The Mid-Atlantic Teaching of Psychology Conference
Friday, October 3, 2025
9:00 am to 3:00 pm EST
What is MATOP?
The Mid-Atlantic Teaching of Psychology (MATOP) conference is a regional conference for teachers of psychology in 4-year colleges, 2-year colleges, and high school. It started in 1998 at Howard Community College, moved to Trinity College in 1999 and has been at Prince Georges Community College from 2000 to 2023 under the leadership of Diane Finley as an in-person conference and then a virtual conference after the pandemic. MATOP moved to a virtual platform in 2020 and has been fully remote ever since. In 2024, the current MATOP Conference Committee continued its legacy and made the decision to have the conference virtually.
Attendees and presenters came from PA, NJ, DE, and VA. Attendance has generally been in the range of 60-75 faculty. Attendees and presenters came from the U.S., Canada, and Europe. ​​The MATOP Conference Committee looks forward to “seeing” everyone again and welcoming first-time attendees! The conference will begin at 9 a.m. (Eastern) and conclude around 3 p.m. (Eastern).
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How do I register for MATOP 2025?
​Please use the registration link below to register for the conference. Registered attendees will receive the Zoom link for the conference a week before MATOP 2025.
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https://forms.gle/DRmYse7QGyAG6uhz5
How do I join MATOP 2025?
​After you register, please join us today for the conference!
Https://udel.zoom.us/j/92881706959
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​What is this year's schedule (all times are in EST)?
8:45 am: Zoom opens for chatting
9:00 am: Welcome Remarks
9:05 to 9:35 am (30-minute talk): CABE Panel
9:40 to 10:10 am (30-minute talk): Jhotisha Mugon
10:15 to 11:05 am (50-minute talk): KEYNOTE: Marianne Fallon and Todd Joseph
11:10 to 11:40 am (30-minute talk): Jeffrey Bowen
11:45 am to 12:15 pm (30-minute talk): Dina Gohar
12:20 to 1:10 pm (50-minute talk): KEYNOTE: Sue Frantz
1:15 to 1:45 pm (30-minute talk): Karen Brakke
1:50 to 2:55 pm (5 10-minute talks): MATOP Teaching Share (MTAS)*
2:55 to 3:00 pm: Closing Remarks and MATOP 2025 Group Picture
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NOTE: For more information about this year's speakers, please see MATOP 2025 Speakers section.
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How can I present at MATOP?
We are including a teaching activity sharing session (thanks to NiTOP for sharing the idea). The MATOP Teaching Activity Share (MTAS) is limited to six (6) presentations. We are looking for new activities that have not been shared previously.
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Please use the link below to complete your submission. Submissions for the MATOP 2025 Conference are due on Monday, September 22, 20215 at 11:59 pm EST. ​Acceptance emails will be sent by Friday, September 26, 2025.
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https://forms.gle/ykaS7CCJ3GBg279x9
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​​Who are this year's MTAS speakers?
MTAS are MATOP Teaching Activity Share that involve 1 slide, 7 minutes to present information, and 1 question from the audience.
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1:50 to 2:00 pm: Mary Streit, Bimanual interference and Brain Lateralization
2:05 to 2:15 pm: Lisa Dierker, The Brain through Visual Mnemonics
2:20 to 2:30 pm: Mary Jenson, A Sweet Introduction to Sampling Distributions and the Central Limit Theorem
2:35 to 2:45 pm: Sangeeta Gupta, What Does Good Look Like? Collaborative Assessment in Research Methods Courses
2:45 to 2:55 pm: Katherine Van Allen, "Flipping the Script": Innovative Approaches to Student Engagement
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​​​What is the cost to attend MATOP?
Normally, there is a nominal registration fee to attend MATOP virtually. At this time, the conference continues to be free of charge to teachers of psychology. Because it is a free conference, please note that the conference will not be recorded and it is the responsibility of the attendees to mark your calendars and save the date for MATOP 2025.
