Congratulations to the winner of the 2021 Parker Award for Outstanding Undergraduate Paper in Psychology, Pearl Cummins! Pearl’s paper was titled: “Locus Coeruleus Integrity Predicts Memory Above and Beyond Traditional Alzheimer’s Disease Biomarkers in Older Adults.” The paper represents Pearl’s honors thesis.
Pearl Cummins just completed her B.A. in Psychology. The title of her honors thesis was “Locus Coeruleus Integrity Predicts Memory Above and Beyond Traditional Alzheimer’s Disease Biomarkers in Older Adults.” The findings indicated that one cognitive domain (i.e., memory) was significantly associated with locus coeruleus integrity as an Alzheimer’s Disease (AD) biomarker. This is important because memory is typically the earliest observable change in AD. Pearl was mentored by Dr. Mark Bondi at UC San Diego, Alex Weigand (a Ph.D. candidate in our Joint Doctoral Program in Clinical Psychology), and Dr. Terry Cronan.
Pearl is an Advancing Diversity in Aging Research (ADAR) Scholar. She will be attending the University of Utah in the fall as a Ph.D. student in their neuroscience program.
The Parker Award, which recognizes the most outstanding paper written by an undergraduate student in psychology.