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Touro Awarded $100,000 Grant from National Science Foundation for Computerized Experimental Psychology Laboratories

NEW YORK, N.Y., August 10, 2006 – Dr. Allan Geliebter and Dr. Barbara Rumain, faculty members of the Psychology Department at Touro College, have received a three-year, $100,000 grant from the National Science Foundation to establish new, state-of-the-art computer-based experimental psychology laboratories that will enhance students' abilities to experiment and think critically and analytically.

The new laboratories will foster the integration of research and education by shifting from a content-based to an inquiry-oriented, research-based curriculum. The laboratories will be established at three campus sites at Touro: the Lander College of Arts & Sciences – Flatbush, the West 23rd Street campus in midtown Manhattan, and the new site of the Lander College for Women on West 60th Street. The instructional materials to be developed for the Touro labs will be disseminated nationally to other institutions for use by students and professors.

"We are grateful to the NSF for its recognition of the educational creativity of Drs. Geliebter and Rumain," said Dr. Melech Press, chair of the Psychology Department at Touro College. "Their research is especially important in that previously, students learned to do psychological research by repeating others' experiments, memorizing rules of research techniques, or by ingesting results of scientific investigations. This significant grant will enable us to train students to think for themselves about how to approach answering scientific questions, and carry out some of the experimental work themselves and perform their own critical analyses."

Dr. Geliebter (Principal Investigator) has an M.A. in biology and a Ph.D. in psychology from Columbia University. He was chair of Touro's Psychology Department for over 20 years. Dr. Geliebter is recognized internationally for his research studies in the field of obesity and eating disorders, which have been supported by numerous National Institutes of Health and industry grants.

Dr. Rumain (Co-Principal Investigator) received her B.A. from Barnard College, Columbia University, where she majored in mathematics. She has a Ph.D. in psychology from New York University. Dr. Rumain has written numerous publications in the field of cognitive development.

Pictured clockwise from top left: Philip Charach, director of Instructional Technology; Dr. Issac Herskowitz, chief academic computing officer and chairman of the Computer Science Department; Dr. Stanley Boylan, vice president; Akiva Kobre, senior vice president; Miriam Gutherc, webmaster; Dr. Barbara Rumain, assistant professor of psychology and co-principal investigator; Dr. Allan Geliebter, professor of psychology and principal investigator; Dr. Melech Press, chair of the Psychology Department. Vice President Boylan and Dr. Press provided encouragement during the application process. Others pictured have been assisting the Psychology Department with technological issues involved in implementing the grant.

Touro College has experienced phenomenal growth since its opening in 1971, and is currently educating more than 23,000 students at locations in New York, California, Nevada, Jerusalem, Moscow and Berlin. Touro College continues to have a profound impact on the lives of its students and on the Jewish and general communities.

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