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University of Massachusetts Amherst. Theses and Dissertations

SCUA holds a nearly complete run of undergraduate honors theses , arranged chronologically by year and then alphabetically by author. A small selection of honors theses are available to view online at university’s institutional repository’s CHC Theses and Projects page . Honors theses can be viewed on site in the Special Collections and University Archives reading room. Starting in 2019, all undergraduate honors theses are submitted electronically.

• Paper honors theses (pre-2019) may take up to one to two business days to retrieve.
• Digital honors theses (2019 forward) must also be viewed on site in SCUA’s reading room, but they do not have a delay period from request to retrieval and access.

A spreadsheet list of honors theses can be consulted online. Email SCUA with your requests in advance of visiting. Please include the year, author’s full name, and the title for each thesis requested.

Masters theses and dissertations written by UMass Amherst students are not a part of the University Archives, but most are available in electronic form through the university’s institutional repository, ScholarWorks .

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22 The 3 Minute Thesis

Read time: 2 minutes

This chapter will provide an overview of the 3 Minute Thesis oral presentation format.

Sections in this chapter

What is it.

• 3MT examples

The three-minute thesis (3MT) is a new format of research presentation that builds on the classic “elevator pitch”. The challenge in this type of presentation is to explain your research to an intelligent non-specialist audience in under 3 minutes with limited visual aids. Often there are specific rules for the visual aid: a single 4:3 slide, no animations or video, and no props.

For a successful 3MT talk, you need to follow completely different rules from normal scientific presentations. You can skip common things like introducing yourself, thanking all your lab mates and colleagues, or funding. You typically don’t show data unless it is presented in a very simple figure.

Because of the challenge involved with presenting years of detailed research in only three minutes, Universities hold cross-faculty 3MT competitions. The first was founded by the University of Queensland, Australia, where you can find many great resources and videos .

The tips below were adapted from “10 Hints for Improving Presentations for the Three Minute Thesis” by Danielle Fischer at Charles Darwin University ( Full PDF here ):

• Don’t introduce yourself, don’t do acknowledgements, don’t show data.
• Start by introducing how your research relates to the bigger picture. Try to think of why any person might be interested in your work.
• Only include relevant things on your slide and make sure images are good quality. Carefully design your slide, don’t overcrowd it or use too much colour.
• Use simple and familiar analogies.
• Speak with an excited and engaged manner.
• Don’t wear anything distracting.
• Use body language: smiling, gestures, movement, and eye-contact.
• Finish by bringing the audience back to the big picture.
• Practice and get feedback from a wide variety of people.
• Use your time, but don’t go over it.

These are some 3MT slides made by previous CHEM 803 students.

There are many resources online about preparing a 3MT presentation. Below are some links to helpful videos, award-winning 3MT talks, and the many resources provided by Queen’s University.

Helpful Videos

These videos were prepared by are owned by Australian National University.

3MT: three tips to help you prepare a winning presentation

3MT: the three most common mistakes

Award-winning 3MT

These are videos of some award-winning 3MT talks. The first one has the best title,  it’s simple and concise!

Wind turbines and climate change – Rosemary Barnes

Hypoxia-activated pro-drugs: a novel approach for breast cancer treatment – jasdeep saggar, the development of anti-body-drug conjugate to specifically target and soften the crystalline lens in vivo – gah-jone won.

Check out the Queen’s University 2020 Competition results, where you’ll find two award-winning 3MT talks from our Chemistry Department by Morgan Lehtinen and Alastair Kierulf. [ In the video at this link, click “Playlist” to find their talks ]

Principles of Scientific Communication Copyright © 2020 by Amanda Bongers and Donal Macartney is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License , except where otherwise noted.

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Master's Thesis Submission

Completing and submitting your master’s thesis is an important part of completing your master’s degree. Your thesis must be formatted as prescribed by the Graduate School in the  Guidelines for Master’s Theses and Doctoral Dissertations  (pdf) and electronically submitted through ScholarWorks@UMass Amherst, the university's permanent digital archive for scholarly materials.

