Clinical Psychology Graduate School Personal Statement Examples

Updated: July 29, 2025

Why did we create this document?

        We recognize that the clinical psychology application process is an uneven playing field. To this end, we wanted to put together a document with examples of personal essays that might be helpful for applicants. This document goes along with a wealth of other resources that can be helpful for students thinking about applying to graduate school to work with either of us, or just in general (https://sites.lsa.umich.edu/splat-lab/) (http://www.schleiderlab.org/). We hope that these documents can help to level the playing field for students who might be unclear about the grad school application process as it applies to clinical psychology programs.

What’s in this document?

        Below, we share example personal statements (also called “statements of purpose”), including our own (Examples 1 and 2), that were used to apply for graduate school. We are also continuing to add other examples from colleagues—including graduate students, post-docs, and faculty in clinical psychology and allied disciplines. Our goal is to show the breadth of diversity related to graduate school essays. We advise that potential students use these as examples to help them formulate and put together their own application materials. We all have different personalities and ways of describing our experiences, and we wanted to highlight how different application essays can look from person to person. There is no singular recipe for writing these.

Want to contribute your own personal statement? Complete this form and we will add yours to the list.

Personal Statement Examples:

1. Submitted 2012 Application Cycle for Matriculation in Fall 2013. Applicant applied as a post-bac RA, and was ultimately accepted into the program after being initially waitlisted. Commentary and tips on this specific essay provided in the following link. Current Position: Assistant Professor.

Background

At the 2012 annual meeting of a local professional psychology body (a group which follows the standards of the American Psychological Association and the British Psychological Society), I suggested that a statement be made on the detrimental effects of reparative therapy, and claims of its validity, that have been growing within the country over the last three years. This suggestion followed a call by the body for topics on which, as an association, public statements may be made. The idea was refuted by a past president of the group, reduced to a focus on “discrimination,” with no reference to sexuality, and was soon dismissed by the body. I was left questioning the biases of mental healthcare professionals in Trinidad. There is little to no research being put forward by locals in the field on the topic of sexuality. I aim to bridge this gap.

My research orientation has always been geared towards lesbian, gay and bisexual (LGB) issues, however, this experience has led me deeper into current investigation geared at effecting change regarding attitudes towards LGB persons. I am unable to fulfill my postgraduate goals in Trinidad due to the lack of a research-oriented clinical programme. The programme at XX primarily drew my attention due to the research being carried out by faculty members. I was particularly inspired by the work of XX, and XX; whose respective work on LGB matters and romantic relationships relate to some of my research ideas. Similarly, having contacted XX, I feel confident that the experience of the faculty with regards to topics related to my own interest would be invaluable.

I desire advanced qualifications that will allow me to further academic research regarding sexual minorities. I believe that I can, not only increase the literature and scholarship in the international field, but offer fascinating cross-cultural applications; coming from a unique country where sexual minorities are still discriminated against through legislation, but still integral in the public sphere. I foresee my research ideas as not simply applicable to Trinidad, and the Caribbean, but also the wider world. As a member of the LGB community, I feel a personal conviction to work to understand the discrimination and effects that others face, and to increase understanding within the scientific community about the psychology of sexual minorities.

Personal Experience

I consider myself to be an extremely driven individual. For the past 5 years, I have been a full-time student, while maintaining full-time employment as a press analyst and part-time employment as a fitness instructor. Within this time, I completed two years of medical school, with a GPA of XX, before focusing on Psychology, earning a BSc Psychology (Special), with XX, and a GPA of XX.

Experience in the Field

                I have attained experience in both the quantitative and qualitative sides of the research process; through assisting faculty members within the university, and through working independently, and in a group setting, on my own research interests. While volunteering in the XXXX  lab at the university, I have assisted with data entry and transcription of narratives. I also have experience in reliable content coding of autobiographical memory narratives.

I am currently employed by XX as a Research Assistant and Teaching Assistant. Working as an RA for Dr. XX, I have continued content coding of narratives, and have been able to realize further experience. I have helped with poster preparation for Dr. XX for the XX 2012 conference. I have also worked as a peer reviewer for a journal article that Dr. XX was asked to review. I have also assisted in the preparation of a book chapter with Dr. XX, on the topic of resiliency in marriage and romantic relationships.  

As part of a group, year-long research project – part of the Psychology programme requirements - I investigated a novel way of changing attitudes towards LGB persons. This has given me experience in experimental design, data collection, statistical analysis, and manuscript preparation. The study focused on making participants reflect on the degree of choice they possessed with regards to their own sexuality, through viewing a video of their peers (university students) going through the same process. We utilized self-reported empathy as a covariate to the process. In the video created for the study, respondents conclude that their own (hetero)sexuality was not volitional. We then assessed attitude change, and changes in attributions regarding homosexuality. However, we found non-significant findings – other than a gender difference in empathy. From the initial research project, I have functioned as a seminar speaker, presenting the findings at the university’s Psychology Seminar Series. Also, as a group, we presented our findings as part of the Psychology programme to our supervisor, as well as peers. I am, independently, in the process of conducting a follow-up study to expand and improve this initial study, with data collection set to begin in January 2013.

As a teaching assistant, I have planned and conducted tutorials for the Statistics and Research Design course for psychology students, and assisted in the preparation and grading of examinations for the course. My tutorials involved teaching psychology students how to use SPSS for statistical analyses, and how to interpret these analyses and research findings. I will gain similar experience as a tutor with the Experimental and Applied psychology course in the January 2013 semester. In this course, I will be teaching students about the various research designs; the suitability of the different types based on the research objectives.

Future Plans & Expectations

                My goal is to function as a researcher, professor and clinician. I wish to continue, and expand, research on sexual minorities and LGB matters in psychology. At the same time, I thoroughly enjoy the teaching process, and wish to be able to pass my own knowledge on the details of psychological study and research to future generations. Attachment and LGB relationships, gay-on-gay discrimination, and bisexual issues remain as some of my broad research interests. I am also keen on looking at means to develop attitude change towards LGB individuals, on which I focus right now, so as to assist civil society in decreasing stigmatization of sexual minorities. I am confident that I will be very productive in the future, as what I am currently doing is my passion.

2. Applied fall 2011 for matriculation in fall 2012. Applicant applied as an undergraduate and targeted clinical science programs. This statement was submitted to the program she ultimately attended. Author of this statement is now a clinical psychology faculty member.

I am applying to Harvard University’s Clinical Psychology Program to pursue a career as a clinical scientist dedicated to identifying, improving, and disseminating treatments for internalizing disorders in youth. Specifically, I am interested in the prevention and treatment of anxiety and depression in children, developing and disseminating such treatments to school and community settings, and applying knowledge of etiological factors—such as comorbidity, gender, and parenting—to treatments for internalizing disorders. I hope to contribute to innovative implementation strategies to increase accessibility and improve psychological outcomes. I would also be interested in helping develop interventions for particular populations, such as early adolescent girls or children with primary anxiety at risk for secondary depression. I believe that working in Dr. John Weisz’ lab would help me develop the skills and knowledge base necessary to achieve my career goals and work towards increasing well-being in youth.

I became interested in pursuing a clinical psychology research career during my freshman year at Swarthmore College. In my abnormal psychology course, taught by Dr. Jane Gillham, I learned how theoretical and empirical research has informed the development of treatments for mental illnesses. In her final lecture, Dr. Gillham discussed a pervasive issue in the field: broadly implemented psychological interventions are not always based on evidence. Struck by this discrepancy, I have since worked to better understand the research-practice gap through academic and applied experiences. By pursuing a doctoral degree in clinical psychology at Harvard, I hope to contribute to knowledge and development of evidence-based interventions that promote mental health in children and adolescents.

I began developing my research interests early in my college career, when, following my semester in Dr. Gillham’s course, I began working with her on an independent research project examining the moderating effects of character strengths in a workshop promoting resilience and preventing depression in college students. In addition to conceptualizing my project, I collected and analyzed data and designed and co-led the workshop. This work strengthened my interest in conducting research in the area of depression prevention. It also taught me the value of assessing mediators and moderators of outcomes, which can contextualize programs’ main effects.

The following summer, with support from the Starfield Student Research Grant, I further explored my interest in research through an internship at Children’s Hospital Boston. As a researcher for the VIA Project, which aimed to contextualize adolescents’ illness experiences to inform medical care, I used qualitative software to log and assess video diaries of adolescents with asthma and HIV. Through this work, I observed that depressive and anxious symptoms increased adolescents’ difficulty coping with illnesses—especially for girls. These findings drew my attention to the need to understand internalizing disorders in girls, directing my interests within intervention science.

In my junior year, continuing work with Dr. Gillham, I conducted research exploring outcome mediators in the Girls in Transition Project: a school-based, cognitive-behavioral program designed to increase resilience and prevent depression in adolescent girls. I also co-led the intervention at a nearby middle school. Analyses that I conducted for this project suggested that improvements in active, support-seeking, and distraction-based coping skills were strong candidates for program mediators. In Spring 2011, I presented these findings at the 19th Annual Pace University Psychology Conference. Working on and presenting this project solidified my intent to pursue intervention research, as well as my interest in mechanisms underlying programs’ effects. Co-leading the program particularly reinforced this goal, as I observed first-hand the potential of evidence-based techniques to promote wellness and prevent pathology.

