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Society for the Scientific Study of Psychopathy

The 3^rd biannual SSSP meeting was held April 16-18^th at the Chateau Bourbon-Wyndham in New Orleans, Louisiana. As chair of the program committee for the 2009 SSSP meeting, I would like to thank all of you who helped make this year's meeting a success! This includes program committee members Randy Salekin and Essi Viding, our local host Paul Frick, our treasurer Dave Kosson, and our president Chris Patrick. This was our largest meeting so far, with 157 registrants and 148 attending, a 30% increase from 2007. We enjoyed six symposia and paper sessions that covered topics ranging from neuroscience to socio-cultural approaches to the study of psychopathy, personality assessment of psychopathy, and psychopathology and violence correlates. The conference also included sixty posters that displayed high-quality research by students and other researchers.

We also welcomed Ahmad Hariri of the University of Pittsburgh as an invited speaker. He presented a talk entitled "The Neurobiology of Individual Differences in Complex Emotional Traits", which highlighted his cutting edge research linking genotypes, molecular processes, brain activity, and behavioral phenotypes. Many of our attendees also enjoyed a highly informative pre-conference workshop on Psychopathy and the Law, organized by Kent Kiehl, Walter Sinnott-Armstrong, and Stephen Morse, and sponsored by the John T. and Catherine D. MacArthur Foundation Law and Neuroscience Project. Joseph Newman was honored as the 2009 recipient of the R.D. Hare Lifetime Achievement award, and he presented an award address that delineated the role of cognition in psychopathy. Finally, Christopher Patrick delivered a Presidential address, in which he discussed his triarchic model of psychopathy.

Finally, I would like to note the high level of student participation at the conference this year. Approximately half of the registrants this year were graduate students. Four of our student members who submitted poster abstracts were chosen based on quality ratings made by the program committee to present a Special Student Oral Paper Presentation. These were chosen from over 55 poster submissions and among those who indicated a willingness to present their poster orally. This included Andrea Glenn (advisor: Adrian Raine), Luke Hyde (advisor: Ahmad Hariri), Kristen Landfield (advisor: Scott Lilienfeld), and Naomi Sadeh (advisor: Edelyn Verona). The students also participated in the Special Interest Luncheons and enjoyed a student social hour. We would like to thank Lilian Dindo, head of the student affairs committee, for organizing these events.

We are grateful to the University of New Orleans, Multi-Health Systems, Psychological Assessment Resources, and Guilford Press for their sponsorship and financial support.

We hope to have another successful meeting in two years. Stay posted!

Edelyn Verona

2009 Program Chair

The location for the 2011 meeting of the Society for the Scientific Study of Psychopathy conference is to be announced.