From Our Students
Many of our graduates have gone on to successful careers in education, counseling, business, government, and other vocations. We are very proud of our alumni and the contributions they are making in their respective communities. On this page, we post occasional updates on our alumni and current students.
Chris Pierce
Chris Pierce graduated from UNC as an undergraduate psychology major in 1996. From Colorado, he went to the University of Alaska, Anchorage where he completed a Master’s Degree in Clinical Psychology. After deciding to pursue a career as a neuropsychologist, he completed his Ph.D. in Medical Psychology from the University of Alabama at Birmingham. As part of his doctoral training, he secured a very competitive placement in the neuropsychology track of the Clinical Psychology internship program at the University of Washington School of Medicine. He completed his training with a two-year post-doctoral residency in Neuropsychology and Rehabilitation Psychology at the Rehabilitation Institute of Michigan.
Following his training, he was able to return to Colorado when he joined a private neuropsychology practice in Boulder. After three years at that practice, Dr. Pierce decided he wanted to return to his academic roots and work in a setting in which he provided evaluation and treatment to more severely impaired patients and had a greater opportunity to conduct research and be involved in teaching and training. To that end, Dr. Pierce has been the neuropsychologist at Denver Health Medical Center since 2005 and is an Assistant Professor in the University of Colorado School of Medicine. He has various research projects ongoing with students and faculty. His teaching duties include supervision of psychology interns in neuropsychological assessment and externship/practicum training in neuropsychology for graduate students of UNC and other local universities.
Joseph Hamm
Joseph Hamm will graduate from the University of Northern Colorado in the spring semester of 2008 with a Psychology major and a Criminal Justice minor. Joe’s interests in psychology and law started early in his undergraduate career when he was accepted into the Ronald E. McNair Scholars Program. The McNair program prepares students for future graduate study by connecting exceptional students to faculty members for collaborative original research. Joe worked with Dr. Woody, an Associate Professor in the School of Psychological Sciences, to study jury decision making in cases involving juveniles tried as adults. At UNC, Joe successfully presented his project at the UNC Student Research day and earned the top University of Northern Colorado McNair Scholars award for 2006. Additionally, Joe’s description of his collaborative work with Dr. Woody will be published alongside Dr. Woody’s account of working with Joe in the e-book, Promoting the Undergraduate Research Experience in Psychology.
Rather than pause in his successful undergraduate research career at this point, Joe extended his McNair project with another study with Dr. Woody that he presented as a work-in-progress at the 2007 Rocky Mountain Psychological Association Convention. The final version of this work was accepted via peer-review at the national 2008 American Psychology-Law Society conference. Joe’s success at UNC inspired him to seek additional opportunities in psychology and the law, and he was selected from a highly competitive national field of applicants for the intensive one-year undergraduate research experience in psychology and law at the University of Nebraska – Lincoln. He is in the process of applying to doctoral research programs in psychology and law, and so far he has one acceptance and several upcoming interviews. Joe faces the difficult decision of choosing between select universities for his doctoral studies, and his class, service, and research experiences at UNC will help him continue his success in graduate school.
Lindsay Brubaker
Lindsay Brubaker graduated Summa Cum Laude from UNC in 2005. She was a psychology major and Honors student who was voted by the faculty as Department Scholar in both her junior and senior years. Lindsay’s honors thesis was an empirical study of inhibitory control and social problem solving in 3-5-year-old children. She presented this research her senior year at the Rocky Mountain Psychological Association conference. Although a dedicated student, Lindsay found time to volunteer for the Autism Society of Colorado, serve as an officer for UNC’s chapter of Psi Chi (the national honor society for psychology students), and make it to the mountains several times a year to snow board.
In the fall of 2007 Lindsay started graduate school in the Clinical/Developmental Joint Psychology Ph.D. program at the University of Missouri in Columbia. Her research is focused on cognitive functioning in children and adolescents with autism. Working with the Thompson Center for Autism and Neurodevelopmental Disorders, Lindsay is currently running a study measuring cognitive functioning from a behavioral standpoint and hopes to compare her findings with fMRI data from the University’s Brain Imaging Center. Along with her research interests, Lindsay would like to pursue assessment and intervention training at the Thompson Center.
Vanessa Ewing
Vanessa Ewing is a graduate (2002) of our Educational Psychology Ph.D. program. She is currently serving as the principal of Broomfield Academy – an innovative private school for elementary age students. Formerly Meritor Academy, the school was in danger of being shut down due to a sponsoring company cutting ties for business reasons. Dr. Ewing and a group of parents organized an independent investment group (Academic Achievement Group, LLC) to keep the school open. For more information, visit Broomfield Enterprise.