Faculty and Staff Highlights: Bruce, Hoover, Martin, McMullen

Webster University faculty and staff highlights offer a roundup of recent Webster faculty and staff activity and achievements.

Bruce Gives Psychology Keynote Speech, Publishes Paper

Madeline Bruce, assistant professor in the Psychology Department, gave an invited keynote speech to the University of Illinois College of Medicine research retreat. Her talk, “Healing betrayal. Embodying courage,” featured her research regarding post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) treatment, defined institutional betrayal and its impact, and presented principles for institutional courage to psychiatrists. One of the studies she covered was co-authored by psychology students Miles Pettinelli and Savannah Sowell. The keynote was held in Burlington, Iowa.

Bruce, along with colleagues at the UTHealth Houston Trauma and Resilience Center, also published a paper, “Posttraumatic stress disorder treatment outcomes for events related to institutional betrayal” in the Journal of Traumatic Stress. This research revealed concerning gaps in treatment process and outcomes for patients experiencing trauma in institutional contexts. The paper has been featured by the National Health Service of the UK, the International Society for Traumatic Stress Studies and elsewhere, and was the fourth most read article in the journal in September.

Elizabeth Hoover Selects New Winner of National Writing Prize

Elizabeth Hoover, assistant professor of English, selected curator and critic Tausif Noor as the recipient of the Pat Holt Prize for Critical Art Writing. Named after the long-time book critic at the San Francisco Chronicle, the Holt Prize is awarded by Lambda Literary, the largest national organization dedicated to supporting LGBTQ+ writing.

Martin, McMullen Present at Counseling Conference

Faculty members of the Webster Institute for Clinical Scholarship (WICS) research team, Claire Martin, assistant professor in Webster’s Department of Professional Counseling; Sara McMullen, assistant professor in Webster’s Psychology Department; along with Molly Stehn, associate professor of Counselor Education at Texas A&M University Texarkana, recently presented at the Association for Assessment and Research in Counseling Conference in Daytona, Florida.

Their poster presentation, “From Classroom to Scholarship: Advancing Research for Social Change and Clinical Excellence,” showcased the development and maintenance of successful collaborative research projects with graduate counseling students, highlighted preliminary findings from studies on the effectiveness of WICS’ advanced training in culturally responsive counseling and explored broader implications for fostering liberatory, justice-driven scholarship.