MATOP 2025 Speakers
Karen Brakke
​Karen Brakke is Professor Emerita of Psychology and former Co-Director of the Teaching Resource and Research Center at Spelman College in Atlanta, GA. She has been an active member of the Society for the Teaching of Society (STP) for over 25 years and has participated in several APA and STP working groups and task forces. Trained as a developmental psychologist, she has published in multiple areas of research including the scholarship of teaching and learning. She was recently awarded the American Psychological Foundation's 2025 Charles L. Brewer Distinguished Teaching Award. A former President of the Southeastern Psychological Association (SEPA) and program chair of the Southeastern Teaching of Psychology (SETOP) Conference, Brakke currently serves on APA’s Board of Educational Affairs. In 2026 she will begin her term as editor of the journal Scholarship in the Teaching and Learning of Psychology.
Sue Frantz
​Sue Frantz is a first-generation college student who earned her BA in psychology from Indiana University of Pennsylvania in 1989 and her MA in social psychology from the University of Kansas in 1992. She has been in love with sharing the concepts of psychology with her diverse student community since she began her teaching career as an adjunct professor at community colleges in the Kansas City area and in Alamogordo, New Mexico. After teaching at Highline College in the Seattle area for 22 years, she is now faculty emerita. Having relocated to Las Cruces, NM, she is affiliate faculty of psychology at New Mexico State University. She is co-author with Charles Stangor on FlatWorld’s Introduction to Psychology, 4.0 (2023) and Principles of Social Psychology, 3.0 (2025). She is also co-author with Douglas Bernstein and Stephen Chew on Teaching Psychology: A Step-by-Step Guide, 4e (2025).
Jeff Bowen
​Jeff Bowen is an Associate Teaching Professor in the Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences at Johns Hopkins University. He received his Ph.D. in Psychological and Brain Sciences (Social Psychology) from UC Santa Barbara in 2017. At JHU, he develops and teaches the research methods and statistics curriculum for undergraduate psychology majors, as well as the first-year statistics sequence for Ph.D. students. He also developed and teaches a seminar on psychology and social media. In addition to his teaching, he is the PI for an undergraduate research lab (the SPARC Lab) specializing in the study of close relationships and social cognition, and conducts pedagogical research exploring student habits in and outside the classroom and their relationship to course perceptions, attitudes, and performance.
Todd Joseph
​Todd Joseph is Division Chair for Public Safety, Social, & Behavioral Sciences and Professor of Psychology at Hillsborough College in Tampa, FL. A dedicated teacher and mentor, he is a two-time national NISOD Excellence Award recipient and the 2024 winner of the Society for the Teaching of Psychology’s Wayne Weiten Teaching Excellence Award. Professor Joseph serves as Executive Director of Psi Beta, the national honor society for psychology at two-year colleges, and has held leadership roles in multiple other psychology organizations, including SEPA & APA. He served on the APA Task Force to Revise the Principles for Quality Undergraduate Education in Psychology, as well as multiple STP task forces. He is the founder of the Central Florida Psychology Summit, the Psi Beta Teaching of Psychology Conference (PBTOP), and the National Psychology Summit. His work centers on student engagement, transfer equity, and advancing psychology education for students from disadvantaged backgrounds.
Marianne Fallon
​Marianne Fallon is the Executive Director of Psi Chi, the International Honor Society in Psychology. For over two decades, Dr. Fallon worked in higher education as a professor and administrator, championing undergraduate research and faculty development. She has authored several articles in the scholarship of teaching and learning and Writing up Quantitative Research in the Social and Behavioral Sciences (2016, Brill). Dr. Fallon mentored over 60 undergraduate emergent researchers, was awarded the Connecticut State University Board of Trustees University-Level Teaching Award, and received recognition for Outstanding Service to the Center for Teaching and Faculty Development at Central Connecticut State University (CCSU). At CCSU, she served as an Associate Vice-President for Academic Affairs, as well as Interim Chairperson of Theatre. She currently lives in Halifax, Nova Scotia.
Jhotisha Mugon
​​Jhotisha Mugon is an Assistant Teaching Professor at the University of Victoria, BC, Canada. She received her PhD from the University of Waterloo in 2020. She started teaching as a graduate student sessional instructor in 2017 and fell in love with teaching in higher educatin. In her current role, she primarily teaches large undergraduate classes including Introductory Psychology, Introduction to Mind and Brain, BioPsychology, and Human Neuropsychology. Outside of teaching, she mentors undergraduate students in Scholarship of Teaching and Learning research and in research surrounding attitudes towards psychedelics. Jhotisha is also part of the STP's Early Career Committee and a member of the Teaching Introductory Psychology (TIP) Northwest conference committee.
