Congratulations Graduates

The Department of Psychology Congratulates All Recent Psychology Graduates!

At UMKC’s Fall 2010 Commencement, 50 students majoring in psychology received their Bachelor’s of Arts degree. While we are proud of the many accomplishments of all of our graduates, we want to particularly acknowledge several students whose extreme high academic achievement in both the general education requirement and those specific for the psychology major earned them Departmental Honors.

Departmental Honor Recipients Fall 2010
Hannah Fugate, Chanukya Dasari, Britney Hamm, Amy Higgins, Mary Petrechko, and Hillary Warren.

See some of our Departmental Honor recipients profiled below.


Hannah Fugate








Hillary Warren:


Department Honor’s Questionnaire
1. Where are you from originally (before you came to UMKC)?
a. I am from Kansas City, I have been here since I was 13.
2. Favorite psychology course?
a. Abnormal Psychology because I want to work with patients with severe mental illness.
3. Favorite psychology professor(s)?
a. I have so many! Dr. Land because he made quantitative methods easy for me and made cognitive psych so interesting. Dr. Amanda Bruce because she is so approachable and caring. Dr. Lovelace because he opened my eyes to experimental psychology and has let me work in his lab.
4. Plans after graduation?
a. I am applying to the graduate clinical psychology program here at UMKC, so hopefully I will continue on here at UMKC.
5. Favorite thing(s) about UMKC?
a. The faculty all seem to really care and love their job. I also think the campus is beautiful!


Congratulations again to these students for their hard work and the department wishes you luck in your future endeavours!

Recognizing Students in the Psychology Department

Lauren Buscher, a psychology undergraduate student, was recently recognized for an award at the National Academy of Neuropsychology in Vancouver, Canada. Here is what she wrote about the experience of presenting a research poster and receiving an award.

“My research poster was titled The Relationship Between Self-Reported Cognitive Difficulties and Medication Adherence in Multiple Sclerosis. I presented at the National Academy of Neuropsychology in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada and received the Dr. Ted Blau Student Poster Award. The purpose of this study was to examine the association between self-reported cognitive difficulties and medication adherence in Multiple Sclerosis (MS). 74 Secondary Progressive, Primary Progressive, and Relapsing Remitting MS patients were recruited from a local MS specialty clinic. Participants completed questionnaires measuring cognitive difficulties and auxiliary medication adherence. I really would like to thank Dr. Bruce, who helped me through every stage of the research process and writing the poster. I would also like to thank the graduate and undergraduate students that worked in the Clinical Neuropsych Lab who helped answer the many questions I had. I'm happy to be a good representative of the UMKC Psychology Department!”



Another student being recognized from the department is David A. Martinez. He is currently a Clinical Psychology Doctoral student and works closely with his mentor, Dr. Kathy Goggin. Below is a description of David’s achievements thus far.

David A. Martinez was recently awarded a two-year Ruth L. Kirschstein National Research Service Award funded by the National Institutes of Mental Health (NIMH). David is in his fourth year of the Clinical Health Psychology Doctoral program and his mentor is Dr. Kathy Goggin. This award will provide support for David’s dissertation research which focuses on developing a measure to better understand the beliefs that lead to getting tested for HIV among Latinos who attend church. To complete this research, David will be collaborating with leaders from two local Catholic churches, the Black Catholic Implementation Team (BCIT) of Kansas City, UMKC faculty: Dr. Jannette Berkley-Patton and Dr. Tamera Murdock, and Dr. Cynthia Gomez from San Francisco State University.