Two Psychology Graduate Students Selected to attend Neuropsychology Institute

Morgantown, WV, April 24, 2006: Salvatore P. Insana and Rebecca Widoe, graduate students in the Department of Psychology of the Eberly College of Arts and Sciences at West Virginia University, have been selected to attend the 2006 Vivian Smith Summer Institute of the International Neuropsychological Society. The Institute’s theme this year is “Neuropsychology across the Lifespan.”

Each year up to 75 doctoral students are selected to attend the Institute, which will be held in Xylocastro, Greece from June 19 to July 14 this year. The purpose of the Institute is to bring together future and current leaders from around the world in the fields of cognitive neuroscience and clinical neuropsychology, to promote dissemination of knowledge in these fields, and to promote the in-depth study of fundamental questions in these fields and seek solutions under conditions that optimize such academic pursuits. “I am ecstatic to be awarded this international fellowship; I look forward to studying neurosciences in this exotic part of the world, and I feel privileged to be a representative of West Virginia University,” said Insana.

Salvatore P. Insana is a first year graduate student in the Life-Span Developmental Psychology program under faculty advisor Dr. Hawley Montgomery-Downs. His general area of focus is the neurological components of sleep and cognition. He is currently working on his thesis, which is a project that will assess the validity of an ingestible capsule that measures core body temperature. This device will ultimately be used to measure physiological activity during sleep.

Insana, originally from Washington, PA, received his BA in Psychology from WVU in 2003, and acquired graduate training from Georgia Southern University before returning to WVU.

Rebecca K. Widoe, originally from Nebraska City, NE, received her BA in Psychology from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln in 2004.

“I am very excited and honored to attend the Institute. The courses are taught by the premier researchers in the neuropsychology field and it will be a wonderful learning experience,” said Widoe.

Widoe is a second-year graduate student in the Clinical Program with primary research interests in health psychology and geropsychology. Currently she is conducting her Master's thesis research, which focuses on the application of a transtheoretical model of behavior change to the management of childbirth pain, under the mentorship of Dr. Daniel McNeil.

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