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Meet Dr. Carolyn R. Fallahi
Professor and Chair of the Department of Psychological Science.
Dear Students,
Please tell all of your fellow classmates that the department is now on Facebook and Twitter! Please follow us! I am the new chair in the department and thrilled to be working with such interesting and talented students. I am also the faculty liaison to the Student Disability Services and am active in fundraising for student scholarships as well. My background is in Counseling Psychology and I have worked extensively with children, adolescents, adults, and their families. At CCSU, I teach a graduate level course, Introduction to Clinical Psychology. I also teach Lifespan Development and the Psychology of the Exceptional Child. My research interests include alcohol use in college students, the effects of vicarious exposure to trauma, attachment problems, and the scholarship of teaching. I am currently working on a book on parenting. I am about to celebrate my 30th wedding anniversary and am married to Dr. Hamid Fallahi, a statistician. I have 3 grown children and love it when we are all home hanging out together! I have a cat named Patches (RAD kitty) and a new kitten named Katniss. Life is good in my 50s! Stop on by and check out the Department of Psychological Science!
Meet Dr. Rebecca Boncoddo
Dr. Rebecca Boncoddo completed her M.A. in School Psychology from Tufts University in 2005 and her Ph.D. in Developmental Psychology at the University of Connecticut in 2011. Her research focuses broadly on cognitive development. Specifically, her work looks at how students of all ages can use actions and gestures to learn mathematics concepts. She has worked with preschoolers just learning how to count all the way to undergraduates learning geometric reasoning. She is just getting her lab started at CCSU and would love to hear from Psychological Science majors that might be interested in doing research related to active ways students can learn math. Beyond research, Dr. Boncoddo teaches Introduction to Psychology, Lifespan Development and Learning & Memory. Outside of CCSU she spends most of her time with her family including her husband Rob and their three children Jimmy (5-years-old), Jack (2-years-old) and Josephine (4-months-old).
Information brought to you by: https://www.facebook.com/CCSUPsychologicalScience
Meet Dr. Steven Horowitz
I have been on the CCSU Psychological Science faculty for 23 years. My education (as is common) has taken me too many different places including northern Virginia, St. Petersburg, FL, Blacksburg, VA, Ann Arbor, MI, Salt Lake City, UT, and Bethesda, MD. So, don’t be surprised if I attempt to disabuse you of the notion that you have to make your graduate school decision based on trying to stay in a particular part of the country. I have taught research methods, learning and memory, sensation and perception, exploring psychology, psychology and the law, and history and systems. Dr. Waite and I are currently examining the psychophysiology of first-person shooter video gaming. My office and laboratory are in Barnard. I live in New Britain with my wife (a licensed clinical social worker) and (occasionally) two adult children, our dog Tesla, Dragon the cat, and a fish with no name.
Meet Dr. Marianne Fallon
Dr. Fallon has moved many times throughout her life. She grew up in Bayonne, New Jersey; completed her undergraduate degree at Bucknell University in Pennsylvania; she moved to Toronto, Ontario to pursue doctoral studies at the University of Toronto; she then found herself in Waltham, Massachusetts conducting postdoctoral research at Brandeis University; and is now living in Connecticut.
Just as Dr. Fallon has moved around a lot geographically, she has also studied a lot of different things. Broadly stated, she investigates perceptual and cognitive processes across the lifespan. She has done research in speech perception, language processing, music cognition, statistical learning, and memory, among other things. She has worked with kids as young as three to adults in their 80s. Right now, she is working on many projects with students. Here’s a sampling: We’ve examined whether people who see images moving up actually feel better about themselves. We’ve studied whether reading literary fiction affects how students perform on a seemingly straightforward visual perception task. We’ve investigated whether students learn APA style and format more effectively from dynamic video tutorials or from the APA Manual.
Dr. Fallon often teaches Research Methods I and II (PSY221, PSY222). She says that she enjoys helping students
design and implement their research projects and pushing them to take their project to the highest level they can. Many of her students have presented their PSY 222 projects at local or regional conferences and some have published or are in the process of publishing their work. Dr. Fallon also teaches Learning and Memory (PSY200), which she says “is like eating cake if you’re a cognitive psychologist.” She also coordinates the peer tutoring program (PSY225).