• ScholarWorks : Master’s students at UMass Amherst use ScholarWorks— the UMass Libraries’ permanent digital repository for faculty and student research—to submit theses in accordance with master’s degree requirements. ScholarWorks is indexed by major search engines and is used globally by those who wish to reference scholarship produced by members of the UMass community.
• You will select a Document Type in ScholarWorks. “Open Access” means that anyone who has Internet access can view, cite, and download your work. “Campus Only Access” restricts the audience to those who have a UMass Amherst NetID and password or who use the Interlibrary Loan service.
• The Campus Access option will expire after a period of either one year or five years, depending on the term you select. The manuscript will become available automatically via Open Access in ScholarWorks after the Campus Access period has expired.
• Doctoral candidates and master’s students typically use an Embargo Period only if patent applications or publication contracts are pending.
• There are three choices for embargo term lengths: six months, one year or five years.
• If you need an Embargo Period that is longer than one year, you must request a memo from your Graduate Program Director stating that person’s approval for the extension. The memo must be submitted to the Graduate Student Service Center prior to your degree date.
• Campus Only Access and Embargo Periods are both time-limited. The start date for either or both types of protection is the same as your degree date. If you invoke both, the embargo will supersede the Campus Access control.
• Document Accessibility:  Consider the global nature of your readership. People who cannot distinguish colors accurately on screen or who have more severe visual impairments need to be able to understand all of your content. Do not let simple formatting choices create barriers for some members of your audience. Producing accessible works for online publication adds to your professionalism and begins with a few simple techniques to apply as you compose your document. Review  six quick tips for making your document accessible .
• A non-UMass email address that you will continue to use indefinitely after you graduate from UMass Amherst.
• Your manuscript in PDF format. Be sure to proofread your work before converting to PDF and recheck formatting after converting to ensure that all images and tables are properly positioned. For help with PDF conversions, visit the Learning Commons in the DuBois Library.
• Any supporting files that you wish to provide as supplemental content, e.g. pictures, audio, video, animations, simulations, etc. Tip: name the files according to how you have referenced them in your manuscript and store them in the same location with your manuscript.
• Your selection of up to six keywords or phrases to ensure that your work appears in relevant searches.

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Samantha O'Sullivan (Physics / African American Studies)

Gullah Physics: Challenging English Language Hegemony in Science

Second prize expand_more

Sahar Mariam Mohammadzadeh (Government)

The Impact of Twitter on the Supreme Court

Third prize expand_more

Stephanie Alderete (Psychology)

Preschoolers' Ability to Think about Alternative Possibilities

Finalists expand_more

Alex Grayson (Molecular & Cellular Biology)

Comparing Fox and Human Brain Connectivity Patterns

Javin Pombra (Computer Science)

Unraveling the Black Box: Explainability for Artificial Intelligence in the Twenty-First Century

Zelin Liu (Classics / History)

Using the Past to Define Group Identity

Jerrica Li (Comparative Literature)

Diaspora: A Genre for This New Planetary Reality

Jahnavi Rao (Government)

The Spillover Potential of a Nudge

Daiana Lilo (Government / Data Science)

A Great Personality: How Different Characteristics Can Predict Supreme Court Decisions

• Presentación
• ¿Por qué la ED-UMA?
• Organigrama
• Servicio de Doctorado
• Comisión de Posgrado
• Comisión Calidad ED-UMA
• Histórico de Tesis UMA
• Honoris Causa UMA
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• Publicaciones y premios
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• Doctoral School

II Concurso Thesis Talk-Cuenta tu tesis

La Escuela de Doctorado de la Universidad de Málaga convoca el II Concurso Thesis Talk-Cuenta tu Tesis (curso 21-22) basado en la propuesta  Three Minute Thesis  (3MT) de la Universidad de Queensland (Australia). El objetivo del concurso es  incentivar a los doctorandos a presentar su Proyecto de Tesis y explicar su aportación a la sociedad .

El Concurso consta de dos fases, i) Fase de Selección, en la que una Comisión de Expertos seleccionará un máximo de 22 participantes y ii) Fase de Presentación, en la que los participantes seleccionados expondrán públicamente su Proyecto de Tesis durante 3 minutos, preferiblemente en inglés y con una imagen fija como único soporte audio-visual. Las presentaciones serán evaluadas por un Jurado, quien otorgará el Premio Thesis Talk a la mejor presentación y un accésit al segundo mejor valorado. La composición de la Comisión de Expertos y del Jurado, en número impar y designada por la Dirección de la Escuela de Doctorado, se hará pública con anterioridad a la fase de Selección de Participantes. La participación en el concurso supone la aceptación de las condiciones y los criterios de evaluación, así como el consentimiento expreso para la difusión de la presentación del Proyecto de Tesis a través de la UMA.

