Latino Mental Health Research Trainees: Summer 2011

Scarlett Barker
Undergraduate Trainee

My name is Scarlett Barker and I'm a senior majoring in Psychology with a concentration in Neuroscience at Princeton University. My goal is to use Neuroscience research to improve the quality of life of individuals who suffer from mental illness. Next year I will conduct a senior thesis on the neural mechanisms responsible for cognitive reserve with the ultimate goal of reducing cognitive disparities. I am very interested in the complex interaction between the external environment and our internal biology, and the important role of social factors in mental health. This summer I will be working at the National Institute of Psychiatry in Mexico City on an epidemiological project regarding depression in an indigenous population. I am extremely grateful to the MHIRT program for this immense opportunity!

Ava Casados, B.A.
Undergraduate Trainee

I graduated from the University of Southern California in May 2011 as a Renaissance Scholar with a Bachelors in Psychology and Fine Arts. While at USC, I participated in research pertaining to therapy outcomes as a function of client-therapist interaction styles with Asian American clients. I also have been a part of adapting a new measure to assess the development of early language and literacy skills in bilingual and spanish-speaking Latino children, a project which I will continue to work on through next year. Additionally, I participated in directed field work at an all-Latina battered women's shelter in inner-city LA, where I worked predominantly with the children of the shelter. I have also worked for the Peace Over Violence campaign, Denim Day LA, and the USC chapter of Take Back the Night, which deal with sexual and domestic violence against women. My interests have always been in clinical work with women and children, and my research and work experiences have also drawn me towards focusing in on socially and economically disadvantaged populations within this demographic. In Puebla I am excited to be working on a study examining cultural competence in the clinical setting. I plan to continue my education in this field by attending graduate school in clinical psychology.

Martha Castaneda, B.A.
Undergraduate Trainee

I graduated from the University of Illinois at Chicago where I received my B.A. in Psychology with minors in Sociology and Biology in the spring of 2011. I will be applying to Community and Clinical Psychology doctoral programs later this year. While attending UIC I was a member of the Honors College and I conducted research under the supervision of Dr. Kara Morgan-Short on the Oak Park River Forest (OPRF) Second language acquisition study. We hope to discover possible differences or advantages in cognition, lexical retrieval, and memory for students who are learning a second language and use this study to inform future research and for further development of language learning techniques. My goal for graduate school is to find a program that will allow me to look into the mental health disparities in the Mexican immigrant community and develop interventions to address them. Being a part of the Latino Mental Health Program has been a dream come true. Given my interest in eliminating the disparities in mental health for Latino and other minority populations, the knowledge I have gained while a member of this program has been an invaluable fuel for my desire to continue with a graduate education.

Quetzalli Castro, B.A.
Undergraduate Trainee

I did my undergrad at the University of Illinois at Chicago and received my B.A. in Applied Psychology in 2011. My goal is to become a research professional that focuses on the mental health disparities, and improve mental health awareness, of the Latino community. My research interests include identifying and understanding factors between mental health stigma and help-seeking behavior in relation to Latinos, as well as improving mental health campaigns to be culturally competent and more accessible to populations that are Spanish-speaking and of low socioeconomic resources. Participating in the Latino Mental Health Program has allowed me to learn about disparities in mental health that occur in minority populations as well as provided insight as to possible ways of improving these disparities. My research focus as part of MHIRT is La CLAve and the research experience that has been gained through this program has been valuable.

Tracy Cerda, B.A.
Undergraduate Trainee

I graduated from University of California, Irvine where I received a Bachelor of Arts in Psychology and a Bachelor of Arts in Social Science with a specialization in Public and Community Service. My research interests include child development and child mental health. I am interested in mental health and how culture plays a role, both within the individual and in therapy. This interest has inspired me to work with Dr. Lopez on his cultural competence research project. I am currently part of a group within this research project. My goal is to work with the Latino population who face mental health disorders. I want to work with this population because I feel they are underrepresented in aid for mental health. I want to help children who are facing psychological distresses, and I would like to see how this experience affects not just the child but the whole family as well. The Latino Mental Health Research Training Program has been a rewarding research experience and has enabled me to learn on a personal level about mental health disparities within the Latino population. I am currently applying to graduate school and plan to follow my goal of working under mental health.

