From Our Students
Many of our graduates have gone on to successful careers in education, counseling, business, government, and other vocations. We are very proud of our alumni and the contributions they are making in their respective communities. On this page, we post occasional updates on our alumni and current students.
Angela Quinn
Angela Quinn graduated from UNC with a Psychology degree (Sociology minor) in 1991. She served as President of the UNC Psi Chi chapter and was named by the psychology faculty as a Department Scholar. During her senior year Angie’s persistence in finding just the right field experience paid off when she landed an internship at Hewlett-Packard in the Human Resources Department (then Personnel) with the Organizational Development Specialist. This interest was spurred by an Industrial-Organizational Psych course at UNC. Her internship turned into a temporary position that continued for almost two years. During this time Angie was able to work with some of the company’s best leaders in the area of manufacturing redesign using the Socio-Technical Systems (STS) process. The work at HP was what helped Angie realize she wanted to be in Human Resources longer term. Angie comments, "My experiences and support of the wonderful faculty at UNC definitely gave me the ability to make the most of my time at HP!"
Angie was hired as a full time employee at the Corvallis, Oregon site in 1994. She and her new spouse, Lorr Quinn (UNC Alumni 1991 and 1993) made the big move away from family and into a very dynamic time in HP. Angie was hired by the Inkjet Business Unit (now called Imaging and Printing Group) which was responsible for the primary printing operations in HP and was the wildly growing money-maker for the company at that time. Angie moved into supervision of a manufacturing team and was also responsible for training of production operators. Angie says that, "the training component always seems to follow me into various roles...it is an area that naturally fits with my skills and passions." She credits her undergraduate opportunities as a Psi Chi officer and collaborator on faculty research with helping to develop her leadership abilities. "UNC was a wonderful foundation for my career." says Angie. She is now getting yet another opportunity to focus in the Sales arena as part of the Personal Systems Group Human Resources team.
Angie has been afforded many great career opportunities in her 14 years at Hewlett-Packard - Manufacturing, Management, Supply Chain, Business HR and Learning & Development - to list the primary roles. However, one of her most rewarding experiences was while on hiatus from HP, helping high school students at a Denver occupational center with career counseling and training.
Angie now lives in Fort Collins with her husband and two children and is a new member of the UNC College of Education and Behavioral Sciences Advisory Council.
Juliana Rosa
Juliana Rosa graduated from the University of Northern Colorado with an undergraduate degree in Psychology in May 2008. Juliana was a Reisher Scholar beginning in her sophomore year, and in her senior year, Juliana was accepted into the Ronald E. McNair Scholars Program. She worked with Dr. Kristina Phillips in the School of Psychological Sciences on research investigating social, personal, and environmental reasons why individuals initiate substance use. Juliana was able to present her research at the 16th Annual Pacific Northwest Spring Research Conference in Seattle, Washington as well as at the 2008 University of Northern Colorado’s Annual Research Conference.
She continues to work with Dr. Phillips in the hopes of publishing the study, and presenting the final findings.
In the fall of 2008, Juliana will begin a doctoral program in Applied Social Psychology at Colorado State University. Juliana will be working with The Tri-Ethnic Center for Prevention Research and Dr. Aloise-Young on research on adolescent substance use and prevention models. Juliana was also awarded the McNair Scholars fellowship to aid in the funding of her studies. She hopes to graduate in 2013 and pursue a career in academia and research.
Jeff Jiron
Jeff Jiron is a Colorado native who enrolled at UNC in 1993 after completing a four-year stint in the Air Force. He studied psychology and has fond memories of his program and his time living on campus. Jeff is still in contact with many of the friends he made while at UNC.
Jeff was especially attracted to counseling psychology. He interned with Psychcare Family Recovery Center of the North Colorado Medical Center and worked for them for two years after graduating from UNC. Then, he made a transition to a very different field: banking. Jeff began as a Personal Banker for US Bank in 1998 and by 2005 was an award-winning Bank Manager. He is now a successful Commercial Banker with Guaranty Bank and Trust.
How did Jeff’s academic background in psychology prepare him for his career in banking? “My experiences in the field of psychology and my psychology degree have played a very important role in my career and have been the key to my successes. The knowledge from my course work and the experience in the field of psychology have helped me to become well rounded and have helped me to effectively manage people in the workplace. I have learned that in order to be an effective manager, you need to be able to deal with issues of diversity, discrimination etc. It has also been very important to help employees to improve themselves through guidance and communication. I have found that my background in psychology and counseling have also given me the skills necessary to effectively communicate with my clients in difficult financial situations.”
