Who are the winners of the Psychology Prizes of 2023?
Psychology teacher of the year is Marc Molendijk. The Master Thesis Awards are for Kim Houwaart and Linda Bomm. Hans van Lennep wins the PhD Publication Prize; Nina Komrij wins the PhD Wild Card: Societal Impact. The Support & Management staff Prize is for the whole Psychology Institute Office and Remond Wulff and Sara Borelli win the Leiden Psychology Media Award. Congratulations!
Education Prize
Marc Molendijk
Student member of the MOC, Christina Kenter, declares Dr. Marc Molendijk the convincing winner of the Psychology Education Prize 2023: 'He oversees the Clinical Psychology specialization course and integrates innovative teaching methods such as podcast creation and essay writing on novels to connect clinical scenarios with scientific literature. These approaches have garnered praise from students and increased course evaluations to an impressive 8.5. Dr. Molendijk's impact also extends beyond the classroom, with notable contributions such as organizing an informative autism evening at the Leiden library and guiding students to win prestigious thesis prizes, even at the university level.'
1-year MSc Thesis Prize
Kim Houwaart for her thesis 'Painting Descriptions Tailored to Children Influence Their Visual Attention to Art', supervised by Francesco Walker in the Applied Cognitive Psychology master. For her thesis she conducted an experiment at the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam, where children aged 10-12 were asked to view three different paintings and their descriptions while wearing an eye tracker. The jury was impressed by the thesis’ research design and the ecologically valid research setting. The topic is novel and the higher-level concept of art appreciation was of interest to many jury members.
2-year Research MSc Thesis Prize
Linda Bomm for her thesis 'Social Reactions to Women’s Sexual Assault Disclosure': The Influence of Gender Identification, Threat, and Observer Gender, supervised by Daan Schepers in the Social and Economic Psychology rMSc. Linda makes excellent use of visualization techniques to present her elaborate data analysis. Given how difficult it is to work with this topic and these measures, the jury was very impressed with the result.
Publication Award
Hans van Lennep (Health, Medical & Neuropsychology): 'The Optimal Learning Cocktail for Placebo Analgesia: A Randomized Controlled Trial Comparing Individual and Combined Techniques'
Wild card: Societal Impact Prize
Nina Komrij (MSc in Health Sciences): Cool Little Kids project to help young children with Inhibited temperament and their parents.
Media Prize
Remond Wulff and Sara Borrelli
Leiden Psychology students from the webteam had the ambition in 2021 to create a podcast with our researchers, students and teachers about what they do, know and think. Because podcast is the future, they think. The two Clinical Psychology students Sara Borrelli and Remond Wulff on Leiden Psychology Podcast were a big duo.
Support & Management Staff Prize
The Institute Office
The Prize was awarded to the Institute Office of Psychology. This prize did justice to the team-oriented cooperation and commitment of the entire Institute Office. This also in a period without a department head for a while.
The jury appreciated the continuous effort and great dedication to educational support, selection, advising students, communications, and committees and management.