The project served as a precursor for my subsequent summer research, also supervised by Dr. Gillham, in which I reviewed literature on the relationship between childhood anxiety and adolescent depression in girls. I obtained funding for this project through the Hans Wallach Fellowship, awarded by the psychology faculty to one student per year to pursue 10 weeks of full-time, independent research. In September 2011, I presented my findings at the 7th annual Undergraduate Science Research Symposium at Haverford College, and I am currently preparing to submit the manuscript for publication. This project allowed me to explore questions of risk and causality, pathways underlying the anxiety-depression link, and the possibility of treating childhood anxiety to prevent adolescent depression, particularly. I also came to appreciate that, in order to create optimized treatments, investigators must first identify the variables and pathways most pertinent to the targeted disorder. In my future work, I hope to contribute to both implementing interventions for childhood internalizing disorders and identifying key facets of effective programs.

Currently, supervised by Drs. Jane Gillham and Beth Krause, I am conducting a senior thesis based on my interests and prior work. Using prospective, longitudinal data from research on the Penn Resiliency Program—a school-based depression prevention program—I plan to assess whether explanatory style mediates the link between perceived parenting styles and anxiety symptoms in early adolescents, and whether gender moderates the strength of this pathway. Results might help identify mechanisms by which anxiety develops in youth, directing specified prevention efforts. When finished, I plan to present the study’s findings at a psychological conference and submit the work for consideration for publication.

I am drawn to Harvard’s Clinical Psychology Program for two central reasons. First, its emphasis on educating strong researchers fits well with my career goals—to pursue research and teaching in an academic setting. Second, I am very interested in working with Dr. John Weisz as a graduate student. Through my research experiences in college, I have grown familiar with his work in depression prevention, the impacts of parenting on internalizing disorders, and dissemination of EBTs for youth. In a recent e-mail exchange, Dr. Weisz shared some of his current research on the Child STEPs program and the MATCH protocol, both of which aim to disseminate EBTs for children and adolescents. Combined with my strong interest in working towards bridging the research-practice gap, my familiarity with conducting intervention research would well prepare me to contribute to these projects. Further, the MATCH protocol specifically addresses issues of comorbidity in disseminating effective treatments. Through my recent summer research, I have grown especially interested in tackling challenges presented by comorbid disorders in youth; accordingly, I am excited by the prospect of working on this project.

Together, these research experiences have allowed me to engage in each facet of the research process. I have conceptualized projects, obtained research grants, assisted with IRB proposals, and helped design and lead interventions. I have gained experience with statistical and qualitative analysis, written manuscripts, and presented my work at conferences. I have also grown familiar with common hurdles in intervention research, such as challenges of recruitment, high attrition, small sample sizes, and—most broadly—of disseminating evidence-based treatments. Further, through working as both a researcher and intervention leader, I learned how research and practice can, and should, inform one another, reinforcing my goal to help bridge empirical results with clinical realities. Overall, my experience has well prepared me and strengthened my commitment to pursue clinical psychology, and intervention science. I hope to work towards reducing disorder and promoting wellness in youth as part of Harvard’s clinical psychology community.

3. Applied fall 2019 for fall 2020 matriculation. Current role: Clinical psychology PhD student.

I believe that my research background in idiographic science, ecological momentary assessment, and cross-cultural emotion variation makes me a well-rounded candidate for graduate admission at Stony Brook University. Besides knowledge in these domains, I have also acquired a number of useful skills through research, courses, clinical work, and extracurricular participation that would be applicable to my work as a graduate student. In particular, I have experience crafting experimental designs in the Qualtrics and LifeData survey tools, manipulating data in R and Python, analyzing fMRI data in Python, conducting applied behavior analysis, editing undergraduate scientific manuscripts, and mentoring undergraduate students in research.

More broadly, I have acquired significant domain knowledge in idiographic science. In a recent project I worked on with graduate student Allison Diamond Altman and Dr. Fisher, we examined the effect of passive Instagram use on mood variation in each individual. To determine these associations, we used data from ecological momentary assessment to develop individual networks of mood variables and behavior. Consistent with other work in Dr. Fisher’s lab, we found that the effects of social media are not ubiquitous. Passive Instagram use decreased wellbeing in some individuals, but not in others. This project resulted in a recently submitted paper, on which I am second author. Our results offer preliminary evidence that interventions to limit negative effects of social media use on mental health could be targeted to the specific individuals who experience mood-reactive social media use. For the first time, I was able to ask questions and gain (some) answers about how, when, and in what conditions interventions can best help certain individuals. Going forward, I plan to expand my knowledge of and contribution to intervention science through multi-method research that incorporates ecological, real-time experience.

During graduate school and beyond, I hope to pursue a career as a clinical scientist. My research work began with the study of race, class, and culture, but expanded to the contribution of these and other ecologically-based variables to therapeutic outcomes. Ever since I learned about the efficacy-effectiveness gap, I have been dedicated to researching change processes within psychopathology and treatment, with the broad goal of identifying specific and relevant targets for improving intervention implementation. Through doing so, I hope to augment the effectiveness of treatment for individuals from all backgrounds, contexts, and walks of life. So far, I have been working toward this goal through a person-specific approach. Moving forward, I aim to use ecological momentary assessment to formulate idiographic complex network models of affect and behavior, validate these results against nomothetic experimental investigations, and use the data from this work to adapt evidence-based treatments to ecological contexts. Within these investigations, I hope to identify mechanisms of psychopathology and treatment as targets for intervention. Ideally, knowledge of group and individual mechanisms of change will allow for targeted, potent interventions that reach beyond efficacy into effectiveness.

4. Applied fall 2018 for fall 2019 matriculation. Current role: Counseling psychology PhD student. “I ended up attending a counseling psychology program and applied pretty evenly to both with very similar personal statements.”

Two years ago, a friend turned to me for advice. Her new boyfriend had accused her of cheating, sent her belittling text messages, and angrily threw something at her. I caught my breath as I recognized the red flags, and also my duty to speak: I had just learned a dating violence bystander intervention technique in a psychology course. “I’m concerned about you and his behavior. You don’t deserve to be treated like that, ” I carefully told my friend, echoing what I had practiced in class. I expressed my concern that the aggression could intensify. I told her I would stand by whatever she chose to do, and suggested resources she could use if she wanted more information. Soon after, she safely ended the relationship. In the next few months, I assisted with research evaluating this exact bystander intervention technique and later presented a poster at my university about how it had been effectively taught to college students—students just like me. I was moved by how the efforts of countless researchers, clinicians, and educators in this field had led to me being able to effectively intervene for my friend’s safety.

This experience confirmed my long-standing career goal: I want to contribute to what we know about relational conflict and trauma through psychological research. And I want to assist vulnerable populations through advocacy, education and practice—just as I was educated and empowered to assist my friend. Today, with a number of years of research and clinical experience behind me, this goal has led me to the ____________ Clinical Psychology doctoral program, which I believe can further shape me into a culturally competent and capable researcher, instructor and clinician.

I began my journey towards this goal in the University of ________ Department of Psychology, where I sought out research and clinical experiences that allowed me to explore my passions for investigating romantic relationship dynamics. One such exploration was inspired by two courses about intimate partner violence- the first about theories and current research on intimate partner violence, and the second was a community interventions course in which we as students served as psycho-educators and mentors for the children living in the Family Crisis Center of ______ County. Under the supervision of Dr. ________, I ran weekly activities to foster positive self-esteem and encourage healthy expressions of feelings, in hope of providing the children with stability and positive role models. One such activity I created was about healthy expressions of, and expectations for, love. I wanted to create this group because I believe that romantic expectations are often not discussed effectively and early enough to positively impact relationship behaviors- leaving our children and youth with only home experiences, media, and peers to shape their expectations of romantic relationships. Through the challenge of writing this group to be not only age-appropriate for children 3-17, but also culturally competent for a diverse group, I caught a glimpse of the challenge that is creating engaging and effective relationship education programs. I also discovered a pathway for another passion: relationship education that can provide the standards and tools for children and adolescents to form healthy relationship expectations throughout their lifetimes. As a result of this research interest, Dr. _________ would be a fitting potential mentor, based on our common interest in romantic competence among youth and emerging adults, the development of relationship education programs.

I was so inspired by these intimate partner violence courses that I joined Dr. ______ laboratory, the ____________, and assisted her team in conducting research related to these topics. I also created my own research project about college students’ attitudes and perceptions of cyber dating violence, called “Advancing Knowledge Regarding Dating Relationships And Technology Among College Students.” This study is currently under review by the University of ________’s Institutional Review Board, and I am excited that it could reveal more about college student attitudes towards cyber dating violence, an increasingly common form of abuse. Through the intricate processes of reviewing the previous literature, refining experimental protocols, and submitting to the IRB, I was able to truly appreciate the dynamics and demands of academic research. I gained confidence in my ability to conduct research, and further solidified my desire to pursue research experiences in graduate school. I would love to continue to investigate the dynamics of gender-based violence and the perhaps continue to investigate the growing impact of technology use and abuse on relationships, as well as how interventions can prevent further violence in current and future generations through education and advocacy. Based on shared interest in IPV research and intervention, my first choice for a graduate advisor would be Dr.________.