Today, Jeff is active in his community and remains connected to UNC through his participation on the College of Education and Behavioral Sciences Advisory Board.
“I feel that UNC has afforded me a great opportunity through my education and I just want to be able to provide input and support to make this possible for others.”
Chris Pierce
Chris Pierce graduated from UNC as an undergraduate psychology major in 1996. From Colorado, he went to the University of Alaska, Anchorage where he completed a Master’s Degree in Clinical Psychology. After deciding to pursue a career as a neuropsychologist, he completed his Ph.D. in Medical Psychology from the University of Alabama at Birmingham. As part of his doctoral training, he secured a very competitive placement in the neuropsychology track of the Clinical Psychology internship program at the University of Washington School of Medicine. He completed his training with a two-year post-doctoral residency in Neuropsychology and Rehabilitation Psychology at the Rehabilitation Institute of Michigan.
Following his training, he was able to return to Colorado when he joined a private neuropsychology practice in Boulder. After three years at that practice, Dr. Pierce decided he wanted to return to his academic roots and work in a setting in which he provided evaluation and treatment to more severely impaired patients and had a greater opportunity to conduct research and be involved in teaching and training. To that end, Dr. Pierce has been the neuropsychologist at Denver Health Medical Center since 2005 and is an Assistant Professor in the University of Colorado School of Medicine. He has various research projects ongoing with students and faculty. His teaching duties include supervision of psychology interns in neuropsychological assessment and externship/practicum training in neuropsychology for graduate students of UNC and other local universities.
Joseph Hamm
Joseph Hamm graduated from the University of Northern Colorado in the spring semester of 2008 with a Psychology major and a Criminal Justice minor. Joe’s interests in psychology and law started early in his undergraduate career when he was accepted into the Ronald E. McNair Scholars Program. The McNair program prepares students for future graduate study by connecting exceptional students to faculty members for collaborative original research. Joe worked with Dr. Woody, an Associate Professor in the School of Psychological Sciences, to study jury decision making in cases involving juveniles tried as adults. At UNC, Joe successfully presented his project at the UNC Student Research day and earned the top University of Northern Colorado McNair Scholars award for 2006. Additionally, Joe’s description of his collaborative work with Dr. Woody will be published alongside Dr. Woody’s account of working with Joe in the e-book, Promoting the Undergraduate Research Experience in Psychology.
Rather than pause in his successful undergraduate research career at this point, Joe extended his McNair project with another study with Dr. Woody that he presented as a work-in-progress at the 2007 Rocky Mountain Psychological Association Convention. The final version of this work was accepted via peer-review at the national 2008 American Psychology-Law Society conference. Joe’s success at UNC inspired him to seek additional opportunities in psychology and the law, and he was selected from a highly competitive national field of applicants for the intensive one-year undergraduate research experience in psychology and law at the University of Nebraska – Lincoln. Joe is now enrolled in the Psychology and Law doctoral program at UNL.
Lindsay Brubaker
Lindsay Brubaker graduated Summa Cum Laude from UNC in 2005. She was a psychology major and Honors student who was voted by the faculty as Department Scholar in both her junior and senior years. Lindsay’s honors thesis was an empirical study of inhibitory control and social problem solving in 3-5-year-old children. She presented this research her senior year at the Rocky Mountain Psychological Association conference. Although a dedicated student, Lindsay found time to volunteer for the Autism Society of Colorado, serve as an officer for UNC’s chapter of Psi Chi (the national honor society for psychology students), and make it to the mountains several times a year to snow board.
In the fall of 2007 Lindsay started graduate school in the Clinical/Developmental Joint Psychology Ph.D. program at the University of Missouri in Columbia. Her research is focused on cognitive functioning in children and adolescents with autism. Working with the Thompson Center for Autism and Neurodevelopmental Disorders, Lindsay is currently running a study measuring cognitive functioning from a behavioral standpoint and hopes to compare her findings with fMRI data from the University’s Brain Imaging Center. Along with her research interests, Lindsay would like to pursue assessment and intervention training at the Thompson Center.
Vanessa Ewing
Vanessa Ewing is a graduate (2002) of our Educational Psychology Ph.D. program. She is currently serving as the principal of Broomfield Academy – an innovative private school for elementary age students. Formerly Meritor Academy, the school was in danger of being shut down due to a sponsoring company cutting ties for business reasons. Dr. Ewing and a group of parents organized an independent investment group (Academic Achievement Group, LLC) to keep the school open. For more information, visit Broomfield Enterprise.