Presentation of awards by the Associate Head, Research Education, A/Prof Irina Harris, and invited talks by prize winners Dr Joel Raymond and Dr Tao Chen.

Order of proceedings:

Awarding of School of Psychology Publications Prize for 2024

• Ayshe Sahinovic (in absentia)
• Connie Badolato
• Cosette Saunders
• Daelin Coutts-Bain
• Lillian Darke
• Rebecca McLean
• Tessa Rooney (in absentia)
• Thomas Nicholl (in absentia)

Awarding (in absentia) of Faculty of Science Prize for Outstanding PhD Thesis for 2024

Nomination of Dr Tessa Rooney for Exploring The Contribution Of Expectancy, Anxiety, And Attention To Nocebo Effects.

Bio:

Tessa completed her PhD in September last year, supervised by Ben Colagiuri, Louise Sharpe, and Jemma Todd. The PhD explored potential cognitive factors that might be involved in nocebo effects, which are negative effects of treatments that aren’t directly caused by the treatment itself. The PhD involved three meta-analyses and three experimental studies, to better understand how expectations, anxiety and attention might be involved in the experience of nocebo effects, in the interest of understanding how these factors might influence treatment outcomes outside the lab.

Awarding of H. Tasman Lovell Memorial Medallion for the Best PhD Thesis in the School of Psychology for 2024, with invited address
Awarded to Dr Joel Raymond forThe Social and Sleep Share a Two-Way Sheet: Investigating the Reciprocal Dynamics Between Sleep Social Behaviour and Oxytocin.

Bio:

Dr Joel Raymond is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Brain Health Institute, Rutgers University, New Jersey, and an alumnus of the School of Psychology at the University of Sydney, where he completed his Honours (2017) and PhD (2024). His research focuses on the reciprocal links between sleep, circadian rhythms, and motivated behaviours such as social interaction, eating, and addiction, with applications to psychiatric disorders. He was awarded the H. Tasman Lovell Memorial Medallion for the best PhD thesis in Psychology at the University of Sydney, the International Behavioral Neuroscience Society Best Postdoctoral Poster Award (2025), and multiple competitive travel awards from the European Behavioural Pharmacology Society and IBNS, as well as being selected for the American Academy of Sleep Medicine Young Investigator Research Forum (2025). Supported by the American Australian Association Graduate Education Scholarship, his translational research employs preclinical models to uncover mechanisms driving sleep–motivation interactions and to guide the development of novel treatments. He currently serves as Trainee Councillor for the International Behavioral Neuroscience Society, facilitating training opportunities for early-career researchers.

Awarding of 2025 APS Award for Excellent PhD Thesis in Psychology, with invited address

Nomination of Dr Tao Chen for Stuck In Place: The Cognitive And Neural Bases Of Inflexibility In Ageing And Dementia.

Bio:

Tao Chen is a Postdoctoral Researcher at the University of Sydney, supervised by Professor Muireann Irish. He completed his Ph.D. in Psychology at the University of Sydney and holds a Master of Science in Cognitive Neuroscience from the Institute of Psychology, Chinese Academy of Sciences. His research focuses on flexibility in neurodegenerative and psychiatric disorders, integrating dynamic, causal, and network analyses with multimodal neuroimaging, biological and physiological measures, experience sampling methods (ESM), and behavioural experiments. He has published several first-author articles in leading peer-reviewed journals such as Clinical Psychological Science and the Journal of Affective Disorders, and serves as a reviewer for journals, such as Neuroscience and Biobehavioral Reviews. Tao was selected as the University of Sydney’s sole nominee for the 2025 APS Award for Excellent PhD Thesis in Psychology, and earlier in his career was recognised as an Outstanding Graduate of Beijing and of the University of Chinese Academy of Sciences.