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Dean of Faculty Ngoni Munemo recognized 10 faculty members with Dean’s Scholarly Achievement Awards in three categories — career achievement, early career achievement, and notable year — at the May 2 faculty meeting. These awards recognize individual accomplishment and reflect a richness and depth of scholarship and creative activity across the faculty.

Associate Professor of Psychology Rachel White and Kate Bruno ’23 recently presented a poster at the Society for Research in Child Development conference in Salt Lake City.

Hamilton students take on unique projects that reflect their talents and interests. In many cases, they collaborate with faculty mentors on this work, which often leads to co-authored papers, joint presentations at professional conferences, and professors mentoring students during academic competitions. Check out what some of our students have been up to recently.

Assistant Professor Psychology Keelah Williams published a sole-authored article, “Stereotypes of criminality in the U.S. track ecology, not race,” in Evolution and Human Behavior.

Ten Hamilton faculty members were approved for tenure by the College’s Board of Trustees at its March meeting. They include Ryan Carter (music), Jose Ceniceros (mathematics), Alexsia Chan (government), Justin Clark (philosophy), Matt Grace (sociology), Tom Helmuth ‘09 (computer science), Natalie Nannas (biology), Colin Quinn (anthropology), Anne Valente (literature and creative writing), and Keelah Williams (psychology).

Assistant Professor of Psychology Keelah Williams co-authored a paper “Sometimes we want vicious friends: People have nuanced preferences for how they want their friends to behave toward them versus others” that was published in Evolution and Human Behavior in February.

George Gescheider, professor of psychology emeritus who taught on College Hill for 42 years, died on June 19, 2022. His memory was honored earlier this month at a Hamilton faculty meeting.

Trigger Warning: This article references a case of sexual assault. Please engage in self-care as you read it. In 2015, Stanford University swimmer Brock Turner sexually assaulted an unconscious woman. He received six months in prison. Visiting Assistant Professor of Psychology Rebecca Dyer remembers the public trial, especially the use of his good character as defense. Inspired by this case and her previous work on moral character, Dyer decided to study the interaction between blame and moral character with three students this summer.

“A lot of the research I do on self-control is focused on the preschool age range,” White said. “If we are going to create interventions to build children’s skills, we want to do it while the prefrontal cortex is developing the most.”

Assistant Professor of Psychology Keelah Williams was recently interviewed for an episode of the podcast Ten Percent Happier. The episode, titled “Jealousy: Friends & Lovers,” is part of a series on feelings.