Department of Psychology : University of Arkansas

I have sort of taken the "scenic route" during my academic career. I got my BA in Romance Languages from Princeton University in 1996 and spent 6 years working as a middle and high school Spanish teacher. I loved the kids but was getting bored so I went back to school and got my MS in School Psychology from the University of Hartford, and spent a year working as a school psychologist in a Connecticut public middle school. Psychology seemed like a good fit for me so I decided to go all the way toward earning a Ph.D.

3. Who is your faculty mentor and what kind of projects did you work on with them?

I work with Dr. Ellen Leen-Feldner, a developmental psychologist we were lucky to hire last year. We focus on the relationship between specific developmental processes and the pathogenesis of anxiety-type problems; more specifically, I am studying the relationship between pubertal timing and panic related problems. We are currently running a laboratory study with 10 to 17 year old kids to study these very issues.

4. What is your typical day like as a graduate student?

It is hard to describe a typical day because every day is different. Being on a 20-hour externship this year creates some general structure for the week but beyond that, it’s hard to say. To give an idea of where my time is spent in a given week, I would say that I spend 20 hours at my externship at CAPS, 12 hours in lab-related activities, 6 hours in class, 5 to 10 hours working with clients in the Psychological Clinic, and whatever conscious time is left is spent on independent work related to classes, third year and dissertation, and other independent work. It is also important to me to balance work with other activities (to the extent that is possible in grad school) so I make time for exercising and playing with my husband and doggies too.

5. Describe some of the work you've published or presented at conferences.

Here are some examples from my vita:

MANUSCRIPTS IN REFEREED JOURNALS

Leen-Feldner, E. W., Reardon, L. E., & Zvolensky, M. J. (2007). Pubertal status and

emotional reactivity to a voluntary hyperventilation challenge predicting panic symptoms and somatic complaints: A laboratory-based multi-informant test. Behavior Modification, 31, 8-31.

Leen-Feldner, E. W., Reardon, L. E., McKee, L. G., Feldner, M. T., Babson, K, A., &

Zvolensky, M. J. (2006). The interactive role of anxiety sensitivity and pubertal status

in predicting anxious responding to bodily sensations among adolescents. Journal of

Abnormal Child Psychology, 34, 797-810.

Black, K.A., Whittingham, C.L., Reardon, L. E., & Tumolo, J.M. (in press). Associations

betweenyoung adults' recollections of their childhood experiences with parents and

observations of their interaction behavior with best friends. International Journal of Behavioral Development.

Salcius, L.E. (2002). Building multicultural awareness: Considerations for the school psychologist.The Connecticut School Psychologist, 9, 25-32.

MANUSCRIPTS SUBMITTED FOR PUBLICATION

Leen-Feldner, E. W., Reardon, L. E., Hayward, C., & Smith, R. (2006). The relation between

puberty and adolescent anxiety: Theory and evidence.Submitted [invited chapter].

Leen-Feldner, E. W., Blanchard, L., Babson, K., Reardon, L. E., Bacon, A. K., & Zvolensky, M. J. (2006, October). The moderating role of health fear on the relation between health fear and panic symptoms among adolescents. Submitted.

POSTER PRESENTATIONS

Feldman, N., Jones, R., Reardon, L. E., Babson, K., O’Dell, A. J., Leen-Feldner, E. W., & Zvolensky, M. J. (2006). The interactive role of anxiety sensitivity and pubertal status in predicting panic vulnerability. Poster accepted for presentation at the 40^th annual conference of the Association for Advancement of Behavioral and Cognitive Therapies, Chicago, IL.

Reardon, L. E., Leen-Feldner, E. W., Feldner, M. T., Tull, M. T., Roemer, L., Zvolensky, M. J.,

Flanders, A. & O’Dell, A. (2005). An examination of worry in relation to anxious responding

to voluntary hyperventilation among adolescents. Poster presented at the 39th annual

Association for Advancement of Behavior Therapy convention, Washington D.C

6. Why did you choose the U of A to do your graduate work?

A combination of personal, professional, academic, and financial reasons. I am happy to be here.

