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As a young child through adulthood,
as a student and teacher and as a caregiver, I have
always been interested in psychology in one form or
another.
As an adolescent, I was enrolled in an
accelerated high school program from which I graduated
at age 14. I was then faced with the decision at a very
young age of what direction my adult life would take. During this time, I also began researching my Native
American heritage and began to form my own outlook on
individuality, life, spirituality and relationships.
During this process, I found it intriguing that people could have so many individual differences in religious choices, career goals, and aspects of their behavior. This led me to the field of psychology. I felt it was
very natural for me to gravitate towards a field that
investigated the affect, behavior, and cognition of
humans and animals, since I had always shown an interest
in this area.
During my initial years as an undergraduate
student, I found myself very interested in developmental and clinical psychology, as well as the research behind the findings. I geared my undergraduate
education towards learning to perform research in psychology
by taking more research- and science-based psychology
classes. Additionally, I sought out and obtained research
assistantships with professors of cognition, physiological
and clinical psychology.
In my senior year of undergraduate school,
I accepted two teaching assistantships in psychology.
I found that I enjoyed teaching psychological information,
as well as learning it. I continued to have
a teaching focus in graduate school, and taught a laboratory course in
Research Methodology.
Concurrent with attending school, I also
worked in the field of mental retardation and developmental
disabilities beginning with direct care,
but advancing to the role of administration. It was
during this time that I developed an interest in those
with cognitive impairments and disabilities. I found
working with these individuals very rewarding and personally
fulfilling. I also identified a few problems with the
field that I found myself later dedicated to improve:
the lack of research in the training of direct care
staff, the lack of adequate mental health services for
individuals with dual diagnoses (psychopathology and
mental retardation), and the treatment of individuals
with any type of psychopathology as "problem behaviors"
which were then treated with a predominantly behavioral
perspective.
Although I had known from early on in
my academic career that I would pursue a Ph.D. in psychology,
I was unsure of the focus of my study until my first
year in my doctoral program at Yale. I was working with Dr.
Edward Zigler, a renowned psychologist in the fields
of mental retardation, child development and social
policy. Upon discussing what components of psychology
and research I was really passionate about, I found
myself remembering my work during undergraduate school
with children and adults with developmental disabilities. I felt that so many children were being misdiagnosed as having behavior problems, when perhaps what they were experiencing was depression that they could not understand or communicate.
Following from this interest, I have
attempted to focus my research interests. I have found
that I am most interested in the development of pschopathology, specifically depression, and its relation to mental age. My research interests also extend to creating and evaluating school-based programs designed to improve social and emotional skills and prevent psychopathology.
As I am concluding my graduate work, I am looking forward to completing more research in the areas of developmental psychopathology and school-based intervention programs. I am very excited to be able to use my research to bridge three areas in which I am very passionate: Research, practice, and policy.
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