I also gained invaluable clinical experience at the University of _______ Hotline, the university’s peer counseling and crisis intervention hotline. As a peer counselor, I was able to directly connect with callers needing support. And as a trainer on the hotline, I was able to pass on my skills teaching trainees how to help callers navigate their thoughts and feelings.  I have learned how to communicate material clearly, to keep trainees engaged in discussion, and to provide supportive, yet constructive feedback. As a result of this experience, I hope to one day obtain a position at a university so that I may teach and mentor another generation of learners and potential helpers.

In my current work as an outreach rehabilitation counselor at a _______ mental health clinic, I see the direct impacts of how intergenerational poverty, trauma, violence, structural and societal racism, and mental illness interact in my clients’ lives. I also am able to see their resilience as I help them to manage their symptoms and maintain their independence, and how cultural and community resources can bolster them. I have learned to be fully invested in their personal goals for recovery, while emphasizing their autonomy. This experience has only reinforced my desire to pursue a doctoral program that can provide me with training based on culturally competent and research-informed practices to serve as a highly-skilled clinician for clients and communities of all backgrounds. _______ University’s Clinical Psychology program will be the perfect place to do just that.

I seek to obtain a doctoral degree in clinical psychology that reflects a dedication to research, education and practice that mutually inform one another. _________ University’s Clinical Psychology program’s status as one of the highest ranked clinical programs in the United States is a reflection on its stellar ability to educate and empower exceptional clinical scientists. I believe _______’s program is an ideal path for me to fully realize my potential as a researcher, educator, and clinician. If given the opportunity to attend _______’s Clinical Psychology program, I would daily work to become a researcher who explores the experiences of underrepresented and vulnerable populations and best practices for advocacy, education, counseling and counselor training, an educator who strives to nurture well-informed and empowered students, and a therapist dedicated to exceptional data-driven processes.

5. Applied fall 20`16 for fall 2017 matriculation. Current role: Clinical psychology graduate student. Applicant applied as a post-bacc research assistant and targeted clinical science programs. This statement was submitted to the program she ultimately attended. The last paragraph was modified for each program to which she applied.

As a young, avid reader, my passion for addiction research originated from my interest in stories. The novel Crank, a story about a young girl whose life is ravaged by a substance use disorder, sparked an intense curiosity in me that continues to grow to this day. I was particularly struck by how difficult it was for the protagonist of this novel to overcome her substance use disorder. I continued to read memoirs, novels, and psychology texts to learn more about this complex disorder. Each new point of view provided another layer to the story of how people develop, progress through, and recover from substance use disorders. As I read more, I discovered that the range of possible trajectories and outcomes multiplied, leaving me with more questions than answers. Why do some people stop using without any treatment, whereas others continue to struggle despite multiple treatment episodes? With the range of treatment options available, does the best treatment option depend on the individual? If so, which individual characteristics determine the best course of treatment?

With these questions in mind, I accepted an undergraduate research assistant position at the University of Kentucky Center on Drug and Alcohol Research (CDAR), under the direction of Drs. Sharon Walsh and Shanna Babalonis. At CDAR, I managed a project examining the effects of cannabidiol alone and in combination with smoked marijuana. I also used this project to complete my senior honors thesis, which examined cannabidiol as potential pharmacological treatment for marijuana dependence. Human behavioral pharmacology emerged as a medium to explore the curiosity that attracted me to addiction research, such as the identification of effective treatments for substance use disorders and the exploration of individual differences in drug response. My work on this project coincided with widespread discussion about the changing marijuana legislation landscape and increasing prevalence of marijuana use, and I used this societal framework as a backdrop for my honors thesis. These experiences laid the foundation of my passion for research as a form of storytelling. I sought out opportunities to share these stories at scientific conferences, including the Midwest Psychological Association and the College on Problems of Drug Dependence annual meetings, and as a co-author on a paper (accepted with minor revisions, pending resubmission) that assessed the abuse liability of cannabidiol in frequent marijuana smokers.

To learn about the implications of my research on a societal as well as an individual scale, I enrolled in an Inside-Out Prison Exchange course that examined substance use through the lens of sociological/social work framework. This class took place inside of a prison and enrolled both “outside students” from the University of Kentucky and “inside students” from Blackburn Correctional Facility. As classmates shared their personal stories of addiction and recovery, I was struck by how many of them were opposed to pharmacotherapies, mainly due to misinformation and some negative personal experiences. Hearing this perspective prompted me to question how personal attitudes and experiences affect treatment engagement and outcomes, and emphasized the need to challenge myths about substances and substance use disorder treatment. Learning about substance use from a sociological perspective was pivotal in gaining an understanding of environmental influences on substance use and mental health disparities in addiction, and the importance of considering these factors in treatment development and implementation.

The insight that I gained during the Inside-Out course strengthened my interest in how individual experiences, characteristics, and mental health issues interact with an individual’s treatment and shape their outcomes. To further explore these interests, I accepted my current position at McLean Hospital as the research coordinator for a trial developing a behavioral treatment for co-occurring anxiety and opioid use disorder. I began my position during the start-up phase of the trial, which allowed me to incorporate some of my own research ideas and strategies. I have been instrumental in refining data collection tactics and procedures, designing study forms, and brainstorming approaches to collect outcome data. Given this role in study design and implementation, I was invited to co-author a manuscript detailing the trial methods with the study investigators. I have also been able to explore my own curiosities, such as opioid use trajectories, by incorporating questions on this topic into the battery of self-report measures for the trial. I further explored this issue while writing a first-authored manuscript--published in Addictive Behaviors--examining perceived risk of heroin among prescription opioid users. For the first time, I had the opportunity to determine the course of the story I was telling, which inspired confidence in my ability to pursue a career as an independent scientist.

My experience at McLean has not only strengthened my resolve to conduct research, but also sparked a new interest in working directly with patients providing treatment. One of my roles on the clinical trial is administering clinical measures as an independent evaluator. In order to build rapport with participants and clinical staff, I have also stepped into a role as the liaison between clinical staff at McLean and patients who are enrolled in the trial. I attend clinical rounds and therapy groups for both the Alcohol and Drug Abuse Partial Hospital Program and the Suboxone/Vivitrol Outpatient Program, in addition to coordinating recruitment with case managers on the inpatient detoxification unit. Through these clinical interactions, I have recognized a commonality that runs through so many substance use narratives--that co-occurring disorders and negative affective states are undertreated motivators for substance use. While co-authoring a manuscript published in Addictive Behaviors on the association between anxiety sensitivity and benzodiazepine misuse, I empirically corroborated these clinical observations. Gaining an understanding of the interaction between negative affect and substance use maintenance has been fundamental in provoking an interest in a career as a clinical psychologist, and I am eager to incorporate this knowledge into my future research and clinical work.

My range of multidisciplinary experiences has shown me the complex and interacting pieces that contribute to a seemingly infinite number of substance use trajectories. With each experience, I am left with even more questions about how to treat such a multifaceted, dynamic disorder. I aspire to address these questions by becoming an independent clinical researcher developing behavioral and pharmacological treatments for substance use and co-occurring disorders. Specifically, I hope to leverage a range of methodological approaches (e.g., epidemiological surveys, clinical trials, human laboratory studies, ecological momentary assessment) to inform treatment development and identify factors that contribute to differential treatment outcomes in this population. Integrating direct clinical work into my career will allow me to understand the complex dynamics of human behavior change and will inform research questions that address the needs of those struggling with these disorders. This approach will allow me to tell a story of substance use that incorporates multiple perspectives to optimize the applicability and impact of research findings. My previous experiences have provided the groundwork for me to be a successful author of a story on substance use disorder treatment, and during graduate school, I plan to build on this foundation by studying different ways to tell--and influence--this story.  

I believe that the Clinical Psychology doctoral program at the University of New Mexico is the ideal environment to begin the next phase of my career due to the range of clinical opportunities, emphasis on collaboration, and exceptional research fit. I would be eager to work with Dr. Katie Witkiewitz on her work developing treatments for substance use disorders and identifying mechanisms of behavior change and predictors of treatment outcome. I am particularly interested in Dr. Witkiewitz’s work developing novel adjunctive interventions to increase the efficacy of mindfulness-based relapse prevention. I am also motivated to learn more about neuroimaging and the clinical neuroscience approach to addiction in order to make strides toward my goal of integrating a range of methodological approaches to inform treatment development. The prospect of attending graduate school at The University of New Mexico is exciting because of the opportunity to continue work in areas I am passionate about, such as treatment development, while continuing to grow as a clinical scientist through the expansion and acquisition of research and clinical skills.

6. Applied in 2010 for Fall 2011 Matriculation. Current Role: Assistant Professor.

Comments from author: “I applied after 2 years of RA experience (in a related, but different clinical area than my PhD studies). After reviewing my statement again, I would more clearly state in the first paragraph what I wanted my research to focus on, what my career goals are, and who I wanted to work with at the program.”

