The general focus and goal of Dr. Cook's research is the application of psychophysiological methods to improve understanding of psychological and biological factors related to emotion, personality, and mental disorders. Current research uses in the startle response as a tool for exploring changes in emotional and sensory information processing that occur with changes in anxiety and mood. Startle is readily measured from humans in the laboratory, typically as contractions of the muscles surroundi...
Dr. Uswatte’s research has been funded by the US Department of Veterans Affairs, National Institute on Disability and Rehabilitation Research, National Institutes of Health, James S. McDonnell Foundation, American Heart Association, and Positive Psychology Network. He received the Mitchell Rosenthal Early Career Research Award from the Division of Rehabilitation Psychology of the American Psychological Association (APA) in 2008, was elected President of that division in 2013, and received the Ro...
Born and raised in Ireland, Mike Sloane joined the department as an Assistant Professor in September 1982 having completed his doctoral work at the Cresap Neuroscience Laboratory of Northwestern University. He directed the Psychology Honors Program for over 12 years, served as Director of Undergraduate Studies, and was the first Vice Chair of the department. In the mid 1980s he launched the Psychology Club, facilitated the development of UAB's chapter of Psi Chi, and organized the annual Southea...
Born and raised in Ireland, Mike Sloane joined the department as an Assistant Professor in September 1982 having completed his doctoral work at the Cresap Neuroscience Laboratory of Northwestern University. He directed the Psychology Honors Program for over 12 years, served as Director of Undergraduate Studies, and was the first Vice Chair of the department. In the mid 1980s he launched the Psychology Club, facilitated the development of UAB's chapter of Psi Chi, and organized the annual Southea...
Born and educated on the UAB campus, I bleed Green and Gold. During the summer of 2007, I taught my first course. It was then that I realized that teaching is my true passion. In the classroom I encourage students to express their distinct perspectives while showing respect for and garnering knowledge from others whose backgrounds and views are different from their own. Furthermore, I cultivate a vested interest in learning by using examples that illustrate how the course materials apply to the ...
Bulent Turan examines the mechanisms underlying the relationship between social bonds and well-being. Other projects examine the effects of HIV-related stigma and discrimination among persons living with HIV.
Dr. Carl McFarland earned the PhD at the University of Kansas and served as chairperson for UAB's Department of Psychology from 1982-2008. Dr. McFarland is now Professor and Chair Emeritus at UAB and Adjunct Professor of Psychology at the University of Arizona. During his tenure as department chair at UAB, he led the department through substantial growth in the number of faculty and students, increase in federal research funding and interdisciplinary collaboration, and development of three docto...
Christianne Strang is a board-certified art therapist with more than 30 years of clinical art therapy experience. She earned her MA in Art Therapy from Vermont College of Norwich University in 1987, and has served as Treasurer for the American Art Therapy Association and for the Art Therapy Credentials Board. She served as the President-Elect of the American Art Therapy Association from July 2015-November 2017, and as President of the American Art Therapy Association through October 2019.
I have made a number of stops along my way before arriving at UAB. I received my undergraduate Bachelor’s of Science degree in psychology from the University of Miami, with minor concentrations in English and Mathematics/Computer Science. I obtained my PhD in clinical psychology from the University of Florida from the Department of Clinical and Health Psychology. I then completed my pre-doctoral internship and postdoctoral fellowship at the University of Tennessee-Memphis. My training in clinica...
Dr. Mirman received a Bachelor’s degree in Chemistry and Psychology from Cornell University in 2000 and his PhD in 2005 from Carnegie Mellon University and the interdisciplinary cognitive neuroscience program in the Center for the Neural Basis of Cognition. His doctoral work combined behavioral experiments and computational modeling to study how auditory perception and language knowledge interact during speech perception. He then completed a post-doctoral fellowship at University of Connecticut ...
Dr. Knight’s laboratory is focused on better understanding the neural substrates of human learning, memory, and emotion using magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) techniques that include functional MRI, diffusion tensor imaging, and magnetic resonance spectroscopy. Behavioral and MRI studies from the lab investigate questions that are important for understanding healthy, as well as dysfunctional, emotion processes.
Recent work from the Knight lab has investigated the neural circuitry that ...
David C. Schwebel has published over 350 peer-reviewed manuscripts, most focusing on understanding and preventing unintentional injury in children, adolescents, and young adults. Specific risk factors of interest include temperament and personality, overestimation of physical ability and cognitive development, and adult supervision of children.