PROCEDIMIENTO

Fase I: Selección de Participantes

Requisitos de los participantes : doctorandos con matrícula en vigor en cualquiera de los Programas de Doctorado de la ED-UMA, que cuenten con un mínimo de 2 evaluaciones positivas y, al menos, 1 trabajo publicado o aceptado (comunicación a congreso, capítulo, libro o publicación en revista indexada) relacionado con su Proyecto de Tesis y publicado o aceptado durante su vinculación al Programa de Doctorado.

Inscripción hasta el 8 de abril de 2022 : las solicitudes se presentarán  a través de Campus Virtual  según el Modelo de Inscripción Thesis-Talk_ED-UMA en el que se incluye un Running-Title (máximo 140 caracteres) y Resumen (máximo 3500 caracteres) del Proyecto de Tesis, junto con el visto bueno del Tutor y/o Director y un breve resumen del currículo del doctorando (máximo 3500 caracteres).

Publicación de Participantes Seleccionados, 03 de mayo de 2022

Fase II: Presentación

Presentaciones Thesis Talk-Cuenta tu Tesis 18 de mayo de 2022: cada participante seleccionado expondrá su Proyecto de Tesis en un máximo de 3 minutos, preferiblemente en inglés y con una imagen fija como único soporte audio-visual. El Jurado valorará la capacidad de transmisión, la fluidez de la exposición y la transferencia de conocimiento a la sociedad.

Normas Fase de Presentación , 09 mayo de 2022

Síguenos en directo el 18 de mayo de 9:45 a 12:00 ( enlace bb collaborate )

Resumen Acto Fase de Presentación  

RECONOCIMIENTOS Y PREMIOS

Todos los participantes en el concurso, independientemente de que sean seleccionados o no para la Fase de Presentación, podrán incluir su Modelo de Inscripción Thesis-Talk_ED-UMA como actividad formativa en el DAD. Los Participantes Seleccionados para la Fase de Presentación recibirán un Diploma acreditativo. Se otorgará un premio por un valor equivalente a  800 euros al doctorando cuya presentación sea seleccionada  por el Jurado y se concederá un accésit por un valor equivalente a  300 euros al segundo mejor valorado , ambos sujetos a la legislación fiscal vigente.

Resolución Premios Thesis Talk-Cuenta tu Tesis (19 de mayo de 2022)

Acto de Entrega de Premios Thesis Talk-Cuenta tu Tesis (lunes 4 de julio de 2022, 12:30h. Sala de Juntas del Rectorado, Paseo del Parque). Resumen del acto .

Noticia en Diario Sur . Entrevista Paul Remache .

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Dissertations & Theses

Recent doctoral dissertations posted in scholarworks, recent masters theses posted in scholarworks.

• Things to know before you submit
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Library Publishing & Institutional Repository Librarian

Completing and submitting your master's thesis or doctoral dissertation is an important part of completing your graduate degree.  This guide will help you prepare your thesis or dissertation for submission to ScholarWorks@UMassAmherst , the campus' open access institutional repository by providing step by step directions as well as guidance on copyright and permissions.

Throughout the guide, we will refer to electronic theses and dissertations as ETDs.

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To browse dissertations and theses by academic department or program, please go to the Schools, Colleges, and Departments page.

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Email [email protected] to schedule an appointment.

• Masters student and would like to submit your thesis, please follow this link .
• Doctoral student and would like to submit your dissertation, please follow this link .
• MFA student and would like to submit your thesis, please follow this link .

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Dissertation & Thesis Guide

Introduction.

This guide outlines the required thesis/dissertation format, technical specifications, and submission procedure to be followed by master's and doctoral candidates at the University of Massachusetts Lowell. If the author of a thesis or dissertation has a question regarding a point not covered in this guide, he or she should confer with his or her thesis/dissertation advisor, as the query may be one common to students in that discipline. Should ProQuest and UMass Lowell guidelines conflict, UMass Lowell rules take precedence.

The main intent of this document is to ensure that the University of Massachusetts Lowell theses and dissertations are presented in a conventional form, following universally accepted standards for academic papers, and that they are written in a manner that will provide maximum utility to readers who may use them in their research. This guide does not deal with detailed information on how to research or write a dissertation or thesis. 

Please use these guidelines from the moment you begin drafting your thesis or dissertation as it will save you time as you prepare your final manuscript for electronic submission. All thesis and dissertations must be submitted electronically to the UMass Lowell ProQuest/ETD website. No paper copies will be accepted. 

A step-by-step guide to submitting your manuscript to ProQuest/ETD is available at https://libguides.uml.edu/ETD . 

