2023 Northern Lights Psychology Conference is Friday, Oct. 13, at UND’s Memorial Union

Submissions for presentations and posters will be accepted through Friday, Oct. 6

The UND Department of Psychology will be hosting its annual Northern Lights Psychology Conference from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Friday, Oct. 13, in the UND Memorial Union’s Henry Family Ballroom, Room 220.

This conference, sponsored by the department and free to attend, is open to community members, faculty and students.

Submissions for presentations and posters for the conference will be accepted through Friday, Oct. 6. Undergraduate and graduate students, as well as professionals, are welcome to submit proposals.

Attendees can enroll during the morning of the conference and are encouraged to donate to the Department of Psychology’s graduate student research scholarship fund, in lieu of an admission fee.

Continuing Education Units will also be made available for some conference programming.

More information, as well as a full conference schedule, is available on the Department of Psychology website.

Events of note during the conference include a panel discussion on the “Effects of N.D. Legislation on the LGBTQ+ Community,” as well as a keynote address by Dr. Mary Fristad, emerita professor of psychiatry and behavioral health at the Ohio State University.

Her address, “Hot Topics in Treating Youth with Mood Disorders,” will present a past-decade update on mood disorders in youth since her last UND presentation in 2014. Fristad will describe the impact the coronavirus, social media and cannabis have had on adolescent mental health, as well as provide an update on evidence-based psychotherapies for bipolar spectrum disorders in youth, in addition to other, adjacent topics.

Fristad currently serves Nationwide Children’s Hospital in Columbus, Ohio, as director of academic affairs and research development in the Division of Child & Family Psychiatry and Big Lots Behavioral Health Services. She is also editor-in-chief of “Evidence-based Practice in Child and Adolescent Mental Health” and deputy editor for the “Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry.”

Fristad has been principal investigator, co-investigator or consultant on more than 60 federal, state, industry and/or foundation grants focused on assessment and treatment of mood disorders in children, and has published more than 200 books and articles on the topic.