From a prevention perspective, Dr. Schwebel has developed and implemented injury prevention techniques for a range of situations, including ped...
Dr. Stavrinos is the Director of the Translational Research for Injury Prevention (TRIP) Laboratory. The TRIP Lab offers students at various levels of training (high school, undergraduate, graduate, post-doc) and from various disciplines (e.g., psychology, medicine, public health, engineering, computer science) the opportunity to conduct high quality behavioral research. Since its establishment in 2009, nearly 100 students have been trained under Stavrinos’ mentorship.
Experiential lear...
Edward Taub is a University Professor in the Department of Psychology and is the director of the CI Therapy Research Group and Taub Training Clinic. He received his PhD in psychology from New York University in 1970 under the supervision of Dr. Edgar E. Coons and later worked with Dr. Neil E. Miller.
Dr. Taub is a behavioral neuroscientist who developed a family of techniques — Constraint-Induced Movement therapy (or CI therapy) — that have been shown to be effective in improving the re...
The general focus and goal of Dr. Cook's research is the application of psychophysiological methods to improve understanding of psychological and biological factors related to emotion, personality, and mental disorders. Current research uses in the startle response as a tool for exploring changes in emotional and sensory information processing that occur with changes in anxiety and mood. Startle is readily measured from humans in the laboratory, typically as contractions of the muscles surroundi...
My career has been devoted to understanding neural computation, both for its own sake and for the sake of making neural prosthesis that restore and augment human function. My specific research has been to investigate complex neural computations in retinal ganglion cells, the first locus in the visual system of highly specific and nonlinear analyses such as motion and directional selectivity.
The first task I took on as a retinal researcher was to identify, by intracellular recording and...
Dr. Uswatte’s research has been funded by the US Department of Veterans Affairs, National Institute on Disability and Rehabilitation Research, National Institutes of Health, James S. McDonnell Foundation, American Heart Association, and Positive Psychology Network. He received the Mitchell Rosenthal Early Career Research Award from the Division of Rehabilitation Psychology of the American Psychological Association (APA) in 2008, was elected President of that division in 2013, and received the Ro...
Jarred Younger completed postdoctoral fellowships at Arizona State University and the Stanford University School of Medicine before taking an Assistant Professor position at Stanford.
He has recently joined the UAB faculty in Psychology, with secondary appointments in Anesthesiology and Rheumatology. He is currently funded by the National Institutes of Health and the Department of Defense to study new techniques for diagnosing and treating neuroinflammation.
Dr. Mirman is a scientist, educator, and mentor in the Lifespan Developmental Psychology program who conducts basic and applied research in the area of child and adolescent health and development. Dr. Mirman attended the University of Delaware from 1998-2002 earning a BA in Psychology, and Fordham University from 2002-2006 earning a PhD in Applied Developmental Psychology. She completed her practicum training at The Children's Aid Society of New York focusing on the development and evaluation of...
Dr. Ackerson is a Pediatric Neuropsychologist with twenty-five years of experience providing clinical services to a diverse patient population including TBI, forensic, neurodevelopmental disorders (ADHD, ASD, LD), demyelinating disorders, epilepsy, neurofibromatosis, hypoxia, toxic exposures, and complex psychiatric conditions as well as rare genetic and neurological disorders. He consults to governmental, healthcare, academic, and athletic agencies and organizations. As Chair of the Alabama Sta...
Dr. Karlene Ball, University Professor and experimental psychologist, is the Director of the UAB Edward R. Roybal Center for Research on Applied Gerontology, funded by the National Institute on Aging, Associate Director of the university-wide Comprehensive Center for Healthy Aging (formerly the Center for Aging), Associate Director of the Center for Outcomes and Effectiveness Research and Education, Professor in the Department of Neurobiology, a Senior Scientist in the Vision Research Center, a ...
Dr. Kristi Carter Guest is the Disabilities Services Coordinator for the UAB Early Head Start Program, Research Coordinator for the UAB Civitan-Sparks Clinics and the UAB Leadership Education in Neurodevelopmental and Related Disabilities (LEND) and is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Psychology. She serves on the Executive Board for the Central Alabama Early Intervention Council and is on the planning committee for the statewide Alabama Early Intervention Conference.
Dr. Gu...
Dr. Stoppelbein is a clinical child psychologist with a primary interest in stress and coping among children, adolescents and families. Her approach to research is from a developmental psychopathology perspective. To this end her research includes investigations in topics such as predicting post-traumatic stress symptoms in pediatric populations, examining the moderating effects of psychosocial factors in childhood externalizing and internalizing disorders, and understanding the role of stress a...