Deadline for Submission

A complete DRAFT of the thesis/dissertation must be submitted to UMass Lowell’s ETD Administrator as soon as possible, but no later than one week prior to the final submission deadline posted in the Graduate Academic Calendar. When submitting the completed draft, students should also pay the $50 archival fee (online) .

Submissions will not be considered complete without payment of the $50 archival charge. All defended, completely revised and approved, and fully formatted thesis and dissertations must be submitted on or before the deadline published in the Graduate Academic Catalog for the semester in which the student will earn the degree. 

• Academic Calendars  

These are hard deadlines, with no exceptions. The student and the advisor are responsible for the content of the thesis/dissertation. The student and advisor are responsible for the content of the thesis/dissertation. It is the student’s responsibility to make sure that the manuscript submitted to ProQuest/EDT adheres to all formatting guidelines and is error free at the time of the final submission.

Institutional Review Board

All research involving “Human Subjects” (including anonymous online surveys, use of existing data, etc.) must be approved by the Institutional Review Board (I.R.B.) email [email protected] or go to the IRB website  for guidelines, forms and additional information. 

Research involving human subjects or animals, use of biological and/or biohazardous materials and/or export-controlled materials must have OIC approval BEFORE any research activity may begin. 

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• Thesis Talk. Frequently Asked Questions
• Doctoral School
• Useful Information
• Ph.D. Research Skills Training

Since 2016, the Doctoral School hosts Thesis Talk, the thesis presentation competition which challenges our Ph.D. students to present their research in just 4  minutes before a non-specialist audience. For further details, check the Frequently Asked Questions below.

What is Thesis Talk?

In Thesis Talk our Ph.D. candidates present their research projects before a non-specialist audience in just 4 minutes, focusing on the what, how and why of their research. A single slide is permitted to enhance their presentation. Participants can choose the language of their presentation (English or Spanish). Presentations are evaluated by a jury of experts.

Thesis Talk follows the guidelines of Three Minute Thesis (3MT) , originally developed by the University of Queensland (Australia) in 2008 and replicated by more than two hundred institutions worldwide.

Thesis Talk is a 2-credit activity of our research skills training program ( formación transversal ). Registration is free.

Who can participate

Thesis Talk is open to all our students enrolled on a Ph.D. program during the academic year corresponding to each edition.

When and Where

Thesis Talk usually takes place in June/July at our campuses. Further details on the call for applications of each edition.

Thesis Talk consists of two stages:

Preselection stage. Presentations from all candidates are evaluated by a jury of experts. 15 candidates are shortlisted according to the evaluation criteria established in the call.

Final stage.  Finalists deliver their presentations live. The jury selects the three best presentations according to the evaluation criteria established in the call. 

Preparation. Candidates can prepare their presentation in two ways:

1. Preparatory workshops of the Doctoral School (optional).

2. Self-preparation. Here are some useful resources:

• Previous Thesis Talk presentations: 2023  |   2022  |   2021 | 2019 |  2018 | 2017  |  2016
• 3 Minute Thesis (3MT) presentations
• Can you explain your thesis in a nutshell?   by UNITEC Institute of Technology (New Zealand) and Griffith University (Australia)
• How to Win the 3MT  by thesiswhisperer.org
• Giving oral presentations ( nature education)

Evaluation criteria

The presentation must meet the following criteria:

• Presentation is focused on research work and personal contribution
• Presentation provides understanding of background and significance of research
• Presentation describes methodology and key results of research
• Presentation follows clear, logical sequence
• Presentation appropriate to non-specialist audience
• Presenter careful not to trivialize research
• Presenter captures audience's attention, has presence, eye contact, vocal range, maintains pace, has confident stance
• Slide enhances presentation

The members of the jury are designated each year by the Dean of the Doctoral School.

The three best presentations according to the jury of the latest edition of Thesis Talk received prizes of € 900, € 600 and €300. 

(*) Prizes subject to current tax legislation

Registration

Students must submit their application form (available only during application period) to the Doctoral School.

Application implies acceptance of the evaluation criteria and explicit consent for uc3m to record live performances during competition sessions.

Each edition is announced on our website and notified to all Ph.D. students by e-mail.

Inquiries: [email protected]

THESIS TALK

• Thesis Talk 2023
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• Thesis Talk FAQ

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Thesis Talks

All major research training projects are concluded with a Thesis Talk. This presentation constitutes a training in presenting original research work to a group of non-experts. All students are required to attend at least 7 Thesis Talks from their fellow students before their own Thesis Talk (10 Thesis Talks for students not following WORK).

