Lab News | batastinipsychlab

BATLAB NEWS

2023

The biggest congrats to Meera Patel, Sarah Pringer, Ashley Jones, and Riley Davis! All four graduated with their Ph.D. Way to go, doctors!
Way to go Alyssa Hoyt, Jade Horton, Brittany Young, Tom Eddy, and Kaylee Cook for passing their oral comprehensive exams!
Congratulations and welcome to the newest members of the BatLab, Ruby Boisclair, Sarah Hitchcock, and Maddie Cardellio!
Both of our students applying for internship matched! Congrats Madison Lord and Colin Smith!
Congrats to Sarah Pringer and Meera Patel for passing their dissertation defenses!
Alyssa Hoyt, Jade Horton, Kaylee Cook, and Ivys Morales will be representing the Bat Lab at the 5th North American Correctional Criminal Justice Psychology Conference!
The biggest congratulations to Dr. Ashley Batastini for receiving the Outstanding Teaching and Mentoring in the Field of Psychology and Law award! She will be recognized at the 2023 AP-LS conference. We are so appreciative of her knowledge and mentorship!
Way to go Sarah Pringer! She was selected to serve on the Bureau of Justice Statistics advisory panel examining correctional officers stressors and suicide.
Catch Jade Horton, Alyssa Hoyt, Madison Lord, Sarah Pringer, and Ashley Jones representing the Bat Lab at AP-LS 2023!

2022

Wishing Dr. Michael Lester, Ph.D. the best on his adventures as a psychologist! Congrats on graduating!!
Congratulations to Madison Lord and Colin Smith for successfully proposing their dissertations!
Huge congratulations to Meera Patel, who was selected to serve as the student member of the Division 18 Correctional Psychology Training Recommendations Taskforce! This will be a big advancement for the field!
Two lab members were honored by the Criminal Justice Section of APA's Division 18 (Psychologists in Public Service). Ashley Jones received the Outstanding Student Award and Riley Davis received the Outstanding Dissertation award! Both were recognized at the 2022 APA Convention.
Congratulations to Sarah Pringer on being invited to join the HEROES team as a certified trainer. Sarah will be able to train correctional offices to be more proactive bystanders.
Thanks to our very own Alyssa Hoyt, and several other BatLab members, the Interdisciplinary Criminal Justice Coalition (ICJC) is officially a university recognized organization! The ICJC is intended to bring students from across related disciplines to increase attention to issues impacting justice-involved people in the greater Memphis community.
Congrats to Madison Lord and Colin Smith for passing their oral comprehensive exams!
Thank you Jade Horton, Alyssa Hoyt, and Brittany Young for their help in getting the lab the College of Education Faculty Research Grant to support our project on rural mental health!
A huge congratulations and welcome to the new BatLab members (and U of M doctoral students), Mary Dillon and Ivys Morales!
Congrats to Riley Davis for successfully defending her dissertation!
Congratulations to Meera Patel, who received the Outstanding Graduate Student in Counseling Psychology Award!
Way to go Madison Lord! She was awarded a travel grant to attend the AP-LS conference.
Congrats to Ashley Jones, who was awarded a grant from the Professional Development of Women Committee to support her and her child while attending AP-LS!
MAJOR congratulations to our mentor, Dr. Ashley Batastini for her hard work being recognized! She was awarded the AP-LS/AAFP Saleem Shah award! This is awarded to early career professionals who make significant research contributions to the field of forensic psychology.
Congratulations to Ashley Jones, who got her dissertation accepted for publication in Criminal Justice and Behavior!
Congrats Madison Lord, Meera Patel, and Sarah Pringer (and their co-investigators), who all received grants from AP-LS for their studies! Madison and Meera were awarded Grants-in-Aid and Sarah was awarded a research grant from the BRIDGE (Broadening Representation, Inclusion, Diversity, and Global Equity) Committee. Way to go!
We had a record number of students attend and present at AP-LS! We are so proud of Riley Davis, Ashley Jones, Madison Lord, Jade Horton, Meera Patel, and Kaylee Cook, and Dr. Ashley Batastini for their contributions to the field and well representation of the lab!
Congratulations to all of our students who applied for internships! All four matched! Way to go Meera Patel, Sarah Pringer, Riley Davis, and Ashley Jones!

2021

Congratulations to Sarah Pringer, who successfully proposed her dissertation!
Meera Patel successfully proposed her dissertation! Congratulations!
Congrats to Madison Lord, who is the APA Division 41 campus representative for the University of Memphis!
Congratulations to Jade Horton, Kaylee Cook, and Ashley Jones! They were elected to be the Social Media Chair, Outreach Liaison Coordinator, and Student Committee Chair-elect, respectively, for the APA Division 18 Criminal Justice Section Student Committee.
Congrats to Colin Smith, who presented at the 2021 APA convention! His poster was about patient sexuality in inpatient and residential psychiatric treatment settings.
Welcome and congrats to our newest doctoral students, Alyssa Hoyt and Tom Eddy!
Congratulations to Ashley Jones, who was awarded a $500 caregiver grant by APLS!
Huge congratulations to Ashley Jones, who successfully defended her dissertation!
Congrats Madison Lord and Ashley Jones! They were awarded an AP-LS Grant in Aid for their study about attorney questioning and its influence on the credibility of forensic evaluations conducted via videoconference.
Michael Lester is heading to the VA Medical Center in Biloxi, Mississippi for his pre-doctoral internship! Congratulations Michael!!
Congratulations to Meera Patel, who was selected to serve as a Fellow for the 2021 virtual Society of Clinical Child and Adolescent Psychology Leadership Education to Advance Diversity Institute!
Congratulations to Ashley Jones and Meera Patel, who are presenting a poster at the American Psychology-Law Society Student Committee Poster Session in March!

