Özyeğin University Graduate Alp Aytuğlu Receives International Award in Developmental Psychology

Alp Aytuğlu, a 2018 graduate from the Master of Psychology Program with a concentration on Applied Developmental Psychology at Özyeğin University, was honored with an award at the 4th Annual Student and Early Career Council Dissertation Research Funding Awards. Established in 2008, these prestigious awards are given to doctoral students in the field of developmental psychology to support dissertation research proposals that merit special recognition.

This year, among the doctoral students recognized with the dissertation research funding award was also Alp Aytuğlu, who is currently pursuing his doctoral studies at the Human Development and Family Science (HDFS) Department at the University of Georgia. Over the course of his doctoral studies, Aytuğlu took part in several research studies under the mentorship of his advisor Geoffrey Brown, exploring the effect of socio-ecological factors on early parenthood and father-child relationship. Aytuğlu had the opportunity to publish some of these studies in refereed journals and present them on international academic platforms. In addition to his studies on fatherhood and father-child relationship, Aytuğlu, a PhD candidate, is also currently studying the effect of mother-child neural synchrony on the child’s stress physiology as part of a parenthood study that uses the fNIRS technology.

With this award, Aytuğlu is preparing for his dissertation in which he will examine the relationship between African-American fathers' readiness for fatherhood and parenting sensitivities, and children’s cognitive, neuroendocrine, and socioemotional development.