The Thesis Talk consists of a 20-minute presentation of the research work performed during the major research project. Afterwards, the student should answer questions from the audience in a 5-minute discussion. The intended audience comprises the fellow master students, so the presenter should take care to adjust the level of the presentation to the audience. The Thesis Talk should not be the same as an internal presentation for the research group.

The aim of the thesis talk

• The presenting student learns how to disseminate their research results to a broader audience.
• Attending students obtain an overview of current research done by our master's students in LST and Chemistry.
• Attendance of an independent jury at the Thesis Talks allows the Board of Examiners to monitor the equivalence and uniformity of the grading of research projects in different groups in the institute.

Procedure for planning a Thesis Talk

• After approval of the final report by the supervisors, the student can start the process by submitting a form and their thesis via Brightspace. The following information is asked on the form:
• personal information: student number, specialisation (Chem or LST)
• title of the report
• number of EC of the project
• name of the main supervisor (member of staff, no PhD student! Usually the mentor)
• name of the external supervisor, if applicable
• name of the second reviewer (member of staff)
• proof of attendance of Thesis Talks (combine scans, photos and/or screenshots into a single pdf file)
• a proposal for the date of the presentation (all supervisors should be available)
• This date should be at least 10 working days in the future. One Thesis Talk or colloquium can be scheduled each weekday at 15.15 except for July and August, then multiple talks a day can be scheduled at all times of the day. Check the calendar for available slots and potentially conflicting events. Students can also check availability or reserve a date before their thesis is final by sending an email to [email protected] . 
• After the form is submitted, the student can upload their thesis (pdf format) via the hand-in point on Brightspace.
• The student finds a second reviewer with knowledge of the project. This person needs to be present at the thesis talk. With external reserach projects, the external supervisor is the main supervisor and the internal supervisor is the second reviewer.
• Students following the WORK programme can only request a thesis talk after the WORK 3 assignment has been uploaded. The request form will not be visible if no WORK 3 assignment has been uploaded.
• A jury will be organised by the education team. The Thesis Talk is announced on this website and a confirmation is sent to the student and supervisors. 
• The main supervisor should make sure the research project evaluation is filled in before the presentation using the online grading system. 
• Some presentations may be hosted online in the dedicated Kaltura Live Room. The link is provided on the master's Brightspace environment.

After the presentation, the supervisors discuss the proposed grade with the second reviewer and jury and decide on a final grade. The second reviewer and jury use the oral presentation rubric to help determine a grade and give feedback on the presentation performance. Supervisors, second reviewer and jury sign the evaluation form via this website.

Practical points

• The student is responsible for providing and testing suitable hardware for the online presentation equipment.
• For embargoed research, the main supervisor must request an exemption from a public presentation of the Thesis Talk from the programme director.
• Every MSc student is required to attend at least 7 Thesis Talks of fellow MSc students of the various research themes before their own Thesis Talk. An attendance list must be handed in before the major research project is graded. Online attendance can be proven with a screenshot of the Live Room at the beginning of the presentation, showing both the presenter's title slide and the student's own name in the participant list. On-campus attendance is confirmed by collecting a signature from a staff member present after the presentation. 

Are you interested in the MSc Chemistry or MSc Life Science & Technology programme? Find out more about the programmes, career prospects & how to apply.

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Graduate Student Guide to UMass Lowell Library Services

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Submitting your Dissertation or Thesis at UML

• About Uploading Electronic Dissertations

Finding Dissertations and Theses for Research

Search  Proquest database of UML Dissertations & Theses  for Master's Theses and dissertations from  1981  to present.

You may search on: 

Use the  Advanced Search  link (above the search text box) to select specific fields for your search.

• Author's Name
• Advisor's Name
• Keyword in Title
• Degree Date
• Search the  UMass Lowell Library Catalog   for Theses/Dissertations from  1949  to  1985 . .

Finding Dissertations from Other Schools

Search  ProQuest Dissertations & Theses database  for any item from 1981 to present. An order number will be included in the record. For dissertations from 1997 to present, retrieve the first 24 pages free.

• Search  WorldCat  to identify older items
• Use  InterLibrary Loan to request the loan of the dissertation publication. 
• Items found in  WorldCat   can sometimes be borrowed, but only if ProQuest does not have a copy.
• Order the Thesis/Dissertation from ProQuest. You may choose microfilm, paper, or (after 1997), electronic copy.