 Jessica Flores
Undergraduate Trainee

I am an undergraduate student at DePaul University in Chicago, Illinois. I am majoring in Psychology with a concentration in Human Development and also a Spanish minor. Currently, I am a research assistant in two labs at DePaul with Dr. Jocelyn Smith Carter, PhD, and Dr. Kathryn Grant, PhD. During my senior year, I will be conducting an honors thesis that will look at posttraumatic stress disorder in Latinos living in Oxford Homes under the mentorship of Dr. Grant and Julia DiGangi, MA, a graduate student of Dr. Leonard Jason, PhD. My research interests include coping and resiliency among Iraq and Afghanistan military veterans diagnosed with PTSD. I plan on applying to graduate school programs in Clinical Psychology next autumn. I am very grateful for the opportunity to work with Dr. Maria del Carmen Lara-Muñoz, MD, and Dr. Steve Lopez, PhD.  Furthermore, I am thankful to have been given the chance to be part of the Latino Mental Health Research Training Program and to learn more about mental health disparities among Latinos.

Michelle Flores, M.A.
Graduate Trainee

I am a second year doctoral student at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign in the Counseling Psychology program. In the past, I have researched racial identity and familism in Latinos and Asian Americans under the tutelage of Eric Kohatsu, Ph.D. Currently, I am studying racial colorblind ideologies in segregated communities with Helen Neville, Ph.D. My goal is to incorporate race/ethnicity/culture and familism studies into a line of research looking at Latino mental health disparities. I am very excited to be a MHIRT trainee this year, as it gives me the opportunity to conduct research in my own country and in my first language. A native Tapata, this is the first professional opportunity I have had in Mexico (lindo y querido!). I am also very excited to work with Dr. Steve Lopez during this training. Adelante!

David Gonzalez, B.A.
Graduate Trainee

I am a doctoral student in Clinical Psychology at the University of North Texas. I received my undergraduate degree in Psychology from the University of Notre Dame. Broadly, my research interests are in depression and multicultural psychology. Specifically, I am working on projects refining the assessment of depression and validating culturally appropriate translations of commonly used measures. I am also working on a project that may help understand how specific types of discriminatory experiences influence self-reported distress and physiological outcomes. Aside from research, I derive great pleasure from teaching an undergraduate statistics course, volunteering at a bicycle co-op, and reading books beneath the shade of trees.

Kathryn Hale , M.A.
Graduate Trainee/Anthropologist-in-Residence

I am a doctoral student studying medical and linguistic anthropology in UCLA's graduate program. I obtained my BA in Anthropology from Emory University in 2006, and my MA from UCLA in 2010. Before graduate school, I worked in the research unit at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center's Psychiatry ward for 2 years. My job gave me experience with all aspects of research, ranging from IRB submissions to marketing to study visits and data entry. This work experience drew me to the interaction of psychology and culture in terms of our basic understanding of local folk psychologies interacting with the imposition of Western medicine and its impact on public health issues. For my doctorate, I am interested in examining the doctor-patient-family participant framework that surrounds patients with severe mental illness, as well as documenting the experiences and attributions of patients and physicians involved in pharmaceutical clinical trials. Participating in the Latino Mental Health Program has been an invaluable experience in terms of refining my language skills, helping identify a field site for longitudinal dissertation research, and learning more about disparities in mental health for minority populations alongside an amazing group of trainees.

Tariana Little, B.A.
Undergraduate Trainee

In 2012 I graduated magna cum laude with a Bachelor of Arts in Psychology from the University of Massachusetts Boston (UMB). The MHIRT experience invigorated my spirit and solidified my view of research as a way to solve real-life problems. Upon returning to UMB, first I became a McNair Program to further my research skills and prepare for graduate school. Second, I reframed my honors thesis of qualitative interviews with Latinas on their mental health experiences by applying principles of community health and social determinants of health, to better understand socio-cultural stressors contributing to mental health. My thesis won the 2012 UMB Kingston-Mann Student Research Awards for Excellence in Diversity/Inclusion Scholarship. Third, in a post-baccalaureate summer internship through the UMB/Dana-Farber/Harvard Cancer Center Research Partnership, I interviewed cancer patients on an end-of-life care study in Vieques, Puerto Rico. Currently I am a doctoral student in an epidemiology and population health program at the University of Massachusetts Medical School. There I am a research assistant on “Barriers and Facilitators of Mental Health Services Utilization among Latinos”, a large prospective study funded by the NIMH, led by Drs. Milagros Rosal and Stephenie Lemon. My doctoral work is a foundation towards developing a career trajectory of intervention research on Latino family mental health, particularly depression and suicide among Latino youth. Outside of academia, I study languages, read voraciously, and write creative, nonfiction that has morphed into what I fear is called a memoir.  

