Iowa State University Alumni, Wendy and Mark Stavish, are well known for their establishment of the Wendy and Mark Stavish Chair in the Social Sciences, an endowed position currently held by Dr. Gary Wells of the psychology department. In 2019, the Stavish’s donated funds to support scholarships and fellowships for graduate students in the psychology department’s psychology-law research concentration, which includes three faculty members in the social psychology program (Gary Wells, Stephanie Madon, and Max Guyll) and three faculty members in the cognitive psychology program (Chris Meissner, Jason Chan, and Andrew Smith). In total, the Stavish’s have generously committed $440,000 in scholarship and fellowship funds to support graduate student stipends and tuition in the psychology-law concentration over the next five years. An additional $500 per year is committed for the best paper by a psychology-law graduate student in the department. Listed below are recipients of the Wendy and Mark Stavish Fund for Excellence in Psychology and Law.

2019

Best Paper: Rachel Dianiska (cognitive psychology)

• Dianiska, R. E., Swanner, J. K., Brimbal, L., & Meissner, C. A. (2019). Conceptual priming and context reinstatement: A test of direct and indirect interview techniques. Law and Human Behavior, 43, 131-143.

Fellows:

• Rachel Dianiska (cognitive psychology)
• Ryan Ditchfield (social psychology)