7. What do you think of the U of A campus and the Fayetteville area?

I admit, being a "Yankee" I was skeptical about what I would find in Arkansas. I have been nothing but pleased. I think the U of A is a great campus (though as a grad student my life is focused on about 3 buildings), and Fayetteville fits my lifestyle perfectly. Any of my northern family and friends that have actually made it here have to admit they agree! For me Fayetteville provides a good mix of a small-town feel while still having a variety of good eats and activities. Also it is quite pretty.

8. What sorts of things do you do for fun?

Read non-academic books, run, play with my dogs, play guitar, work in my yard and garden.

9. What are some of your best experiences as a graduate student so far?

I enjoy going to conferences where we have the opportunity to meet others in the field with our same interests. I am also benefiting from the research being conducted in our lab, in which we work directly with adolescents. Finally, I have truly enjoyed working with college students through my externship this year at Counseling and Psychological Services (CAPS).

10. What sorts of research, teaching, and clinical experience does the UA program give you?

It is possible to gain lots of experience in all of these areas at the U of A. One excellent quality about this program is that it forces you to choose your own path during your time here. In essence, this is the purpose of the third-year project, in which you tailor your learning to your professional goals. Different labs provided various research opportunities, but I could not ask for more from Dr. Leen-Feldner and the ArKIDS lab, where we work one-on-one with adolescents to conduct clinical interviews and run them through a biological challenge procedure. Graduate students have the opportunity to teach a variety of undergraduate classes during both the regular session and summer sessions, and also must take the initiative to choose externship sites at which to interview for clinical work. So far I have taught a Childhood and Adolescence class during a summer session, and really liked it. However, I have decided to focus more on clinical work during my remaining year and a half here in the program.

11. What kinds of things are you working on right now?

I am currently working on my third year project, which is a review paper on the relation between anxiety and puberty, and am beginning to formulate my ideas for my dissertation proposal. I am also actively conducting research in the ArKIDS lab with a bunch of stellar undergraduate students. We will be running adolescents in our study throughout the semester.

12. What are your plans for the future?

Ah, that’s always the big question, isn’t it? First goal, complete PhD program. Next, get internship. After that, anything goes. I have many varied interests within the field and would be happy in a variety of occupations. I know myself well enough to realize I will not have one job for the rest of my life. I would enjoy working with adolescents in a school, inpatient, or outpatient setting. I would also enjoy working within a multidisciplinary setting, preferably within the context of a medical hospital, where I could see patients but also engage in clinical trials and other hands-on research. Finally, I plan to maintain a small private practice with my husband. Of course, I plan on having some kiddos in there somewhere too. My work will never be more important than my family.

13. What advice would you give someone thinking of going to graduate school in psychology?

First, be sure to talk to as many graduate students as you can. There are lots and lots of options for graduate school in psychology at many levels, and I don’t think this information is well disseminated to pre-graduate students. For example, I had no idea that there was a degree called School Psychology, and once I learned more about it I ended up getting my Master’s in it. Having that degree has already presented me with lots of opportunities. There are many opportunities out there—try to learn as much as you can before you commit to any one idea. Second, once you get into school, do your best to maintain a good support system. This will help you keep perspective and keep you sane. A PhD program is a long haul—don’t put your life on hold for it.

Graduate Student Profile: Experimental Psychology Program

Joel Hagaman, M.A.

(See other graduate student profiles)

1. Where are you from originally? Where did you grow up?

I lived in Galva, Illinois (pop. 3,700) for the first couple decades of my life.

2. Where did you do your undergraduate work at and when did you get your degree?

I graduated with a B. A. degree in psychology from Monmouth College (in Monmouth, IL.) in 1998.

3. Who is your faculty mentor and what kind of projects do you work on with them?

My current faculty mentor is Dr. William Levine. We do research on language comprehension mainly. For example, we’ve studied how time shifts in the narrative (reading 'an hour later' vs. 'the next day') influence the reader’s understanding of the urgency of character’s goals. We’ve also done some work on distractibility and retrieval inhibition in text comprehension.

4. What is your typical day like as a graduate student?

This semester has been pretty sweet, I am done taking all my classes and I am not teaching this semester, so my main responsibilities involve applying for jobs, collecting dissertation data and revising manuscripts. I walk up to school at about 9 or 10, monitor the collection of my dissertation data, and work on job applications or the aforementioned manuscripts. I get home between 3 and 5 most days, and have time to answer e-mails and watch TV before going to sleep. Mmmm sleep.