The Library subsidizes the purchase of Theses/Dissertations from Proquest for:

• Graduate Students: Three (3) Theses/Dissertations during their student years at no charge. Additional items can be purchased for $50,  through the InterLibrary Loan Department.
• Faculty Members: Three (3) free Theses/Dissertations per person through the InterLibrary Loan Department.
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Mothers of Newly-Resigned Miss USA and Miss Teen USA Called Their Dream Jobs a ‘Nightmare’

T he mothers of the Miss USA Noelia Voigt and Miss Teen USA UmaSofia Srivastava have divulged the reasons behind their daughters’ surprise subsequent step downs from their titles in early May.

“The job of their dreams turned out to be a nightmare,” Barbara Srivastava, the mother of UmaSofia, said during a Tuesday interview with Good Morning America. “We could not continue this charade. The girls decided to step down and give [up] their dream of a lifetime: a crown, a national title. Why would two girls decide to give that up?” 

Their daughters relinquished their roles within days of each other in early May, and have not been able to speak because of confidentiality agreements they signed with Miss USA, the mothers said during the GMA interview.  

Barbara said that her daughter was “abused, bullied, and cornered” by the organization. In her resignation statement on social media, UmaSofia Srivastava made it clear that she did not agree with the direction the organization was going in, adding that her personal values did not fully align with them. Barbara told GMA that once her daughter saw that Voigt resigned, she wanted to “stand up with Noelia.”

Voigt also wrote a letter addressed to the leadership at Miss USA and Miss Universe organization, in which she called the organization a “toxic work environment.” In the letter, she also revealed that Miss USA had not provided Voigt with a proper handler, who acts as a manager or scout for women and girls. Jackeline Voigt, Noelia Voigt’s mother, says her daughter felt uncomfortable because of advances made towards her at events. In one instance, Voigt was left alone with a man in a car who sexually harassed her

 “This is not what she worked so hard for. The Miss Universe organization needs to come out and speak to us, or apologize, or clean this mess,” Noelia told GMA. 

The two mothers advised other contestants to not run for any Miss USA title because of the alleged work culture. “Look at what happened to Noelia and UmaSofia. Right now, it’s not the right time to participate,” Jackeline said. “We just don’t want these families and these girls to go through what we’re going through.”

In a press release on May 10, the Miss USA organization announced the new Miss USA titleholder, Savannah Gankiewicz, and wrote: “We are committed to fostering a healthy, communicative and supportive environment for all contestants, state titleholders, national titleholders and staff involved with the Miss USA organization, it’s our mission. We ask for community, empathy and kindness to be restored.” 

The CW Network, which airs the Miss USA pageant, said that it is “evaluating its relationship” with both of the pageants. The network had just signed onto an "exclusive multi-year broadcast partnership" with Miss USA and Miss Teen USA.

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Congratulations to Jiarui (Ray) Fang on the successful completion of honors project, thesis, and poster presentation.

• Publication date May 10, 2024

He will graduate with very well-deserved honors titled “An Investigation into Anterior Olfactory Nucleus Neuronal Activity During Learning of a Complex Context Dependent Odor Memory Task”. Ray will continue his studies as a PhD student at Boston University in the Dr. Michael Hasselmo lab . Ray was also the recipient of the Robert R. Capranica Award is for an outstanding undergraduate honors thesis in neuroethology, link for more information on the award.

Congratulations to Shiping (Emily) Li for successfully delivering her 2nd year graduate talk.

• Publication date May 1, 2024

Shiping’s talk was on “The Functions of the Retrosplenial Cortex”.

Congratulations to Wendy Yang for an excellent 4th year graduate talk.

• Publication date April 19, 2024

Wendy’s talk was on “The Role of the Anterior Thalamus in Spatial Learning and Memory”.

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Are We Talking Too Much About Mental Health?

Recent studies cast doubt on whether large-scale mental health interventions are making young people better. Some even suggest they can have a negative effect.

By Ellen Barry

In recent years, mental health has become a central subject in childhood and adolescence. Teenagers narrate their psychiatric diagnosis and treatment on TikTok and Instagram. School systems, alarmed by rising levels of distress and self-harm, are introducing preventive coursework in emotional self-regulation and mindfulness.

Now, some researchers warn that we are in danger of overdoing it. Mental health awareness campaigns, they argue, help some young people identify disorders that badly need treatment — but they have a negative effect on others, leading them to over-interpret their symptoms and see themselves as more troubled than they are.

The researchers point to unexpected results in trials of school-based mental health interventions in the United Kingdom and Australia: Students who underwent training in the basics of mindfulness , cognitive behavioral therapy and dialectical behavior therapy did not emerge healthier than peers who did not participate, and some were worse off, at least for a while.