A native of Stockholm, Sweden, Professor Hopkins studies social and emotional development in children. She also serves as the Director of Undergraduate Studies in Psychology at UAB.
Dr. Hopkins teaches courses in developmental psychology, social development, research methods and the Psychology Capstone. She is the faculty advisor for the UAB Chapter of Psi Chi, the Psychology Honor Society, which aims to get psychology students connected on campus and in the community.
Dr. Waters completed her Ph.D. in the UAB Lifespan Developmental Psychology Program in 2010. Her research focuses on aging, specifically the psychosocial factors that impact informal caregivers. Dr. Waters has taught several courses for the Psychology Department but most recently Research Methods online.
Dr. Crowe is a licensed clinical psychologist with specialization in geropsychology and neuropsychology. His research is centered on cognitive and mental health during older adulthood, with an emphasis on modifiable risk and protective factors for cognitive decline and dementia. Dr. Crowe has led a number of investigations focused on cognitive aging outcomes in relation to factors such as leisure activity and environmental complexity, indicators of stress, quantity and quality of education, and ...
Born and raised in Ireland, Mike Sloane joined the department as an Assistant Professor in September 1982 having completed his doctoral work at the Cresap Neuroscience Laboratory of Northwestern University. He directed the Psychology Honors Program for over 12 years, served as Director of Undergraduate Studies, and was the first Vice Chair of the department. In the mid 1980s he launched the Psychology Club, facilitated the development of UAB's chapter of Psi Chi, and organized the annual Southea...
Dr. Walley serves as Managing Director of Strategic Consulting for Casey Family Programs, a multi-billion dollar private operating foundation based in Seattle whose mission is to safely reduce the need for foster care and help create communities of hope. In this role he works with state and community stakeholders to safely keep or return children to permanent, loving homes undergirded by supportive communities. Dr. Walley previously served as the Commissioner of the Alabama Department of Human R...
Dr. Kana has several years of experience in research in the field of autism spectrum disorders. After earning PhD from Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Delhi, India, he completed his postdoctoral training at Carnegie Mellon University. In 2001 he was awarded the William Fulbright pre-doctoral research fellow to do research at University of California Los Angeles. He joined UAB in 2007.
Dr. Kana is the director of the Cognition, Brain and Autism Laboratory at UAB, and the co-directo...
Born in a little hamlet in rural Canada, I have spent the majority of my life in the north. I completed a Bachelor’s degree in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada in 2000 under the supervision of Dr. Geoff Galef (environmental enrichment), a Master’s degree from Wilfrid Laurier University in Waterloo, Ontario, Canada under Dr. Linda Parker (THC and nausea, 2001) and a PhD from Concordia University in Montreal, Quebec, Canada in 2006 under Dr. Jane Stewart (heroin and cocaine addiction).
Continuin...
Dr. O’Kelley is the Director of the Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD) Clinic at UAB Civitan-Sparks Clinics; she is also involved in psychology and interdisciplinary clinical training as the UAB LEND training director. She currently serves as leader of a state work group focused on Developmental Screening and Surveillance for Autism Spectrum Disorders (Act Early Alabama state team). Her clinical interests include cognitive and diagnostic assessment, individual and group therapy approaches, and scho...
My research examines the interplay of risk and protective factors in the development of behavioral and emotional problems in adolescence, including antisocial behavior, substance use, depression and anxiety.
Most of my work has focused on the effects of violence exposure and peer influences in conjunction with other individual and contextual risk factors, such as pubertal timing, temperament, stress reactivity, parental practices, and broader influences of schools and neighborhoods.
Dr. Makous does research on the visual system, using mostly behavioral methods. He has been an editor of scientific journals and has been awarded the status of Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and of the Optical Society of America.
I am a Licensed Clinical Psychologist in the state of Alabama with speciality training in pediatric neuropsychology. My clinical and research work focuses on autism spectrum disorders, related rare genetic disorders and other neurodevelopmental disabilities. I am Director of the Civitan Autism and Neurodevelopment Research (CANDR) Core and Clinic through the Civitan International Research Center. I also provide clinical diagnostic services for young children with suspected autism through the Dev...
