Catherine Bohn-Gettler—’07 PhD alumni of the Department of Educational Psychology’s psychological foundations of education program—has been appointed the new co-editor of Discourse Processes. According to its website, the bimonthly, multidisciplinary, peer-reviewed journal aims to “provide a forum for cross-fertilization of ideas from diverse disciplines sharing a common interest in discourse—prose comprehension and recall, dialogue analysis, text grammar construction, computer simulation of natural language, cross-cultural comparisons of communicative competence, or related topics.”

In 2007, Bohn-Gettler’s thesis, “Event Indexing Across Development” explored the mental processes of middle schoolers while reading narratives, including comprehension of time, space, characters, goals, and causation—and paid special attention to how children’s minds monitor and organize events during reading. She was advised by Department of Educational Psychology Emeritus Professors Anthony Pelligrini and Steve Yussen.

Since graduation, Bohn-Gettler has continued to collaborate with many Department of Educational Psychology researchers. Today, she is a professor at the College of Saint Benedict and Saint John’s University where she studies interdisciplinary connections between cognition, emotion, and instructional contexts to improve student learning and holistic development. Bohn-Gettler has achieved national and international distinction in the field of cognitive psychology.

Congratulations and best of luck to Professor Bohn-Gettler in her new role!