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In May, New York State Medicare updated its services to include sex reassignment surgery for diagnosed cases of gender dysphoria, the medical term for individuals suffering from a discrepancy between their birth sex and mental gender. Although civil rights for the LGBT community are more permissive than they ever have been, much reform is still needed for this community to experience equality. Kate Cieplicki ’16, a psychology and women’s studies double major, is working in Philadelphia this summer to advance support services for LGBT individuals.

Abigail Keim ’15, with support from the Dan Fielding ’07 Fund, is applying her interest in psychology by interning at the Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence this summer. The Center for Emotional Intelligence is a research laboratory at Yale University that examines, as Keim put it, “the extent to which emotional intelligence currently affects people’s actions, experiences, and relationships.”

Although some job seekers complain about having to complete lengthy applications and of delayed responses from employers, finding the right person for an available position is an involved process. This summer, Rachel Hirsch ’15, a psychology major and mathematics minor, is working as a recruiting intern with the Human Resources department at the Warner Music Group (WMG) in New York City. She found the internship online and received support through the Career Center from the Joseph F. Anderson ’44 internship fund.

Courtney Hobgood ’15 and Josh DeVinney ’15 are spending the summer researching ADHD symptomatology (the set of characteristics associated with ADHD) under the direction of Associate Professor of Psychology Tara McKee. Their research focuses on college students, using data collected by Professor McKee and Hamilton College.

The New England Center for Children (NECC), a school for children diagnosed with autism, has a long-standing close relationship with Hamilton College.  NECC was founded by Hamilton alumnus, Vincent Strully Jr. ’69, who serves as chief executive officer. Each semester, students interested in education and psychology work and take courses there as part of Hamilton’s cooperative education program, managed by James L. Ferguson Professor of Psychology Jonathan Vaughan.  Rosmery Rodriguez ’15 is interning as a full-time teacher with the Center’s students this summer.

Isaac Handley-Miner ’14 is combining his interests in education and psychology through an internship this summer with the Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence. With funding from the Joseph F. Anderson ’44 Internship Fund, he is studying the applications of emotional intelligence and gaining valuable laboratory experience.

Research has found that it’s more startling to hear a single loud sound than a soft sound followed by a loud sound. This neurological phenomenon is called pre-pulse inhibition and exists so that the body can adapt to loud stimuli when it is supplied with a warning. Allison Reeder ’14 has been awarded a science summer research grant to study pre-pulse inhibition in rats under the direction of Stone Professor of Psychology Douglas Weldon.

Over the past several decades, psychologists have placed a growing level of importance on bringing up children with high self-esteem, but according to the research of Beril Esen ’13, Susannah Parkin ’13 and Jose Mendez ’14, a person’s level of self-esteem is not always what it appears to be.

Pharmaceutical research is usually dominated by corporations and large research universities, but student researchers Hallie Brown ’13, Summer Bottini ’14, Scott Pillette ’14 and Liza Gergenti ’14 are conducting preliminary animal trials on the psychoactive drug Quinpirole as Hamilton undergraduates. They’re studying Quinpirole’s effect on contrafreeloading under the direction of Visiting Assistant Professor of Psychology Michael Frederick.

The ability to pick up an object without knocking it over is something that most people take for granted, but Emma Geduldig ’13, Sarah Andrews ’14 and John Wildman ’15 are more inquisitive when it comes to movement and motor control. Why, they ask, do we move to pick up a coffee cup from the side as opposed to the front? Such simple questions on human motion have yet to be entirely answered, and these researchers hope to shed more light on this seldom- researched subject.