Psychology in Your Life

Sarah Grison (Ph.D., University of Wales, Bangor) is a professor of psychology at Parkland College and the coordinator for the Center for Excellence in Teaching and Learning. Sarah teaches introductory psychology in both face to face and online formats every term as well as classes in human sexuality, child development, and adolescent development. In addition, Sarah enjoys the challenge of teaching student success classes. As a researcher, Sarah uses psychology research as the basis of her own empirical classroom studies to examine students’ performance and learning across experimentally manipulated pedagogical interventions. Sarah also puts her expertise into practice as a faculty affiliate for the Center for Excellence in Teaching and Learning, where she creates professional development programs for faculty and staff and helps design and report on program assessments, all of which are aimed at helping students have excellent educational experiences. Sarah is a certified Teacher-Scholar who was recognized each year on the University of Illinois List of Excellent Teachers. She has won the University of Illinois Provost’s Initiative for Teaching Advancement Award and the Association for Psychological Science Award for Teaching & Public Understanding of Psychological Science. She is a member of the American Psychological Association, the Society for Teaching of Psychology, Association for Psychological Science, the International Mind, Brain, and Education Society, and the American Educational Research Association. Michael Gazzaniga is the director of the SAGE Center for the Study of Mind at the University of California, Santa Barbara. He received his PhD from the California Institute of Technology, where he worked with Roger Sperry and had primary responsibility for initiating human split-brain research. He has established Centers for Cognitive Neuroscience at Cornell Medical School; the University of California, Davis; and Dartmouth College. He is founder of the Cognitive Neuroscience Institute and founding editor of the Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience. He was a member of the President's Council on Bioethics from 2001 to 2009. He is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Science, the Institute of Medicine, and the National Academy of Sciences.