Rutgers–Camden Undergraduate Students Win Competitive National Research Fellowships

For Immediate Release

CAMDEN --  Cherry Hill residents Rebecca Lomas and Matthew Robinson, both undergraduate psychology students entering their senior year at Rutgers University—Camden, have each won a highly competitive Psi Chi/Association for Psychological Science Summer Research Fellowship.

Psi Chi and the Association for Psychological Science award only six Summer Research Fellowships annually.  The $3,500 awards allow talented undergraduate students to engage in top-level scientific research throughout the summer.  Psi Chi is the national honor society in psychology.  Rutgers—Camden, which captured one-third of the summer research fellowships, is home to a Psi Chi chapter.

A 2005 graduate of Cherry Hill East High School, Lomas is collaborating this summer with Etsuko Hoshino-Browne at Swarthmore University for her summer research project, which deals with interpersonal decision making.  Lomas is examining how people make decisions for others depending on existing relationships.  In this endeavor, Lomas works as an experimenter and deals directly with approximately 90 research participants.

Robinson, a 2000 graduate of Cherry Hill High School West, is working at both Indiana University and Rutgers—Camden on two projects related to the environment.  The first seeks to determine how weather influences the degree to which people feel “connected” to nature; Robinson will correlate weather patterns against the behavior of research participants during the summer.  The second project will consider how the weather impacts upon concern over global warming.

Both Rutgers—Camden students presented their original research at the Association for Psychological Science conference in Chicago during the spring, a singular honor for any undergraduate student.  Lomas’ research addressed behavioral patterns related to recycling; Robinson presented a study of the relationship between environmental attitudes and recycling behavior.

Lomas has received numerous academic honors at Rutgers—Camden, including the Merit in Psychology Award.  She serves as vice president of the Psi Chi student chapter and a member of the Psychology Club, both at Rutgers—Camden.  Lomas intends to pursue graduate study upon earning her degree from Rutgers—Camden in May.

Robinson maintains a perfect grade-point average of 4.0 at Rutgers—Camden, where he is president of the Psi Chi student chapter.  He has earned such academic honors as the Jeanne and Lewis Romer Scholarship and the Dorothy and David Cooper Scholarship for Psychology.  He intends to pursue a PhD in psychology.

Both Lomas and Robinson credit their Rutgers—Camden mentor, Sean Duffy, an assistant professor of psychology, for helping them to pursue their research and career dreams.

“He is unlike any professor I have ever known and he has made my experience at Rutgers extraordinary,” says Lomas.  “Dr. Duffy has also exposed me to a variety of inspirational educational experiences, such as the APS conference in Chicago and the trip to Japan,” she adds, citing a Rutgers—Camden international studies trip to Japan led by Duffy.

Robinson shares his classmate’s enthusiasm for Duffy:  “His genuine compassion, enthusiastic personality, and passion for psychology and teaching have inspired me to work hard and to better myself as an individual and as a student.  As a student of his, I can truly say that coming to Rutgers was the best decision I have ever made.”

Robinson and Lomas both intend to study in Tokyo during the fall semester.  The Rutgers—Camden student-researchers cite their exceptional experience on a Rutgers International Studies trip to Japan, led by Duffy and Naomi Marmorstein, an associate professor of psychology at Rutgers—Camden, as motivation for the endeavor.

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