Through my professional and undergraduate research experiences, I have developed a keen interest and strong commitment for pursuing graduate work and an academic career in clinical psychology. I am especially interested in research on the psychopathology of depression and bipolar disorders. Only by furthering my studies will I be able to acquire more knowledge of this research area as well as the necessary expertise vital to conducting my own research in the future. I believe that the diverse skills I have acquired through my various research positions and my profound intellectual curiosity for the field will ensure that I am successful in both graduate work and the pursuit of an eventual research career in clinical psychology.

It was during my time as an undergraduate at Swarthmore College that I first became enthralled with psychology and inspired by the many facets still to be explored, particularly in clinical psychology. Determined to pursue clinical psychology, I enrolled in one of the more challenging courses offered, the Practicum in Clinical Psychology under the supervision of Dr. Jane Gillham. In this course, students arranged clinical placements and participated in class discussions of literature relevant to each practicum, challenges met in the field, and future ideas for research and development. Although the course focused more on clinical work, I took this opportunity to become acquainted with the inner-workings of a research center, the Center for Family Intervention Science (CFIS) at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia.

My placement at the Center for Family Intervention Science further motivated my decision to pursue a future in clinical psychology research. Working closely with Dr. Guy Diamond and Dr. Matthew Wintersteen, I became highly involved in three different research studies on the prevention and treatment of suicidality in adolescents.  As part of a study on the validation of a Behavioral Health Screening Tool, I independently recruited adolescents at three primary care centers in the Philadelphia area. Based on measures of substance abuse, sexual behaviors, depression, suicidality and anxiety, the Behavioral Health Screening Tool served as a method of screening at-risk youth in a primary care setting. This position placed me directly in the field for the first time, equipping me with the recruitment skills and interpersonal qualities necessary for conducting research with a high-risk population. In addition to the more clinical component of my position, I assisted Dr. Wintersteen with the early phase of a longitudinal study funded by the National Alliance for Research on Schizophrenia and Depression designed to assess predictors of suicidal behavior in high-risk youth. I contributed to the conceptualization of crucial background and procedural components by conducting exhaustive and comprehensive literature searches and reviews and compiling and organizing relevant articles for group meetings of professionals to discuss the most pertinent issues in the field. Furthermore, I participated in the Center for Disease Control- funded Family Safety Net study, a research trial investigating the efficacy of Attachment-Based Family Therapy (ABFT) in the treatment of depressed and suicidal adolescents.

Due to my fascination and success with the research at CFIS, I was awarded the Eugene M. Lang Summer Initiative Grant at Swarthmore College, which granted me a stipend for an additional ten weeks of independent research at the Center. During this time, I increased my involvement on the ABFT trial for suicidal adolescents and participated in data entry, management, and analysis. Through a close examination of the data, I noticed an overwhelming trend for an endorsement of a history of sexual trauma on the administered measures. After a formal investigation, I independently conducted preliminary analyses on the impact of a history of sexual trauma on clinical presentation and treatment outcome, which became the basis of my senior psychology thesis project. During the development of my senior thesis, I also collaborated with Drs. Jane Gillham, Guy Diamond and Torrey Creed on developing the significant findings of the research into a manuscript, which was submitted for publication and is currently in the process of peer review. This work, which earned me the Solomon Asch Award at Swarthmore College for the most outstanding senior thesis, provided me with a unique opportunity to independently engage in multiple levels of research from original hypothesis generation to complex data analysis and manuscript preparation. Even more, it further sparked my interest in the importance of identifying risk factors that lead to the onset of depression and suicidal behaviors during the critical developmental period of adolescence and how such factors influence treatment outcome.

After the intellectually stimulating experiences of CFIS and my thesis work, my desire was even stronger to further my studies and pursue research in clinical psychology. To gain more knowledge of the field, I began a research assistantship at the Center for Psychotherapy Research at the University of Pennsylvania. Under the supervision of Dr. Crits-Christoph, I was in a unique position as a research assistant to be intricately involved in the management of three different NIH-funded research studies, six grants submissions, the production of six manuscripts and seven presentations, and the administration of the Center. More specifically, I was the lead research assistant on a study investigating the effectiveness of patient feedback on treatment outcome at community outpatient substance abuse clinics, a study evaluating three methods of assessing consumer preferences for characteristics of a Major Depressive Disorder treatment in community mental health clinics, and a third study examining mediators of treatment for Major Depressive Disorder in community mental health settings. For the latter study, I adapted and piloted the community-friendly version of the Psychological Distance Scaling Task (PDST) to measure cognitive organization of depressogenic schemas. My work on the PDST furthered my interest in exploring individual differences of cognition that may contribute to the onset of depression and predict treatment response. Furthermore, as part of my role on these studies, I was responsible for managing subject recruitment and tracking them through to study completion, creating all study-related documents such as protocols, standard operating procedures, and consent documents, corresponding with funding agencies and Institutional Review Boards, maintaining patient charts and logs, and monitoring study funds and preparing budgets. Additionally, I furthered my knowledge of statistics by taking a graduate level statistics course at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. This knowledge and my statistical experience at the Center creating large databases and conducting data analysis have prepared me well for graduate work.

Of my research experience thus far, the opportunity to participate in manuscript preparation and conference presentations has been the most thrilling. After only a few months of employment, I presented a poster at the Mid-Atlantic Society for Psychotherapy Research on the variability in the alliance in relation to substance use outcome. As part of this study, my colleagues and I conducted a tri-level (patient, therapist, program) analysis of the alliance-outcome relationship, finding that only patient and program variability in the alliance predicted substance use. Additionally, I recently attended the international meeting of the Society for Psychotherapy Research to present my findings on the impact of the alliance on outcome for patients with negative expectations for treatment and a cold-hostile interpersonal style. This finding is particularly intriguing given that our results generalized across six treatment modalities and patients with Major Depressive Disorder, Generalized Anxiety Disorder, Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder, Panic Disorder, Avoidant Personality Disorder, and Borderline Personality Disorder. In addition to these presentations, which have been developed into manuscripts, I have also contributed significantly to several manuscripts currently under review, including a paper on the efficacy of combined medication and cognitive therapy in the treatment of Generalized Anxiety Disorder, a manuscript examining the impact of aggregating the alliance across an increased number of sessions on outcome, and a paper that used generalizability theory to examine the reliability of process ratings of group drug counseling sessions. Furthermore, I am also in the process of finalizing a manuscript for publication of which I am first author. This study, which investigates the impact of race-ethnic and gender matching on substance use in outpatient substance abuse treatment programs, has furthered my interest in exploring gender and racial differences in the development and manifestation of psychological disorders.

In light of my research experiences both as an undergraduate and at the Center for Psychotherapy Research, I think that the clinical psychology doctoral program at Temple University fits perfectly with my career interests and goals. In particular, I am most interested in the research conducted by Dr. Lauren Alloy. I find Dr. Alloy’s research on the cognitive and biological processes underlying the onset of depressive and bipolar disorders in adolescents, and the racial and gender differences in these mechanisms, extremely compelling. Through my role on the substance abuse research study, I became actively involved at a substance abuse clinic in North Philadelphia. During this time, I became extremely interested in the environmental and genetic factors that contribute to the development of psychological disorders. Furthermore, my own interactions with depressed patients in Dr. Crits-Christoph's studies and extensive experience with at-risk adolescents as an undergraduate have consistently raised questions in my mind about the cognitive vulnerabilities these individuals have that might trigger episodes of clinical depression. It seems to me that a better understanding of these vulnerabilities, particularly during the surge of depression in adolescence, is needed in order to develop better, more targeted, treatments for these clinical problems. The fascinating research projects at the Mood and Cognition Lab is the perfect environment for me to learn more about this research area, develop my own line of research, and contribute to the highly significant work of Dr. Alloy.

Overall, I believe that my thirst for knowledge, intellectual aptitude, and diverse research experiences make me an excellent candidate for graduate work in the clinical psychology doctoral program at Temple University. With the goal of expanding upon my current interests and experiences through graduate work, I hope to pursue a career as an academic in clinical psychology. Collaborating with the accomplished faculty at Temple University, specifically under the guidance of Dr. Alloy, would give me the opportunity to further explore the area of clinical psychology I hope to pursue. Furthermore, my unique interests and experience have the potential to contribute to the research of the Mood and Cognition Lab and the Temple University doctoral program as a whole.

7. Applied Fall 2018 for Fall 2019 Matriculation. Current Role: Graduate Student. Applicant applied as a post-bacc research assistant and targeted clinical science programs. This statement was submitted to the program she ultimately attended. The last paragraph was modified for each program she applied to.

As a young, avid reader, my passion for addiction research originated from my interest in stories. The novel Crank, a story about a young girl whose life is ravaged by a substance use disorder, sparked an intense curiosity in me that continues to grow to this day. I was particularly struck by how difficult it was for the protagonist of this novel to overcome her substance use disorder. I continued to read memoirs, novels, and psychology texts to learn more about this complex disorder. Each new point of view provided another layer to the story of how people develop, progress through, and recover from substance use disorders. As I read more, I discovered that the range of possible trajectories and outcomes multiplied, leaving me with more questions than answers. Why do some people stop using without any treatment, whereas others continue to struggle despite multiple treatment episodes? With the range of treatment options available, does the best treatment option depend on the individual? If so, which individual characteristics determine the best course of treatment?