Zorash Montano, B.A.
Graduate Trainee

I graduated from UC Berkeley in 2008 with a B.A. in Psychology. I am currently a second year graduate student in the Clinical Psychology doctoral program under the mentorship of Dr. Nancy Gonzales at Arizona State University. I am motivated to address mental health disparities among minorities, especially Latinos. I intend to reach this goal by teaching the community, especially children and adolescents, about mental health through culturally appropriate psychoeducation programs. I am also interested in developing culturally competent interventions and prevention programs, again designed for children and adolescents. Overall, I want to conduct research that will inform social policy and affect practice in government agencies, hospitals, and schools on how to better serve ethnic minorities, specifically Latinos, and will help them create programs focused on mental health literacy and promotion in these populations.

Oswaldo Moreno, B.A.
Graduate Trainee

I am clinical psychology doctoral student at Clark University in Massachusetts. While at Clark, I have been a graduate research assistant at the Mental Health, Culture, and Community Research Program under the mentorship of Dr. Esteban Cardemil and have been a part of a project on Attention as a Form of Communication in Learning in two Mexican Communities under the mentorship of Dr. Maricela Correa-Chavez. I obtained my Bachelor's Degree at Arizona State University, where I received research and applied training at the Child and Family Intervention Program, Prevention Research Center, and Southwest Interdisciplinary Research Center under the mentorships of Dr. Armando Pina, Dr. Nancy Gonzales, and Dr. Felipe Castro respectively. The primary focus of my research is the study of mental health care, as well as the understanding of pathways towards mental health help seeking behaviors among Latinos in the United States. My work integrates cultural and contextual approaches, including religious and spiritual views and its relations towards professional mental health help seeking and psychopathology. My work is aimed at addressing mental health disparities and mental health care among Latinos, as well as pursuing developments of culturally informed assessment and intervention services for the growing Hispanic/Latino population in the United States.

Pamela Perez, B.A.,
Undergraduate Trainee

I recently received my Bahelor's in Psychology and Comparative Human Development from University of Chicago. Currently, I will be attending Cornell University in the fall to start my doctoral studies in Developmental Psychology. I have conducted research projects under the guidance of my mentor, Professor Katherine Kinzler, on the social cogntive development of Latino bilingual preschool children and their selective trust preferences about language and accent. I am interested in the development of bilinguals and how their cognition is altered because of their language experience. Participating in the Latino Mental Health Program has taught me the disparities that occur among Spanish-speaking immigrants and bilinguals and will supply with the tools I need to hopefully help eliminate them.

Janique Santos, B.A.,
Undergraduate Trainee

I graduated with honors from the University of Chicago with a BA in Psychology in spring of 2011. For my honors thesis, I studied pain perception in subjects who viewed violent stimuli, which could be considered both pleasurable and aversive, under the guidance of Jean Decety. I also worked as a research assistant in the Psychology of Belief and Judgment Lab under Eugene Caruso and Jane Risen. I will be applying to developmental and clinical psychology doctoral programs a year from this autumn.

Joanna Segoviano
Undergraduate Trainee

I am an undergraduate scholar at San Diego State University. I am a Psychology and Spanish double major. My passion lies in becoming an expert in understanding the lack of preventative and/or intervention methods and treatments that contribute to the health disparities associated with substance use and health in general. My interest in substance use/health disparities and its debilitating effects in the general population led me to investigate alcohol exposure in animal models of fetal alcohol spectrum disorders at SDSU, conduct international research through the Latino Mental Health Program – USC at Puebla, Mexico, and also conduct summer research at Columbia University in New York. I am currently applying to several clinical and social work doctoral programs and will be starting graduate school next autumn.