*Dr. Li-Jen Kuo*, Assistant Professor of Educational Psychology, has been named a 2008-10 *National Academy of Education/Spencer Postdoctoral Fellow*. The fellowship is administered by the National Academy of Education, an honorary educational society and is funded by a grant from the Spencer Foundation. The fellowship is one of the most prestigious sources of support for education research, nationally or internationally, for recent recipients of the doctorate.
With this fellowship, Dr. Kuo will conduct a research project that investigates the similarities and differences in language and literacy development between monolingual children and bilingual children. The project will involve English-speaking monolinguals, Spanish-English bilinguals, and Chinese-English bilinguals. Graduate and undergraduate students who are interested in the project should contact Dr. Kuo at lijenkuo@niu.edu for research assistantship opportunities.
Dr. M. Cecil Smith, Professor of Educational Psychology, is working on an NSF-funded project focused on professional development for middle-school science teachers, co-sponsored by the Geology Department.
Smith is also working on 3 other grant-supported math and science programs with the departments of Biology, Engineering, and Mathematics.
Dr. Stephen Tonks and Dr. M. Cecil Smith are planning a college-wide survey of student writing assignmentsand faculty strategies to support student writing. The long-range goal is to strengthen students' written communication skills and enhance teaching strategies that promote them.
Dr. Thomas Roberts, Professor Emeritus of Educational Psychology, is sponsoring 4 sections for rising researchers in the World Psychedelic forum in Basel, Switzerland in March. Psychedelic Medicine, which Tom coedited with Michael Winkelman, has been published by Praeger Publishers, and was rated "Highly Recommended" for general readers as well as college undergraduates and above in the January issue of Choice magazine.