With these questions in mind, I accepted an undergraduate research assistant position at the University of Kentucky Center on Drug and Alcohol Research (CDAR), under the direction of Drs. Sharon Walsh and Shanna Babalonis. At CDAR, I managed a project examining the effects of cannabidiol alone and in combination with smoked marijuana. I also used this project to complete my senior honors thesis, which examined cannabidiol as potential pharmacological treatment for marijuana dependence. Human behavioral pharmacology emerged as a medium to explore the curiosity that attracted me to addiction research, such as the identification of effective treatments for substance use disorders and the exploration of individual differences in drug response. My work on this project coincided with widespread discussion about the changing marijuana legislation landscape and increasing prevalence of marijuana use, and I used this societal framework as a backdrop for my honors thesis. These experiences laid the foundation of my passion for research as a form of storytelling. I sought out opportunities to share these stories at scientific conferences, including the Midwest Psychological Association and the College on Problems of Drug Dependence annual meetings, and as a co-author on a paper (accepted with minor revisions, pending resubmission) that assessed the abuse liability of cannabidiol in frequent marijuana smokers.

To learn about the implications of my research on a societal as well as an individual scale, I enrolled in an Inside-Out Prison Exchange course that examined substance use through the lens of sociological/social work framework. This class took place inside of a prison and enrolled both “outside students” from the University of Kentucky and “inside students” from Blackburn Correctional Facility. As classmates shared their personal stories of addiction and recovery, I was struck by how many of them were opposed to pharmacotherapies, mainly due to misinformation and some negative personal experiences. Hearing this perspective prompted me to question how personal attitudes and experiences affect treatment engagement and outcomes, and emphasized the need to challenge myths about substances and substance use disorder treatment. Learning about substance use from a sociological perspective was pivotal in gaining an understanding of environmental influences on substance use and mental health disparities in addiction, and the importance of considering these factors in treatment development and implementation.

The insight that I gained during the Inside-Out course strengthened my interest in how individual experiences, characteristics, and mental health issues interact with an individual’s treatment and shape their outcomes. To further explore these interests, I accepted my current position at McLean Hospital as the research coordinator for a trial developing a behavioral treatment for co-occurring anxiety and opioid use disorder. I began my position during the start-up phase of the trial, which allowed me to incorporate some of my own research ideas and strategies. I have been instrumental in refining data collection tactics and procedures, designing study forms, and brainstorming approaches to collect outcome data. Given this role in study design and implementation, I was invited to co-author a manuscript detailing the trial methods with the study investigators. I have also been able to explore my own curiosities, such as opioid use trajectories, by incorporating questions on this topic into the battery of self-report measures for the trial. I further explored this issue while writing a first-authored manuscript--published in Addictive Behaviors--examining perceived risk of heroin among prescription opioid users. For the first time, I had the opportunity to determine the course of the story I was telling, which inspired confidence in my ability to pursue a career as an independent scientist.

My experience at McLean has not only strengthened my resolve to conduct research, but also sparked a new interest in working directly with patients providing treatment. One of my roles on the clinical trial is administering clinical measures as an independent evaluator. In order to build rapport with participants and clinical staff, I have also stepped into a role as the liaison between clinical staff at McLean and patients who are enrolled in the trial. I attend clinical rounds and therapy groups for both the Alcohol and Drug Abuse Partial Hospital Program and the Suboxone/Vivitrol Outpatient Program, in addition to coordinating recruitment with case managers on the inpatient detoxification unit. Through these clinical interactions, I have recognized a commonality that runs through so many substance use narratives--that co-occurring disorders and negative affective states are undertreated motivators for substance use. While co-authoring a manuscript published in Addictive Behaviors on the association between anxiety sensitivity and benzodiazepine misuse, I empirically corroborated these clinical observations. Gaining an understanding of the interaction between negative affect and substance use maintenance has been fundamental in provoking an interest in a career as a clinical psychologist, and I am eager to incorporate this knowledge into my future research and clinical work.

        My range of multidisciplinary experiences has shown me the complex and interacting pieces that contribute to a seemingly infinite number of substance use trajectories. With each experience, I am left with even more questions about how to treat such a multifaceted, dynamic disorder. I aspire to address these questions by becoming an independent clinical researcher developing behavioral and pharmacological treatments for substance use and co-occurring disorders. Specifically, I hope to leverage a range of methodological approaches (e.g., epidemiological surveys, clinical trials, human laboratory studies, ecological momentary assessment) to inform treatment development and identify factors that contribute to differential treatment outcomes in this population. Integrating direct clinical work into my career will allow me to understand the complex dynamics of human behavior change and will inform research questions that address the needs of those struggling with these disorders. This approach will allow me to tell a story of substance use that incorporates multiple perspectives to optimize the applicability and impact of research findings. My previous experiences have provided the groundwork for me to be a successful author of a story on substance use disorder treatment, and during graduate school, I plan to build on this foundation by studying different ways to tell--and influence--this story.  

I believe that the Clinical Psychology doctoral program at the University of New Mexico is the ideal environment to begin the next phase of my career due to the range of clinical opportunities, emphasis on collaboration, and exceptional research fit. I would be eager to work with Dr. Katie Witkiewitz on her work developing treatments for substance use disorders and identifying mechanisms of behavior change and predictors of treatment outcome. I am particularly interested in Dr. Witkiewitz’s work developing novel adjunctive interventions to increase the efficacy of mindfulness-based relapse prevention. I am also motivated to learn more about neuroimaging and the clinical neuroscience approach to addiction in order to make strides toward my goal of integrating a range of methodological approaches to inform treatment development. The prospect of attending graduate school at The University of New Mexico is exciting because of the opportunity to continue work in areas I am passionate about, such as treatment development, while continuing to grow as a clinical scientist through the expansion and acquisition of research and clinical skills.

8. Applied Fall 2018 for fall 2019 matriculation. Applicant is a current graduate student.

Statement of Purpose

How do parents’ emotion regulation capabilities affect their parenting sensitivity and behavioral response to their children’s emotions? What statistical techniques can we use to model the interaction between parent and child emotion regulation over time? How can we develop effective interventions that harness parent-child relationships to promote children’s healthy socioemotional development, even in adverse circumstances?

These are some of the questions I would like to pursue as a clinical scientist. I am interested in studying the impact of parent-child relationships on children’s socioemotional development and risk for psychopathology in order to inform the development of evidence-based interventions for families. These interests developed through my research and clinical experiences over the past four years. Working with Dr. Borelli and Dr. Smiley in the CARE lab, I collected data on parents and children through dyadic interactions, physiological measures, and interviews regarding parents’ relationships with both their own parents and their children. This multi-method approach impressed upon me the lasting impact of early relationships on socioemotional functioning, fostering my passion to study these relationships in greater depth.

 I used my senior thesis as an opportunity to pursue my curiosity about children’s’ abilities to regulate negative emotional states and the role that parents play in shaping this ability. Inspired by Dr. Borelli and colleagues’ (2015) previous finding that maternal anxiety is only associated with higher emotional reactivity among children whose mothers report high reactivity to their children’s distress, I wanted to investigate the mechanism through which mothers’ heightened reactivity may transfer to their children. I hypothesized that anxious moms with higher reactivity to their children’s distress are more likely to display parenting behaviors that are dysregulating for their children (e.g., overcontrol). Developing my own research questions, creating a coding scheme for parental behavior, and analyzing the data was exciting and rewarding, affirming my decision to pursue a research career.

Studying the links between parents’ and children’s regulatory processes led me to delve deeper into dyadic measures of synchrony. In an investigation of linguistic synchrony in mother-child dyads, we found that low linguistic synchrony predicted separation anxiety symptoms among children at risk for anxiety due to possession of the OPRM1 minor allele (Boparai et al., 2018). In a different paper, we explored adrenocortical synchrony between children and mothers during low and high stress as a function of maternal overcontrol and children’s age (Borelli et al., under review). In the future, I would like to further investigate the mechanism through which cortisol synchrony varies with context; possible directions include comparing levels of cortisol synchrony with dyad members’ subjective experiences of stress or children’s perceptions of their parents’ support.

Through my work with Dr. Borelli, I also developed an interest in reflective functioning (RF), or the ability of individuals to consider both their own and others’ mental states. I am currently becoming a certified RF coder for the Parent Development Interview. This process opened my eyes to the wide variability in parents’ consideration of their children’s mental states, leading me to wonder about how this variation affects parenting. Over the past four years, I delivered interventions to mothers from a variety of ethnic and socioeconomic backgrounds that are theorized to improve parental RF. Furthermore, as a coordinator of an ongoing study, I helped to develop an experimental manipulation of RF based on these interventions, which gave me experience in experience in creating standardized protocols that still allow for flexibility based on mothers’ individual differences. I am looking forward to examining the impact of the RF manipulation on parental behavior and child emotion regulation during a stressor. In this same study, we also collect parent and child reports of psychopathology and relationship quality, code for parental overcontrol and child help-seeking behavior, and measure physiology in order to study the dynamic interplay of parent-child co-regulation. In coordinating this project, I trained and managed a 10-student team, developed measures, recruited participants, and addressed issues that arose during the study. In short, I transitioned from being a member of a research team to a leader.

