Greetings ARP Graduate Student and Post-Doc Members:
Kathryn Bollich and Michael Boudreaux
Thank you for your votes for the 2014-2015 ARP Graduate Student and Postdoctoral Committee. As your new representatives, we would first like to introduce ourselves: 
Kathryn Bollich – kbollich@gmail.com
Thank you for the opportunity to serve as your ARP graduate student representative. I received my B.A. from Southwestern University, and I’m currently a PhD student at Washington University in St. Louis working with Drs. Simine Vazire and Josh Jackson. My current research examines interpersonal feedback, self- and other-perceptions of personality and moral character, and people’s awareness of their biased self-perceptions.
Michael Boudreaux – m.boudre@wustl.edu
I completed my graduate training at the University of California, Riverside working with Dr. Daniel Ozer. I am currently working as a Post-Doctoral Research Associate with Dr. Thomas Oltmanns at Washington University in St. Louis. My research examines the negative implications of personality traits in self and interpersonal functioning. Some goals of this work are to identify a range of problem behaviors associated with both poles of trait continua and to examine their ability to predict social, emotional, and health-related outcomes.
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As your new representatives, we will work hard to ensure that you get plenty of networking and professional development opportunities through your ARP membership. As in previous years, we will be offering a Mentorship Luncheon at the 2015 ARP Conference in St. Louis that connects students and post-docs with senior researchers and faculty members to discuss a topic of interest. Other initiatives we’re considering are a graduate student and post-doc blog (containing pieces from you and your fellow graduate students and post-docs) and a graduate student and post-doc networking event / social hour at the next ARP conference. This would be a great opportunity to meet other grad students and post-docs in the field – in other words, your future colleagues. And of course, please let us know about your ideas for other activities or resources.
We also encourage you to get involved! Not only is attending conferences a fantastic way to connect with others and learn about the latest research and debates, but online outlets like blogs and Twitter offer alternative ways to share ideas, and allow anyone and everyone to have a voice. If you’re new to the personality psychology blogosphere, The Personality Meta-Blog, hosted by ARP, is a great place to start. Many of your favorite personality researchers are active on Twitter as well.
Another great opportunity for connecting with others in the field is to attend the Summer Institute in Social and Personality Psychology (SISPP), a two-week summer school that brings together personality and social psychology graduate students from all over to take courses and collaborate. Kathryn attended SISPP last year and would be happy to talk about her experience.
Finally, one small way to get involved right now is to complete the following survey! Share your ideas about the organization and the upcoming conference.
We look forward to seeing you next summer at ARP in St. Louis, and hope to see many of you this winter at SPSP in Long Beach!
Kathryn Bollich and Michael Boudreaux