2020

Riley Davis successfully passed her dissertation proposal!
Another congrats to Meera, who was awarded a Graduate Student Association President Service Award!
Congratulations to Meera Patel, who was awarded a scholarship to attend the virtual National Conference on Correctional Healthcare!
Michael Lester successfully passed his dissertation proposal!
Congratulations once more to Ashley Jones, who was selected for a $2,000 research scholarship from the American Psychological Foundation. We're so proud!
Congratulations again to Ashley Jones on receiving funding from the American Board of Forensic Psychology to support the completion of her dissertation!
Congratulations to Ashley Jones, who received a $250 award for travel to the APA convention this summer. The award was sponsored by the Criminal Justice Section of Division 18!
Alexandra Repke successfully defended her dissertation on gender-related biases against female expert witnesses and is headed to her top choice pre-doctoral internship this summer at the Mississippi State Hospital!!
Riley Davis successfully passed her thesis defense! Her project examined racial biases in violence risk assessment.
Welcome and congratulations to our newest doctoral students, Jade Horton and Kaylee Cook!
Michael Lester's thesis project was recently accepted for publication in Criminal Justice & Behavior!
Another congrats to Ashley Jones who had her 3-minute research presentation accepted to the American Psychological Association's competition! Her submission was one of only 8 selected.
Ashley Jones received an honorable mention for her proposal to the APAGS Science Committee's 2020 Psychological Science Research Grant. Her proposal was rated within the top 10% of submissions!

2019

Congratulations to Alexandra Repke, who won $850 to cover the cost of her dissertation through the Peggy Jean Connor Research Award given by the Committee on Services and Resources for Women at USM!
Congratulations to Olivia Miller for being awarded $700 to support an independent research project through the Psi Chi Graduate Research Grant!
Congratulations to Ashley Jones, who won $750 for her presentation in the 3-minute thesis competition and received the People's Choice award!
Congratulations to Olivia Miller for being nominated by CPY faculty for the USM Graduate School Hall of Fame!
Ashley Jones was selected to be the campus representative for Division 17 and Ashley Bozeman as one of the student representatives for the CJ Section of Division 18.
Alexandra successfully proposed her dissertation project examining factors impacting source credibility of female expert witnesses!
Riley Davis successfully proposed her thesis project looking at racial biases in violence risk assessment!
Congratulations to Shaday Williams, who accepted a position in the Forensic Psychology master's program at the University of Denver for Fall 2019!
The BatLab is excited to welcome Dr. Stan Brodsky, Professor Emeritus at the University of Alabama (and honorary BatLab member) to campus on April 11-12th. Dr. Brodsky's colloquium is co-sponsored by the School of Psychology and Pine Grove Behavioral Health and Addiction Services.
The BatLab received an Aubrey Keith Lucas and Ella Ginn Lucas Endowment for Faculty Excellence award to continue our work on assessing barriers to employment for community released offenders.
Congratulations to Madison Pike for successfully completing her honors thesis!
Congratulations to BatLab alum and former Master's student, Lauren Coaker, who accepted a position in the Counseling Psychology Ph.D. program at the University of Georgia for Fall 2019!
Welcome and congratulations to our newest doctoral student, Rheanna Standridge! Rheanna is coming to us from the University of Florida.
Riley Davis and Ashley Jones both presented excellent talks as part of a symposium on applications of technology in Psychology-Law contexts at the AP-LS convention in Portland!
Congratulations to Madison Pike on her recent acceptance into the Osteopathic Medicine program at William Carey University!
The BatLab received an addition $10,000 to help build our e-therapy app for community released offenders!
The BatLab is excited to announce our new partnership with the Center for Telehealth at the University of Mississippi Medical Center! This partnership will allow us to help provide mental health services to rural jail populations across the state. We're proud to be part of this innovative initiative and are grateful for the over $100,000 in extramural funds we received through the Health Resources & Services Administration.

2018

Congratulations to Riley Davis and Ashley Jones who were both selected for a competitive travel grant from The Graduate School to attend the 2019 AP-LS convention in Portland, OR!
The BatLab was awarded $15,000 to help develop an e-therapy app for community released offenders!
Welcome and congratulations to our new master's students, Ashley Bozeman and Olivia Miller!
Madison Pike successfully presented her honors thesis project as a paper talk at the USM Undergraduate Research Symposium!
Lauren Coaker presented an awesome paper talk at the AP-LS convention in Memphis on risk communication in sex offense cases!
Welcome and congratulations to our new doctoral students, Ashley Jones and Michael Lester!

2017

Congratulations to Michael Lester who was selected for a competitive travel award to attend the 2017 APA convention in Washington, D.C.! He presented a poster on legal professional's opinions of defendants with mental illnesses.
Congratulations to Lauren Coaker on being awarded the John Alcorn Scholarship for students in counseling psychology!