By gaining a better understanding of the factors in parent-child relationships that lead to risk and resilience, I aim to develop and administer effective, evidence-based interventions.  This desire is in part fueled by the connections I formed while providing peer counseling and conducting Child Attachment Interviews with underserved youth. My experiences demonstrated how central caregivers are as sources of stress or support for their children while they navigate adverse circumstances. I would love to learn and develop ways to better serve these and other youth, especially methods that incorporate relationships with their caregivers.  

I am also passionate about rigorous research methods that employ advanced statistical techniques. I have sought opportunities to learn new statistical methodologies and programs, including a statistics class using R, computer science classes using Java, and a workshop on structural equation modeling. As a graduate student, I hope to continue to advance my knowledge of statistics and to apply my programming skills. Therefore, I am interested in pursuing the Data Science Option or quantitative minor at UW.

Furthermore, it would be an honor to contribute to the research conducted by Dr. Katz and Dr. Dorsey. I am interested in the parenting intervention that Dr. Katz is developing for families of children with Oppositional Defiant Disorder and would love to look at associations between parenting behavior, including acceptance of children’s emotions, and child emotion regulation and empathy over time. I would also be curious to study how parent and child reflective functioning factor into the development of empathy.

I am also interested in Dr. Dorsey’s work on disseminating trauma-focused CBT for children in the US and internationally. While working as a peer counsellor in a primarily low income, Latinx neighborhood, I witnessed the dire need for mental health services for underserved children due to the high prevalence of stressors and lack of available support. Therefore, I am interested in finding culturally appropriate ways to promote resilience in children and am excited about Dr. Dorsey’s collaborations with local partners in order to ensure that the interventions can be implemented effectively in their surrounding sociocultural context as well as the innovative data analytic techniques being used to measure outcomes.

The University of Washington’s strong training in research, clinical, and quantitative skills, fits excellently with my professional goal of pursuing a career in research informed by clinical experience. I am attracted to the program’s opportunities for collaboration with other departments, such as through the research being conducted at the Center for Child and Family Well-Being, as well as the opportunity to focus on child clinical psychology in greater depth. Furthermore, given the critical importance of taking sociocultural context into consideration when researching parent-child relationships and interventions, the program’s emphasis on diversity is an important draw for me. The University of Washington would provide the ideal environment for me to conduct research benefitting children and their families.

9. Applied Fall 2020 for Fall 2021 matriculation, and so this SOP is from an incoming graduate student. The SOP word limit for this program was 1000 words. There are longer versions of this statement, but this contains the soul of what I submitted.

Throughout my undergraduate career at XX University, I had the opportunity to work in psychology research labs spanning a range of disciplines. Although the skills I learned in my social psychology and neurobiology labs initially appeared disparate, I came to understand the principles of scientific methodology were consistent across all areas of psychological science. It was during an internship at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP) that I was introduced to clinical science. This critical experience ignited my interest in the etiology of self-injurious thoughts and behaviors (SITB) and aggression and fueled my desire for graduate training in research methodology. I believe the Clinical Science program at XX University is an exceptional match for my research interests and long-term career goals. I trust that the skills and curiosity I have developed from my empirical investigations and clinical experiences have prepared me to be a successful graduate student.

While at CHOP, I worked with Dr. XX in an outpatient program devoted to youth with mood disorders. In conducting literature searches for an independent research project, I learned life stress is an antecedent and consequence of psychological disorders. Upon completing my undergraduate degree, I began the Master’s in Psychology program at XX University to further investigate the role of life stress in the etiology of psychopathology and sought out a research assistantship in the XX Developmental Psychopathology Lab. This experience led me to become more familiar with the developmental psychopathology literature and identify social stress as a critical etiological factor of psychopathology. I worked closely with Dr. XX to develop an independent research project that examined the prospective relationship between early childhood temperament, chronic peer victimization, and adolescent psychopathology. Our results demonstrated conditional effects of peer victimization on adolescent internalizing and externalizing psychopathology, and an interactive effect of temperament and peer victimization on externalizing psychopathology. The results of this project were published as a first-author manuscript.

Upon completing my master’s, I accepted a full-time research assistant position at Rhode Island Hospital, in which I balanced a variety of daily tasks, including data management and diagnostic interviews. I have been especially intrigued by patients presenting with SITB, anger, and aggression. Upon reviewing the literature on current theoretical models, correlates, and predictors of SITB, I found that social stress and cognitive biases are implicated in the generation of SITB. I initiated a project examining the associations between social functioning in adolescence and adulthood and SITB, explicating a scarring effect of poor adolescent social functioning. The results of this project are being prepared as a first-author manuscript. In reviewing the literature on anger and aggression, I came to understand that cognitive biases and social stress are also implicated in the etiology of these phenomena. Considering this, I spearheaded a project with Drs. XX and XX to optimize an anger scale that can be feasibly implemented in clinical settings. I began to question if the overlap of SITB and aggression I observed in diagnostic interviews could be attributed to shared underlying mechanisms.

The etiology of SITB and aggression has been the focus of my research pursuits, and my aspiration is to continue this work at the doctoral level. Specifically, I am interested in the interplay between the development of cognitive biases and social factors that confer risk for SITB and aggression. My goal is to become a tenure-track professor, mentor undergraduate and graduate students, start my own lab to further explore the etiology of SITB and aggression, and enhance communication of clinical science to the community and policymakers. I would like my career in research and professional ambitions to ultimately improve access to mental health care for all who need it, demonstrate support for the expansion of early intervention services and preventative care, and provide evidence-based treatment targets for these services.  

My goals and established skill set make me an excellent fit for mentorship under Dr. XX, or joint mentorship under Dr. XX and Dr. XX. As I continue to digest the literature on SITB, I value the meticulous work done by Dr. XX to examine the continuum of suicidal thoughts and behaviors. Their recently published critique of existing theories of suicidal behavior, which calls for the construction of theories with well-defined components rooted in basic psychological science resonates with me. Many theoretical models of suicidal behavior were developed through top-down approaches and testing these models has yielded inconsistent results. I questioned how examining basic psychological components, as I have seen done in developmental psychopathology labs, would aid in theory development and prediction of suicidal behavior. I am drawn to Dr. XX’s lab because of their investigation of basic cognitive processes which engender suicidal behavior. In this setting I would be able to explore this bottom-up approach to understanding the nature of self-injurious behavior. I am also drawn to Dr. XX’s focus on self-concept and emotion regulation as they relate to self-injury and self-destructive behaviors, particularly by their interest in the malleability and content of self-concept. As world leaders in suicide and self-injury research, Drs. XX and XX’s expertise and training would be integral in my career as a researcher. Furthermore, Drs. XX and XX both investigate how cognitions related to the self are implicated in self-injury. I would like to examine why these cognitions and social stress are salient in the development of SITB and aggression.  

Given my strong experience with multi-method data collection, diagnostic interviewing, mentoring undergraduate students, and executing research projects from conception to the preparation of scientific manuscripts, I strongly believe I will be an excellent fit for XX University’s Clinical Science program under the mentorship of Drs. XX and XX. I am impressed by the program’s dedication to rigorous training in scientific methodology, as evidenced by the clinical science educational model, the availability of practicum sites that integrate research activities, and the productive faculty and students. Your commitment to training clinical scientists and lifelong researchers presents an excellent opportunity to foster my growth as a researcher and work toward achieving my goals.

10. Applied Fall 2016 for Fall 2017 matriculation. I applied as a post-bacc research assistant and targeted clinical science programs. This statement was submitted to the program I ultimately attended. The paragraphs about Temple University were tailored to each program to which I applied. After reviewing my statement again, I don't think I needed to include references. I also would have connected my interests and potential project more closely to the potential mentor's work.

How can we help all people, regardless of their upbringing, learn resiliency and coping skills to prevent mental illness? I hope to begin answering this question as part of my doctoral training in Clinical Psychology at Temple University. I am interested in creating and implementing mental illness prevention programs for people at all stages of life. Despite a growing number of evidence-based prevention and therapeutic programs, these programs remain underutilized by those who need them (Kazdin & Rabbitt, 2013; Weisz, Ng, & Bearman, 2014). This may be partially because few evidence-based programs engage end-users in program design (Lyon & Koerner, 2016). Consequentially, many evidence-based programs do not consider interpersonal and cultural factors that affect the end-users’ engagement in the program (Bronfenbrenner, 1977). I want to explore new methods of delivering preventive interventions, such as through teachers, coaches, or employers, to integrate evidence-based strategies into people’s daily lives.

