Keynote Speakers
Susan A. Nolan, an Associate Professor of Psychology and the Associate Dean of Graduate Studies at Seton Hall University in New Jersey, received her M.S. and Ph.D. from Northwestern University. In Seton Hall’s Department of Psychology, she has taught primarily research methods and statistics courses at both the undergraduate and graduate levels. Her sometimes unconventional teaching techniques have included having students write letters to teach statistics to invented space aliens, challenge the reliability and validity of personality quizzes in Cosmopolitan magazine, and develop statistical critiques of documentary movies such as Bowling for Columbine. Susan is currently co-authoring an undergraduate textbook, Statistics for the Behavioral Sciences, with Thomas E. Heinzen of William Paterson University (New Jersey) that is slated for publication in September, 2007 (Worth Publishers). Since 2004, Susan has been the co-coordinator for the Eastern Region of the Council of Undergraduate Psychology Programs (CUPP).
Susan’s research interests include interpersonal aspects of depression and anxiety, and gender disparities in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics. Her latter work has received funding from the National Science Foundation and the Camille and Henry Dreyfus Foundation. She has published her research in numerous peer-reviewed journal articles, and recently co-edited a book, Dissolving Disparity, Catalyzing Change, on gender issues in the field of chemistry (2006, American Chemical Society/Oxford University Press).
Thomas E. Heinzen, who will be presenting with Dr. Nolan, is a Professor of Psychology at William Paterson State University of New Jersey. After receiving his Ph.D. from the State University of New York at Albany, he worked for the Rockefeller College of Public Affairs and Policy and consulted for the Johns Hopkins University Center for Talented Youth, the New York State Commission on Vietnam Veterans, and the New York Center for Agricultural Health and Medicine in Cooperstown, New York. At William Paterson, he teaches the Senior Seminar, Internship, Social Psychology, General Psychology, and Methods courses. He started the academic Psychology Club and the Undergraduate Psychology Research Conference at William Paterson and has sponsored more than 30 student papers and presentations. He is currently co-authoring an undergraduate textbook, Statistics for the Behavioral Sciences, with Susan A. Nolan of Seton Hall University that is slated for publication in September, 2007 (Worth Publishers). Tom has focused his empirically published research on creativity in unlikely settings such as by the frail elderly living in nursing homes, within state government, and among teenagers. His first book was on frustration and creativity in government and he has since published several other books including a novel about statistics and a collection of poetry with video documentary of accidental creativity by the frail elderly.
