Denise Esserman

Biostatistics: the pixie dust that makes research magic

Denise Esserman is a Research Assistant Professor of Biostatistics at UNC at the Gillings School of Global Public Health and at the Department of Medicine. She received her PhD in Biostatistics from Columbia University. She also earned an MS in Statistics from the University of Georgia and she majored in Chemistry and Math at the University of Virginia. She has taught undergraduates and graduate students, as well as fellow researchers. In her research, she has worked extensively with biostatisticians, epidemiologists, and clinical scholars applying statistical methods in many disciplines. Topics she has helped study include depression, high blood pressure, autism, psychosocial stress, race, age, and in vitro fertilization. Her focus for her dissertation was statistical models called frailty models as they relate to quality of life and cancer. She came on PsychTalk to talk a bit about her life, her research and her teaching, and along the way we touched on some profound concepts in statistics.

Felipe De Brigard

Memory, consciousness, and free will

Dr. Felipe De Brigard recently received his PhD in philosophy from UNC Chapel Hill, where he also conducted research at the Cognitive Neuroscience of Memory Lab of Dr. Kelly Giovanello. He is starting postdoctorate work at the Schacter Memory Lab at Harvard, so we were lucky on PsychTalk to catch him before he left.  Dr. De Brigard received his BA in Philosophy at the National University of Colombia and he has MAs in philosophy from Tufts Univeristy and UNC Chapel Hill. He works in philosophy of mind with an emphasis in cognitive psychology and neuroscience. His research focuses on the nature of memory and its relations to other cognitive faculties, in particular perception, imagination, attention and consciousness. He is also interested in philosophy of neuroscience. He has cowritten a Spanish book entitled “Clinical and Cognitive Neuropsychology” (Neuropsicología Clínica y Cognoscitiva). His research papers, book chapters, and commentaries in English and Spanish have appeared in many publications, including the Journal of Consciousness Studies and the journal Philosophical Psychology.

Katie Kelm and Vicki Chanon

Addiction research at the Cognition and Addiction Biopsychology Lab

Katie Kelm graduated from Purdue University majoring in Pharmaceutical Sciences and went on to earn her Ph.D in Pharmacology at UNC Chapel Hill. For her dissertation project, she used in vitro electrophysiology techniques in rodents, which fostered her appreciation for what can be learned from recording neural activity in the brain. Her research interests at CABlab are centered on investigating why individuals suffering from addiction show more “immediate reward bias.” Her work has been published in the Journal of Pharmacology and Experimental Therapeutics as well as in the journal Neuropharmacology. Katie has won various awards for her work, including a research recognition award from the RSA and a fellowship from the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism.

Vicki Chanon got her Ph.D in Psychology from UNC Chapel Hill after graduating from University of Delaware with a BA in Psychology. Her graduate work with Dr. Joseph Hopfinger explored the role of familiar stimuli in attentional allocation, which led her to take an interest in the cognitive factors related to addiction. In her work at CABLAB, she hopes to illuminate the neurobiological mechanisms associated with attentional biases related to addiction. Her most recent publication in the journal Psychopharmacology was about how active smokers are drawn to cigarette cues. Just last year she received a prestigious fellowship from the National Institute on Drug Abuse.

Phaedra Boinodiris

Serious games

Phaedra Boinodiris is an entrepreneur with an MBA from UNC Chapel Hill who produces serious games–video games that help people solve complex business and social problems. She currently manages IBM’s serious games strategy for the Public Sector, including Government, Military, Healthcare, and Education. The International Game Developers Association recognized her as one of the top 100 women in the gaming industry for her work founding WomenGamers.com. Her games include INNOV8, a series of games teaching business process management, and CityOne, a city simulation targeting real-world logistical, environmental and business problems. She has spoken at numerous conferences worldwide including the DARPA Innovation Summit, GDC, E3, Digital Hollywood, European Serious Games Summit, Triangle Game Conference and SIEGECON.

David Rademacher

Buddhism and psychotherapy

David Rademacher is a professional psychological counselor who has spent the last 12 years of his 20-year practice serving Chapel Hill and Pittsboro. He has practiced Buddhism for about five years at the Kosala Buddhist Center, where he teaches courses on meditation. David received his undergraduate degree at Bowdoin College and a Masters in Counseling Psychology from the California Institute of Integral Studies. His approach to therapy is rooted in psycho-dynamic psychotherapy, cognitive psychology, and Buddhist studies. With a background in cultural anthropology and philosophy, David seeks to understand how an individual’s personal history, social context, and spiritual orientation interact. He has special expertise in trauma and abuse recovery, as well as training in hypnosis, solution-focused therapy, family therapy, and addictions counseling. He has kindly joined us today to share his perspective on the intersections of psychology, Buddhism, and counseling.