Since my sophomore year at Harvard, I have cultivated a diverse set of research experiences to prepare for my graduate training. With Dr. Christine Hooker, I administered cognitive batteries and fMRIs to examine social cognitive deficits associated with schizophrenia. I assisted Professor John Weisz with revising and implementing procedures to screen articles for his meta-analysis. For my honors thesis research, I conducted an experiment with Professor Richard McNally testing a method to modify a working memory bias associated with rumination. Through this experience, I designed computer tasks, refined the task through pilot testing, collected data, conducted statically analyses, and summarized the results in my thesis manuscript. We published the findings from my thesis in Cognition and Emotion. Finally, working with Professor Matthew Sanders in Australia has taught me about the development and dissemination of population programs. In this role, I helped conduct a randomized control trial of the Triple P–Positive Parenting Program for sibling conflict, which was submitted to Pediatrics. I also collaborated with researchers from engineering and environmental management to explore how to implement a parenting intervention to promote pro-environmental behavior. In one project, I designed a needs-assessment survey examining whether parent’s protective instincts over their children can be used to decrease harmful fishing practices in Indonesia. We presented the data and theory behind these transdisciplinary projects at the international Helping Families Change Conference and at the 2015 Australian Psychological Association Conference.

In addition to my research experience, I have developed and delivered prevention programs. As the President of Harvard’s Drug and Alcohol Peer Advisors (DAPA), I led the group to achieve both targeted and population-level messaging to reduce harmful drinking behavior. Through DAPA, I received training in motivational interviewing techniques, which I utilized in private conversations with my peers about their drinking habits. Additionally, I worked with Professor Beth Frates from Harvard Medical School to develop a course aimed at increasing students’ knowledge of healthy lifestyle habits. We co-authored a case study published BMJ Case Reports on a lifestyle intervention program for weight loss. Finally, I am accredited in versions of the Triple P program, which I delivered as part of the Queensland government state-wide rollout.

I aim to explore new avenues for improving mental wellbeing through a Clinical Psychology Ph.D. program at Temple University. I am interested in Temple’s program due to its strong reputation in research methods and clinical training. I hope to work with Dr. Philip Kendall because of his influential research on designing child anxiety treatment programs. I am fascinated by the Cats and Dogs project, which uses teachers to administer a computerized cognitive behavioral therapy for child anxiety. This program aligns with my interest in exploring new contexts to deliver treatment. I would be interested in examining the acceptability of this program using a systems-contextual perspective (Beidas & Kendall, 2010). Teachers are an untapped resource for delivering evidence-based skills, but it is important to understand whether they believe they can integrate such skills into their work. I will draw on Dr. Kendall’s expertise in intervention design to create a program aimed at increasing teenagers’ self-efficacy and psychological flexibility, thereby decreasing their risk of mental illness (Bandura, 1977; Kashdan & Rottenberg, 2010). In my first year of graduate school, I want to conduct a study I want to conduct a study examining how events in teenagers’ everyday life affect their resiliency using ecological momentary assessment data. I will use this information to design and evaluate a prevention program with user-centered design principles (Lyon & Koerner, 2016). In addition to working with Dr. Kendall, I hope to collaborate with and learn from Dr. Deborah Drabick and Dr. Richard Heimberg, who also have extensive research experience in treatment development and predicting treatment outcomes. If admitted to Temple, I would enroll in statistics courses with Dr. David Waxler and Dr. Thomas Olino to deepen my analytical skills, such as by learning the tests that correct for small sample sizes and multiple hypotheses (Heckman, Moon, Pinto, Savelyev, & Yavitz, 2010).

        Through my training as a scientist-practitioner, I will consider how my clinical work can inform the development of prevention programs. My clinical work will provide me with a deep understanding of transdiagnostic symptoms and treatment methods. I look forward to learning how to conduct a diagnostic interview while maintaining rapport with my clients and how to prevent compassion fatigue. Temple’s program is particularly appealing to me because its students participate in clinical training through the duration of their degree. Although I envision myself in a research-oriented career, I value this intensive clinical training model. I would begin my training in the Child and Adolescent Anxiety Disorders Clinic and subsequently would enroll in practicum throughout the Philadelphia community to gain exposure to diverse treatment settings and populations.

        After my graduate studies, I plan to pursue a career as a professor in a university setting. I feel that I will make the greatest impact on decreasing the prevalence of mental illness by researching novel ways to increase the uptake of prevention programs. I also am excited to teach. As an undergraduate, I enjoyed tutoring students in both introduction to psychology and also psychology writing methods. I also view teaching as a pathway to prevent mental illness. As a professor, I hope to promote my students’ self-efficacy and cognitive flexibility. My impact as a professor will be exponentially increased by teaching students to think critically about the prevention of mental illness.

        My six-and-a-half years of research experience has prepared me to embark on the next phase of my career. I am excited to begin a doctoral degree in Clinical Psychology, where I hope to further my research passion of preventing mental illness and to learn new clinical and research skills. Moreover, I am enthused about the prospect of completing my graduate studies at Temple University.

References

Bandura, A. (1977). Self-efficacy: Toward a unifying theory of behavioral change. Psychological Review, 84(2), 191–215. doi:10.1016/0146-6402(78)90002-4

Beidas, R. S., & Kendall, P. C. (2010). Training therapists in evidence‐based practice: A critical review of studies from a systems‐contextual perspective. Clinical Psychology: Science and Practice, 17(1), 1–30. http://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-2850.2009.01187.x

Bronfenbrenner, U. (1977). Toward an experimental ecology of human development. American Psychologist, 32(7), 513–531. doi:10.1037/0003-066X.32.7.513

Heckman, J. J., Moon, S. H., Pinto, R., Savelyev, P., & Yavitz, A. (2010). Analyzing social experiments as implemented: A reexamination of the evidence from the HighScope Perry Preschool Program. Quantitative Economics, 1(1), 1–46. doi:10.3982/QE8

Kashdan, T. B., & Rottenberg, J. (2010). Psychological flexibility as a fundamental aspect of health. Clinical Psychology Review, 30(7), 865–878. doi:10.1016/j.cpr.2010.03.001

Kazdin, A. E., & Rabbitt, S. M. (2013). Novel models for delivering mental health services and reducing the burdens of mental illness. Clinical Psychological Science, 1(2), 170–191. doi:10.1177/2167702612463566

Lyon, A. R., & Koerner, K. (2016). User‐centered design for psychosocial intervention development and implementation. Clinical Psychology: Science and Practice, 23(2), 180–200. doi:10.1111/cpsp.12154

Weisz, J. R., Ng, M. Y., & Bearman, S. K. (2014). Odd Couple? Reenvisioning the Relation Between Science and Practice in the Dissemination-Implementation Era. Clinical Psychological Science, 2(1), 58–74. doi:10.1177/2167702613501307

11. Applied Fall 2020 for Fall 2021 matriculation. This was my third time applying!

When I was five, my family—the first in my extended family—immigrated from India to the United States in pursuit of the American Dream. While America fulfilled its promise in many ways throughout the years, we witnessed firsthand one of the country's most glaring gaps. Exacerbated by poor access to care, the absence of a support system, and the stigma in our South Asian community, my mother endured depression that went undiagnosed for years. Similar to other cultures, addiction and mental health are highly stigmatized among Asians; few people of my ethnicity pursue careers in the mental health field and few patients who identify as Asian seek care. As the oldest child, I witnessed this first-hand while navigating barriers to connect my mother to treatment. These intimate encounters prompted me to pursue a career addressing behavioral health problems and disparities.

Along with this personal history, my background in public health, clinical work, and research has instilled the necessary knowledge and skills to address complex issues such as addiction. I intend to specialize in interdisciplinary research to advance culturally-sensitive and evidence-based care for vulnerable populations with the highest risk of adverse psychosocial and health outcomes. Hence, I am eager to pursue a doctoral degree in clinical-community psychology to 1) explore behavior change mechanisms mediated by risk and protective factors; 2) investigate adaptive and tailored interventions for behavior health problems; and 3) advance intervention science utilizing novel methodologies and mobile technology (Just-in-Time Adaptive Intervention, Ecological Momentary Assessment/Intervention). This mission is essential because current measures of therapeutic processes and outcomes are often limited to self-directed or clinician-observed logging. Examining the relationship between the individual, their environment, and behavior can expand our observations to evaluate changes occurring within and in between each therapy session. I also hope to advance novel methodologies by exploring how functional and contextual data can guide treatment mechanisms to address individual differences in behavioral patterns and psychological states. For example, as an independent scientist-practitioner, I envision a study on the influence of social (i.e. interactions with people) and geographic (i.e. places frequented) contexts on an individual’s substance use related behaviors and how adaptive interventions can support behavior change. Additionally, I intend to enhance cultural adaptations informed by treatment mechanisms to better incorporate community-based values, traditions, and customs. Through novel methodologies and mobile technologies, I am interested in exploring how to mitigate help-seeking barriers stemming from cultural determinants. Consequently, I hope to shape clinical practices to incorporate these cultural factors, making an impact on traditionally underserved, almost unserved, communities.

