical experience did the UA program give you?
In addition to my work with Dr. Lohr, i was able to collaborate with researchers all over the country. I was also able to teach upper level courses like abnormal psychology and had clinical experiences with children, adult, and geriatric populations. It was truly general yet comprehensive training.

11. What are some of your fondest memories of being a graduate student?
The numerous all nighters, but that has not changed much.

12. What are you doing right now?
Assistant Professor of Clinical Psychology at Vanderbilt University.

13. What are your plans for the future?
Tenure!!!!

14. What advice would you give someone thinking of going to graduate school in psychology?
75% of the variance of graduate success is your mentor, choose wisely.

15. Anything else you'd like to tell us about your time at the University of Arkansas?
The University of Arkansas was truly a special place for me.

Dr. Timothy N. Odegard



(See other alumni profiles)

1. Where are you from originally? Where did you grow up?
I’m from Harrison Arkansas

2. Where did you do your undergraduate work at and when did you get your degree?
I went o Hendrix Colllege in Conway Arkansas and got my bachelors degree in 1999

3. When did you get your Ph.D.?
I received my Ph.D. in experimental psychology in 2004

4. Who was your faculty mentor and what kind of projects did you work on while at the University of Arkansas?
My faculty mentor was Dr. James Lampinen

5. What was the title of your dissertation?

Perceptual and semantic underpinnings of recollection rejection and phantom recollection in the memory conjunction paradigm

6. Describe some of the work you published (i.e., Representative publications)
I have published research on how people accurately remember their lives. Here are some examples:

Odegard, T.N. & Lampinen, J.M. (2006). Memory editing: Knowledge, criteria, and alignment. Memory, 14, 777-787..

Odegard, T.N., Lampinen, J.M., & Toglia, M.P. (2005). Meaning’s moderating effect on recollection rejection. Journal of Memory and Language, 53, 416-429.

Odegard, T.N. & Lampinen, J.M. (2005). Recollection rejection: Gist cueing of verbatim memories. Memory & Cognition, 33,  1422-1430.

Lampinen, J.M., Odegard, T.N., Blackshear, E., & Toglia, M.P. (2005). Phantom ROC.  In F. Columbus (Ed.), Progress in Experimental Psychology Research. Hauppauge NY: Nova.

Lampinen, J.M., Odegard, T.N. & Leding, J.K. (2004). Diachronic disunity. In D.R. Beike, J.M. Lampinen & D.A. Behrend (Eds.), The Self and Memory. (pp. 227-253). New York: Psychology Press.

Odegard, T.N., Lampinen, J.M., & Wirth-Beaumont, E.T. (2004). Organization of autobiographical memory. Memory, 12, 685-695.

Lampinen, J.M., Odegard, T.N. & Neuschatz, J.S. (2004). Robust recollection rejection in the memory conjunction paradigm. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory and Cognition, 30, 332-342.

Odegard, T.N. & Lampinen, J.M. (2004). Memory conjunction errors for autobiographical events: More than just familiarity. Memory, 12, 288-301.

Lampinen, J.M., Odegard, T.N. & Bullington, J. (2003). Qualities of memories for performed and imagined actions. Applied Cognitive Psychology, 17, 881-893.

7. Why did you choose the U of A to do your graduate work?
I chose U of A because I wanted to work under the mentorship of Jim Lampinen.

8. What did you think of the U of A campus and the Fayetteville area?
Fayetteville is a wonderful place that is not replicated anywhere else. The campus has a wonderful feel and is beautiful in the fall when all of the maples are blazing with color. The campus comes alive on game days. I still get nostalgic on crisp fall mornings.

9. What sorts of things did you do for fun as a graduate student?
I enjoyed jogging in the parks around Fayetteville and hiking in the Buffalo river wilderness area.

10. What sorts of research and teaching experience did the UA program give you?
During my time a graduate student, I was able to teach numerous upper level Psychology courses in addition to General Psychology. In addition, I was able to conduct numerous lines of research. Being an active researcher definitely improved my ability to teach well.

11. What are some of your fondest memories of being a graduate student?
My fondest memories are of reading groups held at Hugo’s and the Focus area research meetings. The annual graduate student parties were also very memorable events.

12. What are you doing right now?
I am currently an assistant professor of psychology at the University of Texas at Arlington.  I continue to conduct research on what allows people to best remember their past. Some of the research in this area involves how best to test individuals over course materials to enhance the positive testing effects and minimize the negative effects that testing can have on students’ memories for course materials.  I also contribute to the Gulf War Syndrome group at UT Southwestern medical school and focus on better understanding the cognitive impairments experienced by veterans that participated in the first Gulf war. As part of the Gulf war syndrome group, I obtained additional training in the area of functional MRI and conduct brain imaging research on human memory. Finally, I have received training in the area of developmental dyslexia. I am a trained language therapist and provide therapy to children struggling to learn how to read. I have also established a reading laboratory as part of my larger research laboratory that screens community children for reading and learning disabilities in collaboration with a local children’s hospital. Also in collaboration with this children’s hospital, I conduct brain imaging research using fMRI to investigate the impact of dyslexia therapy on the brain of children diagnosed with developmental dyslexia. By doing so we hope to better understand how to teach those children who fail to respond to treatment, allowing us to better teach them how to read.

13. What are your plans for the future?
In the future, I will be conducting basic research using various brain imaging techniques to measure psychological markers of learning while children are acquiring reading skills. This is novel in the sense that I will take advantage of new imaging techniques that will allow me to measure correlates of brain activity while children are sitting in my dyslexia classroom. These efforts will focus on refining current techniques for teaching children to read and comprehend what they read. In addition, I will be conducting brain imaging research on how children accurately remember the past, and the various changes that occur in how they approach this in relationship to developmental changes in their brains. At the same time I will continue to conduct basic behavioral research to better understand memory and learning.

14. What advice would you give someone thinking of going to graduate school in psychology?
A person should obtain a solid background in Psychological science and the theories that underlie it. To truly understand treatment or the application of Psychological science to real world issues, such as literacy, a person must understand the basic issues involved and then identify how best to address these issues. Moreover, anyone interested in pursuing cognitive neuroscience should ensure that he/she has a firm understanding of both the imaging technologies being used to image the brain and the fundamental working of the brain and the mind.

15. Anything else you'd like to tell us about your time at the University of Arkansas?
The camaraderie shared between the students and faculty in the Psychology department at the University of Arkansas is wonderful and is not commonly found. The camaraderie fosters a wonderful learning environment.