Georgetown College. Georgetown University.

Daryaneh Badaly

Daryaneh Badaly (C’06) was one of the first psychology majors admitted to the new Psychology honors program at Georgetown. With the assistance of Darlene Howard and psychology graduate student Ilana Bennett, Badaly examined the differences between younger and older adults in their abilities to recognize patterns in visual sequences. She presented the study at the Association for Psychological Science in New York (May, 2006).

Within the new honors program, students must develop a research problem and compose an honors thesis that makes a novel theoretical, empirical, or integrative contribution to a branch of psychology. The thesis must be of high enough quality to be submitted for publication or for presentation at a scientific conference. Students cite the close collaboration with faculty as a major strength of the new honors program developed by Drs. Ali Moghaddam and Chandan Vaidya in 2005.

“Because the program was small and all the honors students met once a month, we all got to know each other,” said Badaly. “We got moral support when deadlines were fast approaching and feedback on how to make things better. The support from my advisor [Prof. Howard] and the graduate student [Ilana Bennett] looking over my work was also great. They were always willing to go over new results or problems.”

Since graduating, Badaly has begun work as a research assistant for Dr. Karen Adolph in the Infant Action Lab at NYU. She hopes to go to graduate school and pursue a Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology.

Print Article