And new research from the United States shows that among young people, “self-labeling” as having depression or anxiety is associated with poor coping skills, like avoidance or rumination.

In a paper published last year , two research psychologists at the University of Oxford, Lucy Foulkes and Jack Andrews, coined the term “prevalence inflation” — driven by the reporting of mild or transient symptoms as mental health disorders — and suggested that awareness campaigns were contributing to it.

“It’s creating this message that teenagers are vulnerable, they’re likely to have problems, and the solution is to outsource them to a professional,” said Dr. Foulkes, a Prudence Trust Research Fellow in Oxford’s department of experimental psychology, who has written two books on mental health and adolescence.

Until high-quality research has clarified these unexpected negative effects, they argue, school systems should proceed cautiously with large-scale mental health interventions.

“It’s not that we need to go back to square one, but it’s that we need to press pause and reroute potentially,” Dr. Foulkes said. “It’s possible that something very well-intended has overshot a bit and needs to be brought back in.”

This remains a minority view among specialists in adolescent mental health, who mostly agree that the far more urgent problem is lack of access to treatment.

About 60 percent of young Americans with severe depression receive no treatment, according to Mental Health America, a nonprofit research group. In crisis, desperate families fall back on emergency rooms, where teens often remain for days before a psychiatric bed opens up. There is good reason to embrace a preventive approach, teaching schoolchildren basic skills that might forestall crises later, experts say.

Dr. Foulkes said she understood that her argument runs counter to that consensus, and when she began to present it, she braced for a backlash. To her surprise, she said, many educators reached out to express quiet agreement.

“There’s definitely a fear about being the one to say it,” she said.

A deflating result

In the summer of 2022, the results of a landmark study on mindfulness training in British classrooms landed — like a lead balloon.

The trial, My Resilience in Adolescence, or MYRIAD, was ambitious, meticulous and expansive, following about 28,000 teenagers over eight years. It had been launched in a glow of optimism that the practice would pay off, improving the students’ mental health outcomes in later years.

Half of the teenagers were trained by their teachers to direct their attention to the present moment — breathing, physical sensations or everyday activities — in 10 lessons of 30 to 50 minutes apiece.

The results were disappointing . The authors reported “no support for our hypothesis” that mindfulness training would improve students’ mental health. In fact, students at highest risk for mental health problems did somewhat worse after receiving the training, the authors concluded.

But by the end of the eight-year project, “mindfulness is already embedded in a lot of schools, and there are already organizations making money from selling this program to schools,” said Dr. Foulkes, who had assisted on the study as a postdoctoral research associate. “And it’s very difficult to get the scientific message out there.”

Why, one might ask, would a mental health program do harm?

Researchers in the study speculated that the training programs “bring awareness to upsetting thoughts,” encouraging students to sit with darker feelings, but without providing solutions, especially for societal problems like racism or poverty. They also found that the students didn’t enjoy the sessions and didn’t practice at home.

Another explanation is that mindfulness training could encourage “co-rumination,” the kind of long, unresolved group discussion that churns up problems without finding solutions.

As the MYRIAD results were being analyzed, Dr. Andrews led an evaluation of Climate Schools, an Australian intervention based on the principles of cognitive behavioral therapy, in which students observed cartoon characters navigating mental health concerns and then answered questions about practices to improve mental health.

Here, too, he found negative effects. Students who had taken the course reported higher levels of depression and anxiety symptoms six months and 12 months later.

Co-rumination appears to be higher in girls, who tend to come into the program more distressed, as well as more attuned to their friends, he said. “It might be,” he said, “that they kind of get together and make things a little bit worse for each other.”

Dr. Andrews, a Wellcome Trust research fellow, has since joined an effort to improve Climate Schools by addressing negative effects. And he has concluded that schools should slow down until “we know the evidence base a bit more.” Sometimes, he said, “doing nothing is better than doing something.”

The awareness paradox

One problem with mental health awareness, some research suggests, is that it may not help to put a label to your symptoms.

Isaac Ahuvia, a doctoral candidate at Stony Brook University, recently tested this in a study of 1,423 college students . Twenty-two percent “self-labeled” as having depression, telling researchers “I am depressed” or “I have depression,” but 39 percent met the diagnostic criteria for depression.

He found that the students who self-labeled felt that they had less control over depression and were more likely to catastrophize and less likely to respond to distress by putting their difficulties in perspective, compared with peers who had similar depression symptoms.