Dina Gohar
Dr. Gohar has taught undergraduates in the University of Michigan’s Department of Psychology since 2018, and is now developing and co-directing Oregon State’s MS Clinical Psychology online program as an Associate Professor of Teaching. She received her doctorate in clinical and social psychology from Duke University in 2017 after completing a lifespan clinical internship at the University of Michigan, MA at University of Pennsylvania, and BA from Harvard. She also did a child clinical postdoctoral fellowship at UM in 2018, where she served as a Clinical Supervisor until 2021. Dr. Gohar’s teaching is deeply informed by her clinical expertise in treating youth, adults, and families using evidence-based “third wave” approaches such as CBT, ACT, and DBT, as well as ERP for OCD and anxiety. Her research and classroom practice focus on fostering self-regulation, self-efficacy, belonging, and growth mindset to better support the learning, performance, and well-being of students of all backgrounds.
Ngoc Bui
Ngoc H. Bui, Ph.D. is the Associate Dean for Effectiveness, Planning, and Faculty Affairs in the College of Arts and Sciences at the University of La Verne. She is also a tenured full professor in the Undergraduate Psychology Program and Psi Chi Chapter Advisor. She received her master’s and doctorate degrees in social psychology from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Her research interests include social cognition, attitudes, procrastination, and media psychology. Dr. Bui has taught at both the undergraduate and graduate levels, and her favorite courses to teach are experimental psychology and social psychology. She has served as President of the Board of Directors for Psi Chi International Honor Society in Psychology, and currently serves as a member of the American Psychological Association’s Committee on Associate and Baccalaureate Education (CABE).
David Kreiner
David S. Kreiner is a professor of psychological science at the University of Central Missouri, where he has been on the faculty since 1990. He earned a BA in psychology and a PhD in human experimental psychology, both from the University of Texas at Austin. He teaches General (Intro.) Psychology, Research Design & Analysis I and II, Cognitive Psychology, and a capstone course, History of Psychology. His research interests include cognitive psychology, particularly in language processing and memory, as well as research on the teaching of psychology. He is active in the Society for the Teaching of Psychology and has been involved in a number of endeavors related to teaching. He is currently an associate editor for the APA journal, Scholarship of Teaching and Learning in Psychology, and is a member of APA's Committee on Associate and Baccalaureate Education (CABE).
Victoria Taylor
Dr. Victoria C. Taylor is an Associate Professor of Psychology at Prince George’s Community College (PGCC). Dr. Taylor holds an A.A., B.A., and M.A. in psychology and an Ed.D. in organizational leadership. Dr. Taylor has taught introductory to upper-level psychology courses at PGCC since 2015. She also teaches psychology courses at Morgan State University and liberal studies capstone courses at Delaware State University. Her numerous accomplishments include being a first-generation college graduate, PGCC alum, Hillman Entrepreneur’s Scholar, a mentor to hundreds of students in psychology, and an active member of her disciplines’ communities (2026 CABE Co-Chair; Co-coordinator of the psychology research enrichment program (PREP) at PGCC; Program Director at PGCC for Bridge to Baccalaureate Program in partnership with Morgan; MATOP Steering Committee member). However, Dr. Taylor’s proudest accomplishments are being a leader for her family as the oldest of nine, the wife of Lionel, and the mother of London Jade.
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Des Robinson
Des Robinson is a three-year co-chair of APA’s Committee on Associate and Baccalaureate Education (CABE). Along with other CABE members, he is published on implementing APA’s Guidelines for the Undergraduate Major 3.0 and is prepping a manuscript on integrating AI literacy throughout APA’s teaching resources. He has numerous presentations on APA’s teaching assets and served on three STP Presidential Task Forces. As a Nine-year Department Chair, he launched (and taught) several dual enrollment programs, was honored with the Chancellor's Award for Excellence in Teaching and received best poster award at the National Institute for Teaching Psychology.
MATOP Conference Committee
Director: Albee Mendoza, Delaware State University
Director: Jason Spiegelman, Community College of Baltimore County, Catonsville
Joshua Fetterman, Chestnut Hill College
Victoria Taylor, Prince George's Community College