5. Describe some of the work you've published or presented at conferences

Research related to my master’s thesis was presented at the Psychonomic Society meeting a couple of years ago; it looked at individual differences in working memory capacity and the propensity to show the negative priming effect. Basically, if you have a high working memory span, things that you try to ignore in one trial take longer to recognize in a subsequent trial than it does an unrelated target word. My only printed publication (so far) came out earlier this year and it dealt with research I helped with in my master’s program at Southern Illinois University Edwardsville. It deals with a questionnaire that Dr. Eva Ferguson and a college made up to measure parental values.

PUBLICATIONS:

Ferguson, E. D., Hagaman, J. A., Grice, J. W., & Peng, K. (2006). From leadership to parenthood: The applicability of leadership styles to parenting styles. Group Dynamics: Theory, Research and Practice, 10, 43-56.

PRESENTATIONS:

Hagaman, J. A. & Grahe, J. E., (May, 1999). Looking at functional attitudes utilizing the self-monitoring paradigm. Poster presented at the meeting of the Midwestern Psychological Association, Chicago, IL.

Ferguson, E.D. & Hagaman, J. A., (November, 2001). Social category priming affects recall on explicit memory task. Paper presented at the annual meeting of the Psychonomic Society, Orlando, FL.

Ferguson, E.D. & Hagaman, J. A., (November, 2002). Priming and social category word recall. Paper presented at the annual meeting of the Psychonomic Society, Kansas City, MO.

Hagaman, J. A., & Levine, W. H. (November, 2004). Individual differences in working memory capacity and attentional resource allocation. Poster presented at the annual meeting of the Psychonomic Society, Minneapolis, MN.

Levine, W. H., Hagaman, J. A., Bogulski, C. A., Green, R. R., & Ortigo, D. S., (July, 2005). Attention-focusing by mass-noun quantifiers in sentence comprehension. Poster presented at CUNY conference, Tucson, AZ.

Levine, W. H., Hagaman, J. A., Bogulski, C. A., Green, R. R., & Ortigo, D. S., (November, 2005). The effect of narrative time shifts on the representation of goal-related information. Poster presented at the annual meeting of the Psychonomic Society, Toronto, ON.

Slaten, D., Levine, W. H., Kennison & Hagaman, J. A. (November, 2006). Zero pronoun resolution in Japanese. Poster presented at the annual meeting of the Psychonomic Society, Houston, TX.

6. Why did you choose the U of A to do your graduate work?

The U of A has good funding for grad students. Also, the faculty is very kind and is eager to help us out.

7. What do you think of the U of A campus and the Fayetteville area?

The campus is beautiful (especially in October) and the Fayetteville area is also very nice. There are so many good restaurants here- I’m going to miss them when I leave. There is also a reasonably good music scene here, if you are into overlooked local bands. If not, St. Louis isn’t too far away…

8. What sorts of things do you do for fun?

Eat out with friends, get drinks with friends, and there is a semi-regular poker game that some of us enjoy. I’ll have to agree with Juliana Leding also and say that naps are fantastic.

9. What are some of your best experiences as a graduate student so far?

My favorite part of being a student here is the moneys they give you to go to conferences. They’ve sent me to Chicago twice, Toronto, Vancouver, Minneapolis, and Houston. Free trips are the best kind of trips.

10. What sorts of things are you working on right now?

I’m mainly focused on my dissertation now. I’m looking at the relationship between working memory capacity and the ability to draw inferences from text. For example, if you read about a cook chopping vegetables, do you think of a knife? I think that people that seem to have visually vivid representations as they read will be more likely to make the inference that the cook was using a knife.

11. What are your plans for the future?

I’m going to see a movie in a few hours, does that count? I’ve applied to many colleges across the country. I’m planning on going into academia to do research and teach undergraduates about psychology. Basically, people will pay me to read and learn about psychology; things that I would do anyway. Suckers.

12. What advice would you give someone thinking of going to graduate school in psychology?

Learn as much as you can about the programs that you are applying to and find ones that will match up with your interests best. You’re going to spend a lot of time studying this stuff, so make sure it is something that you enjoy learning about.

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