Jessica L. Schleider, a co-author of the self-labeling study, said this was no surprise. People who self-label “appear to be viewing depression as a biological inevitability,” she said. “People who don’t view emotions as malleable, view them as set and stuck and uncontrollable, tend to cope less well because they don’t see a point to trying.”

But Dr. Schleider, an associate professor of medical social sciences at Northwestern University and the director of the university’s Lab for Scalable Mental Health, pushed back on the prevalence inflation hypothesis. She disagreed with the claim that students are overdiagnosing themselves, noting that Mr. Ahuvia’s findings suggest otherwise.

Awareness campaigns are bound to have multiple effects, helping some students and not others. And ultimately, she argued, the priority for public health should be reaching young people in the most distress.

“The urgency of the mental health crisis is so clear,” she said. “In the partnerships that I have, the emphasis is on the kids truly struggling right now who have nothing — we need to help them — more so than a possible risk for a subset of kids who aren’t really struggling.”

Maybe, she said, we need to look beyond the “universal, school-assembly-style approach,” to targeted, light-touch interventions, which research has shown can be effective at decreasing anxiety and conduct disorders, especially in younger children.

“There is a risk of throwing the baby out with the bathwater,” Dr. Schleider said. “The response can’t be ‘Forget all of it.’ It should be ‘What about this intervention was unhelpful?’”

Other researchers echoed her concern, pointing to studies that show that on average, students benefit from social and emotional learning courses.

One of the largest, a 2023 meta-analysis of 252 classroom programs in 53 countries, found that students who participated performed better academically, displayed better social skills and had lower levels of emotional distress or behavioral problems. In that context, negative effects in a handful of trials appear modest, the researchers said.

“We clearly have not figured out how to do them yet, but I can’t imagine any population-based intervention that the field got right the first time,” said Dr. Andrew J. Gerber, the president and medical director of Silver Hill Hospital and a practicing child and adolescent psychiatrist.

“Really, if you think about almost everything we do in schools, we don’t have great evidence for it working,” he added. “That doesn’t mean we don’t do it. It just means that we’re constantly thinking about ways to improve it.”

‘We want everyone to have it’

These debates are taking place a long way away from classrooms, where mental health curriculums are increasingly commonplace.

Allyson Kangisser, a counselor at Woodsdale Elementary School in Wheeling, W.Va., said the focus in her school is on basic coping skills. In the early grades, students are asked, “What things can you do to take care of yourself when you’re having big feelings?”

Starting in third grade, they take on more complex material, such as watching cartoon characters to distinguish transient stress from chronic conditions like depression. “We’re not trying to have them diagnose themselves,” Ms. Kangisser said. “We are saying, what do you feel — this one? Or this one?”

At the school’s sixth annual mental health fair last month, Woodsdale students walked through a giant inflatable brain, its lobes neatly labeled. They did yoga stretches and talked about regulating their emotions. Ms. Kangisser said the event is valuable precisely because it is universal, so troubled children are not singled out.

“The mental health fair, everybody does it,” she said. “It’s not ‘You need it, and you don’t.’ We want everyone to have it, because you just never know.”

By the time the students reach college, they will have absorbed enormous amounts of information about mental health — from school, but also from social media and from one another.

Dr. Jessica Gold, chief wellness officer for the University of Tennessee system, said the college students she sees are recognizably different — more comfortable speaking about their emotions and more willing to be vulnerable. They also overuse diagnostic terms and have the self-assurance to question a psychiatrist’s judgment.

“It’s sort of a double-edged sword,” she said. “We want people to talk about this more, but we don’t want that to lead to overdiagnosis or incorrect diagnosis or overtreatment. We want it to lead to normalizing of having feelings.”

Lucy Kim, a Yale senior who has lobbied for better mental health support on campus, described the prevalence inflation hypothesis as “disheartening, dismissive and potentially dangerous,” providing another way to discount the experiences of young people.

“As a college student, I see a generation of young people around me impacted by a depth and breadth of loneliness, exhaustion and disillusionment suggestive of a malaise that goes deeper than the general vicissitudes of life,” said Ms. Kim, 23.

Overdiagnosis does happen, she said, and so does glorification of mental health disorders. But stigma and barriers to treatment remain the bigger problem. “I can confidently say I have never heard anyone respond to disclosures of depression with ‘That’s so cool, I wish I had that, too,’” she said.

Ellen Barry is a reporter covering mental health for The Times. More about Ellen Barry

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