Psychslam | University College Cork

Welcome to PsychSlam!

Are you a TY student interested in psychology and science communication?

Would you like to learn more about how psychologists understand how people think, behave, and feel?

The PsychSlam competition organised by the School of Applied Psychology UCC gives TY student teams the opportunity to research a topic in Psychology and present their findings in a 6-minute PowerPoint presentation.

Key Dates

January 22nd 2024

Registration Portal Opens

March 1st 2024

Deadline for Registration for Competition

March 15th 2024

Science Communication Training in UCC

April 26th 2024

PsychSlam at UCC

Participating teams gain experience in teamwork and science communication, and build connections with other students, researchers and psychologists.

All teams will receive detailed guidance and support, including an in-person training session on how to prepare their talk, the topics, and resources they can use to put their talk together.

Every year, students tell us that they have a wonderful experience learning about psychology and research, as well as how to present information to audiences in an informative and engaging manner (read more in the Student Teams Feedback).

Our Team

The event is led by Dr Samantha Dockray, Dr. Gillian Murphy, Dr. Sinead Kelleher and Dr Marica Cassarino.

Samantha Dockray

Samantha is a psychobiologist, interested in the interactions between physiological and psychological processes that occur during childhood and adolescence, in relation to stress. Her work uses wearable technologies and digital interventions, laboratory research as well as measures of people’s behaviour, mood and experiences in their everyday lives. The research and community projects Samantha participates in are described at beats-lab.com, including the Teen Advisory Group, who guide the research in thinking about issues important to teens themselves.

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Gillian Murphy

Gillian is a Cognitive Psychologist interested in understanding attention and memory in everyday scenarios. She has conducted research examining distraction and attention failure in simulated driving environments and eyewitness memory for crimes. Much of her recent research relates to misinformation - assessing who is most susceptible to misinformation, how and when do false memories form in response to misinformation, and developing interventions to reduce harm.

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Sinead Kelleher

Sinead is a social psychologist interested in understanding how our thoughts, feelings and behaviours are influenced by social norms. She has conducted research on the identity development of sexual minorities and how this may be influenced by gender roles and romantic identities. Sinead is a part time lecturer at the School of Applied Psychology, where she teaches students about developmental psychology and how we grow and change across our lifespan.

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Marica Cassarino

Marica is an Environmental Psychologist who does research on how the built and natural spaces in our community influence our wellbeing, and also on the psychological factors that lead people to behave sustainably. Marica is a Lecturer at the School of Applied Psychology and she is passionate about teaching quantitative research methods, that is, using numbers to investigate of how people think, feel, and behave.

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The PsychSlam Team are members of several research networks and groups, as well as a range of science communication activities including:

European Association for Research on Adolescence
International Society for Psychoneuroendocrinology
European Health Psychology Society
Society for Research on Adolescence
WellTeen Network Ireland & United Kingdom
beats-lab.com
Teen Advisory Group
Interdisciplinary Child Wellbeing Network
Aspire with Abbott
Lero, the Science Foundation Ireland Research Centre for Software
FameLab Ireland
UCC Environmental Research Institute
International Association of Applied Psychology
Psychological Society of Ireland Special Interest Group for Addressing Climate and Environmental Emergency
Children’s Research Network
Irish Sexualities and Gender Research Network

Psychslam Interns and Volunteers

Every year, student interns and volunteers from the School of Applied Psychology play a crucial role in welcoming and supporting the TY teams during training and the PsychSlam final.

TY students will have a chance to meet our students and learn more about studying Psychology in our BA courses in Applied Psychology and Psychology and Computing in UCC.