UEL Psychology Graduate receives Inspirational Women in UK Health Care award

 Dr Melinda Rees, a graduate from the UEL BSc programme in 1993 and a graduate from the UEL Doctorate in Clinical Psychology programme in 1999, on 9^th  July received an award from the Health Services Journal (HSJ) at the Kings Fund (11, Cavendish Square) in central London as one of 50 Inspirational Women in UK health care (2014). Melinda is Consultant Clinical Psychologist, Clinical Lead and Manager iCOPE, Camden & Islington NHS Foundation Trust, (melinda.rees@candi.nhs.uk) and is soon to be moving to Beacon UK as Clinical Director. Melinda was nominated for the award by her colleagues, led by Rebecca Minton, who, along with the CEO of the Trust (and fellow UEL Clinical Psychology alumni), Wendy Wallace, attended the award celebration.

 The citation in the HSJ supplement featuring the 50 awardees reads for Melinda:

`Melinda leads her organisation's increasing access to psychological therapies service, which her colleagues describe as having become one of the most successful in London under her stewardship. At the same time as managing a team of 90, she is a mother to three young sons - "she is always full of energy and drive", said one of those who nominated her'. `Judges comments: "This is a really difficult area to work in, because there is a massive growth rate in the people needing access to psychological services. She sounds fantastic, and we want to meet her!" '

 Photograph: Dr. Rees (centre) Wendy Wallace (left) and Rebecca Minton (right).

44th Annual Meeting of the Jean Piaget Society “Rethinking Language and Communicative Development”; May 29-31, 2014; San Francisco, USA

Conference Report from Christel Schneider

I recently attended the 44th Annual Meeting of the Jean Piaget Society in San Francisco, USA, “Rethinking Language and Communicative Development”; May 29‒31, 2014.

http://www.piaget.org/Symposium/2014/index.html

The focus of the conference was the complex relationship between language, mind and culture, and the role communicative development plays in our ability to learn from others. The meeting was part of a series of conferences on Cognition and Social Development aimed at directing future research in the discipline.

Amongst others, the following Expert Plenary Speakers were present: Prof. Annette Karmiloff-Smith (Centre for Brain and Cognitive Development, Birkbeck, University of London), Prof. Eva Jablonka (Cohn Institute for the History and Philosophy of Science and Ideas, Tel-Aviv) and Prof. Katherine Nelson (City University of New York). I found these plenary sessions particularly interesting and educational.

I was invited to speak at the Symposium, “Comparative perspectives on language and communicative development: Joint attention, gestural communication, and non-linguistic vocalizations in non-human primates and human infants.” The symposium was organised and chaired by Prof. Malinda Carpenter (University of St. Andrews and Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, Leipzig/ Germany). It consisted of three talks: Tanja Kaller (University of York), who presented data on joint attention skills in wild chimpanzees and Ugandan and British mother-infant dyads; discussing similarities and differences between these species and cultures. Verena Gersken (Georg-August-Universität Göttingen) presented her work on the variety of non-linguistic communicative systems that typically developing toddlers use during their second year of life to engage in referential communication with others. Finally, my own talk was based on work and publications from my doctoral dissertation. I presented findings on the onset of gesturing, and acquisition processes involved, in our closest living relatives, bonobos, chimpanzees, gorillas and orangutans living in captivity.

Our symposium attracted many attendees and elicited interesting discussions in relation to the role comparative approaches can have in developing our understanding of communication development in human and non-human great apes (i.e., bonobos, chimpanzees, gorillas and orangutans).

All in all a very interesting and productive experience and I would like to thank UEL’s School of Psychology, Guarantors of Brain and Free University of Berlin (Germany) for supporting my attendance at the meeting.