Fun facts: “I love playing basketball. I met my husband in a choir and we still sing together in two choirs. I have three daughters whose personalities are best represented by this year’s Halloween costumes: the goddess, the ninja, and the princess. I started piano lessons last January because I always wanted to and never did (until now).”
Meet Dr. Nghi Thai
I received my B.A. at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln with a major in psychology and double minor in math and women’s study. After obtaining my B.A., I worked for a year and a half before going to graduate school. I chose the University of Hawaii to earn my Ph.D. in Community and Cultural Psychology, and I also obtained a certificate in Urban and Regional Planning during that time due to the multidisciplinary emphasis of the doctoral program. After Hawaii, I moved to New Haven, CT to complete my postdoctoral training at The Consultation Center, Division of Prevention and Community Research, Yale University.
Why did I initially want to teach? It was actually to get over my fear of speaking in public. I often tell this to students in my classes to show them that if public speaking is something they struggle with,
there is a way to overcome it – practice, practice, practice! Why did I continue with teaching? Because I believe it is one of the most important jobs out there and there is nothing I enjoy more then being able to inspire and educate others about topics that I love (e.g., intergroup relations, community psychology, prevention/ community-based research, etc.).
My experience at CCSU has been beyond wonderful because of the people. The students at CCSU are very diverse and I think I have learned as much from them as they have from me. My colleagues are a great group; they are supportive and fun! As an institution, I am impressed with CCSU’s commitment to diversity and community engagement – two of my passions.
My experience collaborating with various community organizations in New Britain for my research has also enriched my time at CCSU. My main area of research focuses on factors that contribute to after school and summer school engagement for high-risk children and youth. I am collaborating with the Coalition for New Britain’s Youth and the New Britain school district to evaluate several of their programs. With this collaboration, I have taken on several roles and different responsibilities as a way to give back to the community. As a community psychologist, I feel very fortunate to work with such committed and passionate people in New Britain.
Something students would not know about me:
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My family came to the United States as refugees and I am the first person in my family to go to college.
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I’ve gone to school, lived, and worked in many places but Connecticut is definitely my favorite.
Meet Dr. Joanne DiPlacido
Dr. DiPlacido received a Bachelor of Arts Degree in Psychology and a Masters and Ph.D. in Personality Psychology from Boston University. Her interest in Health Psychology developed in graduate school while occupying a research assistant role at Harvard Medical School. There, she worked on a longitudinal research study investigating the coping processes of families with a child with Type 1 diabetes. “I knew during this experience that I wanted to pursue further education in Health Psychology.” Once Dr. DiPlacido graduated with her doctorate, she continued her education with a postdoctoral fellowship in Health Psychology at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York City, where she received advanced training in theory and research. During her postdoc she focused her research on sexual minority stress and health among lesbian and bisexual women. In addition, Dr. DiPlacido also worked as a research associate at Memorial Sloan Kettering Hospital studying psychosocial predictors of cancer screening.
Dr. DiPlacido’s interest in teaching started in graduate school when she received a teaching fellowship where she was responsible for leading discussion sections for personality psychology classes. This experience working with students as an adjunct instructor solidified her desire to teach. Dr. DiPlacido’s first academic position was as a visiting assistant professor at Haverford College.
Dr. DiPlacido started teaching at CCSU in August of 1997. Some of the classes she has taught include undergraduate courses in introductory psychology and personality psychology. DiPlacido is credited with creating the health psychology course at CCSU, and has directed the development of the MA specialization in Health Psychology at the graduate level. She has also created courses for health psychology, psychology of stress, and psychology of women’s health. Dr. DiPlacido continues to advise many health psychology graduate students and supervise many MA theses, as well as oversee undergraduate and graduate internships.
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“As an educator it is important to me to be enthusiastic and passionate in my teaching. When I step into a classroom I want my students to know that I love being there, that I love psychology. I encourage students to critically think, ask questions and share their thoughts and experiences. I don’t want students to just memorize material, I want them to understand and apply it to their own lives.”
– Dr. Joanne DiPlacido