Powell earned both his Ph.D. in Neuroscience and M.D. with Honor at Baylor College of Medicine in 1994 and 1997 respectively. His graduate work was among the first to measure lasting biochemical changes during long-lasting synaptic plasticity in the hippocampus. After his medical internship year at Baylor College of Medicine, Dr. Powell trained at the University of California San Francisco Neurology Residency Program. In his final year, he was selected as Chief Resident at UCSF. From there, he r...
Dr. Cristin Gavin received her bachelor’s degrees (B.S. Biology, B.A. Philosophy) from Birmingham-Southern College. She received her Doctorate in Neuroscience from the University of Alabama at Birmingham, while training remotely at The Scripps Research Institute in Jupiter, FL. Her research interests have focused on understanding the synaptic mechanisms that mediate structural and functional changes during experience-dependent plasticity, and how these processes can contribute to cognition, as w...
Dr. David Vance is a Professor at the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) School of Nursing and psychologist actively pursuing research in positive and negative neuroplasticity, neurocognitive aging, neurocognitive remediation, aging with HIV, and more recently neurocognition in cancer survivors. With a passion for successful cognitive aging and for mentoring scientific leaders, Dr. Vance’s work has resulted in +350 publications (+280 peer-reviewed publications) including numerous book ch...
Dr. Frank Puga is an assistant professor in the Department of Acute, Chronic, and Continuing Care at the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) School of Nursing. He is a Hispanic scientist with a background in psychology, behavioral neuroscience, and aging health disparities. Dr. Puga received his Ph.D. in psychology with a concentration in behavioral neuroscience from the University of Texas at Austin. His research program focuses on the stress and mental health profiles of older adults liv...
My major research interest is the neurobiological regulation of reward-related memory systems in the brain and the role of these systems in drug addiction. My laboratory approaches this broad topic at diverse levels of analysis that integrate molecular, genetic, and epigenetic tools with techniques that probe the function of single neurons and entire neuronal circuits. My ultimate goal is to understand epigenetic regulation in normal and disease states, and to use tools that manipulate the epige...
I’m an ethicist and cognitive scientist (officially, Associate Professor of Philosophy) at the University of Alabama at Birmingham. After finishing my PhD in 2011 at beautiful UC Santa Barbara, I was fortunate to have taught for two years in a land down under at Monash University in Melbourne, Australia. When not reading, writing, or teaching, I like to get away from the computer and hike, climb, travel, play guitar, cook mostly vegetarian food, or spend time with my wonderful daughter.
Dr. Cropsey attended undergraduate and her masters degree at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. She attended Indiana State University in Terre Haute, Indiana for her doctoral training and completed internship in Clinical Psychology at Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond, Virginia. She completed postdoctoral fellowships in forensics and substance abuse at University of Mississippi Medical Center and Virginia Commonwealth University. She stayed on as faculty in the Department of Psychia...
I grew up in southern Illinois (about as far away from Chicago as you can be while remaining in the state). When I was growing up I was convinced that I was going to be a lawyer; however, as a junior in college I decided that I was more interested in philosophy than law. So, I added a philosophy major and decided to pursue a graduate education with the hopes of becoming a philosophy professor. I find many areas of philosophy to be extremely exciting and worthwhile, but my primary philosophical i...
Dr. Lucas Pozzo-Miller completed his university studies in Biology (1986) and earned his Doctorate in Biology (1989), both from the Universidad Nacional de Córdoba, Argentina. He trained as postdoctoral fellow at Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland OH (1990-1992), and at the former Roche Institute of Molecular Biology, Nutley NJ (1992-1995). Dr. Pozzo-Miller performed summer research at the Marine Biological Laboratory, Woods Hole MA (1994 Grass Foundation Fellow and 1995 Lakian Foundatio...
Dr. Waters completed her Ph.D. in the UAB Lifespan Developmental Psychology Program in 2010. Her research focuses on aging, specifically the psychosocial factors that impact informal caregivers. Dr. Waters has taught several courses for the Psychology Department but most recently Research Methods online.
Dr. Wiederman was a clinical psychology professor for 19 years, mostly at a women's college in Columbia SC, before transitioning to professional development as the Director of Professional Development at the University of South Carolina School of Medicine Greenville. He joined the UAB Department of Family and Community Medicine in May 2020 as Director of Leadership and Professional Development. Dr. Wiederman's interests include applying psychology for the betterment of peoples' health and well...
Undergraduate, AB degree, Cornell University, 1978, Biology.
Medical school, MD degree, Albany Medical College, 1982.
Residency, Neurology, New York University, 1986.
Research fellowship, Behavioral Neurology, University of Florida, 1987.