I launched my research career through an assistantship in Dr. XXX Lab at XXX University. I worked on a grant that examined neural mechanisms underlying implicit and explicit memory processes in chronic cocaine smokers. When interacting with participants (the majority of whom self-identified as Black or Latinx) during intake and imaging sessions, I repeatedly found myself in conversations about the stereotypes and biases they encountered. Their testimonies made me question how individual experiences and psychosocial factors influence substance use trajectories. Despite scientific insight into patterns of use mediated by demographic characteristics, our knowledge about the impacts of these differences and their implications is insufficient. This inspired me to supplement my experience in the lab with a Certified Alcohol and Drug Counseling (CADC) license to better understand substance use on an individual level. While the ensuing clinical practice with vulnerable populations clarified the impacts of individual experiences, it predominantly revealed how a broken health care system often disproportionately disadvantages communities of color. 

While working at the XXX, I led a study that evaluated the effectiveness of Individual Placement and Support (IPS) versus transitional work (TW) in unemployed veterans with PTSD. IPS provides a supportive employment model for individuals to maintain competitive jobs, while TW connects veterans with entry-level vocational jobs that can help them develop relevant skills. Past research shows that individuals in TW programs are more likely to self-identify as part of a minority ethnic group, experience homelessness, have a history of mental illness, and/or have a history of substance use. Our study’s participants, primarily XXX residents already confronting substantial disadvantages, demonstrated these observations. In this work, my most notable achievement was increasing retention and follow-up rates. Participants often expressed their sense of appreciation for connecting with someone with whom they could identify, thus strengthening my commitment to diversify the field and who this field serves. 

During this time, I also pursued a Master’s in Public Health and worked at the XXXX to gain more insight into the biopsychosocial influences of addiction. This laid the foundation for my thesis on drivers of prescription opioid misuse among adolescents and young adults, particularly how protective and risk factors may reveal addiction causes. While I am currently revising my thesis for resubmission to XXX, I have presented my findings at national and global conferences. At XXX, I worked alongside Dr. XXXX researching interventions for Black/African American and Latinx/Hispanic individuals living with HIV to improve adherence to medication. As adherence is a multidimensional process, we applied a multiphase optimization strategy (MOST), a novel methodology exploring intervention combinations for the most effective, efficient, and scalable impact. As the first study to implement MOST for HIV, this research revealed how socio-demographic and economic factors can influence adherence, and how these factors can be mediated by intervention systems grounded in an integrated social cognitive theory. This work, along with Dr. XXX’s mentorship, was a pivotal affirmation to integrate public health competencies in the field.

Currently, at XXX, I have managed (since inception) an R01 studying a text-messaging drinking reduction tool that explores how the timing and content of messages influence outcomes. I have been instrumental in content development, intervention design, and dissemination. When writing the text messages, I incorporated Motivational Interviewing competencies (i.e. change talk, self-efficacy, benefit, and consequence) to support moderation-based behavior change. Recently, I have led our efforts to refine data collection strategies and protocol to increase participant engagement for monthly and Ecological Momentary Assessments. Additional projects entail real-time response to events like the COVID-19 pandemic. I have co-developed a 60-day messaging intervention that aims to help individuals manage their drinking while offering COVID-related messages and ancillary programming via abstinence and/or moderation-based messages. I also produced a study survey to assess the impact of COVID-19 on drinking consumption in populations that were moderating prior to the pandemic. Facilitating these projects has strengthened my knowledge of how digital technologies, particularly smartphones, may foster positive behavior change through adaptive messaging. It has also further developed my related research questions through an opportunity to write a brief report exploring what mediators contribute to drinking patterns.

In sum, my academic, research and clinical experiences make me a strong candidate for XXX University’s Clinical-Community Psychology doctoral program. The program’s multidisciplinary training model will best prepare me to utilize a multifaceted approach in the translation of research and clinical services. Mentorship has played a crucial role in shaping my career and it is important to me that I continue to learn from experts in the field. I am enthusiastic about the opportunity to work under the mentorship of Dr. XXX to study risk and protective factors for behavioral health problems by adopting novel methodologies and mobile technology to aid in the development of adaptive and tailored interventions. Similar to my interests, Dr. XXX’s lab prioritizes the study of structural and sociocultural influences on coping and health behaviors. Given my public health background and recent Certified Health Education Specialist (CHES) certification, I possess skills (macro- vs micro-level influencers, program development, evaluation, implementation, dissemination, and stakeholder engagement) relevant to conduct Community-Based Participatory Research (CBPR) by engaging disenfranchised populations to disseminate sustainable interventions. Additionally, it is one of my goals to conduct interdisciplinary and cross-cultural research addressing mental health and substance use within at-risk communities in XXX. I am confident that XXX University will provide an environment where I will be intellectually challenged and encouraged to a commitment of life-long strengthening of skills and understanding of scientific knowledge. With great excitement, I look forward to the possibility of pursuing a PhD in Clinical-Community Psychology.

12. Applied Fall 2020 for Fall 2021 matriculation. Current Position: Incoming Doctoral Student.

“I will never study psychology,” I resolutely told my parents over dinner one night, early on in my high school career. I wanted to study theatre; I wanted to become a professional actor. And I certainly did not want to follow in the footsteps of my parents, who are both psychologists by training. But there I was, fulfilling an empty social studies slot in my senior year of high school with AP Psychology and, call it genetics or a predisposition, I was absolutely hooked. I remember one assignment in particular, where I had to draft a proposal for an experiment that bridged physical and mental health. As an asthmatic, I wrote mine on how albuterol, a common asthma medication, could affect sleep quality. My interest in psychology, and particularly how it could relate to physical health, was piqued. When I enrolled at the University of Richmond, I declared a psychology minor. That minor turned into a major, and that major turned into joining the psychology honors program. During that journey, I was also introduced to psychology research via the professor of my initial statistics and research methods course, Dr. Kristjen Lundberg.

Dr. Lundberg runs a social psychology lab on our campus, which I was lucky enough to join at the beginning of my sophomore year. Through her mentorship and guidance, I became proficient in many basic psychological research skills and platforms, including SPSS, Qualtrics, and Amazon’s Mechanical Turk. As I began developing those skills, I was able to present at three regional and national conferences, apply for multiple internal grants and awards, and complete and defend an honors thesis. I learned that I loved research. Running my own study, from applying for internal grants to an ultimate thesis defense on the mediating effect of emotional intelligence on the relationship between socioeconomic status and physical and mental well-being, I realized I had become the exact person that I told myself I would never be. A person I am grateful to be.

While Dr. Lundberg’s lab ultimately determined my career path, it also helped me realize that, as much as I was fascinated by social psychology, I wanted to take my skills and apply them in a face-to-face setting. Upon graduating, I gladly accepted a job in the Behavioral Medicine Program (BMED) in the Department of Psychiatry at Massachusetts General Hospital. Having an opportunity to be employed in a job where much of my work focuses on direct participant interaction has cultivated my love of psychological research and helped me solidify my career goals.  

As a Clinical Research Coordinator, I was immediately onboarded to run one of our R01 domestic clinical trials, an interaction/intervention trial assessing a new CBT-based smoking cessation treatment for people living with HIV. I have been responsible for administering questionnaires to participants at each timepoint in their 14-visit treatment; building databases and systems for fidelity and competency checks to assess the quality of behavioral interventions being delivered; and navigating the National Institutes of Health’s new Single IRB guidelines. As this has been my first experience in face-to-face clinical research, I have also been tasked with learning to navigate through issues that come up (e.g., helping participants who are unable to complete questionnaires on their own, or encouraging participants who suddenly doubt their ability to abstain from smoking to continue with the study). Additionally, my time in BMED has allowed me the opportunity to be involved in grant writing and administration, where I have gained experience in administrating NIH R- and K-level grants, as well as grants for the Harvard University Center for AIDS Research and American Lung Association – experiences which have allowed me to apply with confidence for the National Science Foundation’s Graduate Research Fellowship Program this year.

While BMED continued to cultivate my interest in research, my interest in clinical work was developed through my involvement with the University of Richmond’s chapter of Camp Kesem. Camp Kesem provides a free, weeklong summer camp to kids, aged 5-18, whose lives have been upended by the cancer diagnosis of a parent or primary caregiver. While most of the camp staff is comprised of undergraduate students or individuals who have recently graduated college, there were also two Mental Health Professionals (MHPs) on site to help us navigate challenging interactions. We held Cabin Chats every night, which were half-hour chunks of time in which campers could reflect on why they were all at camp. After a particularly emotional night, my co-counselor and I radioed in for one of the MHPs, so that we could bring in a trained professional to help us debrief our campers. I watched as the MHP encouraged each camper individually to share, or not share, any emotions that they might have been feeling. Disregarding curfew in the interest of conversation, our cabin stayed up and shared stories that wove a thread of understanding through the entire cabin. There was a gradual realization that all of us, no matter if we had chosen to share stories or not, had all been affected by chronic illness. Watching the MHP navigate the conversation with our cabin, I felt a lightbulb go off. I realized that clinical experiences could extend beyond the traditional, one-on-one, private practice setting – that clinical techniques can be employed in community settings. I became more interested in manifestations of clinical psychology wherein the clinical aspects are not necessarily “traditional,” such as Camp Kesem. In the future, I see myself as a research and clinical professional affiliated within a hospital, or other medical practice setting, where I can engage in short-term, acute clinical care. My introduction to clinical experiences at Kesem coupled with my research work in BMED have also helped me establish a focus for my future work: health psychology, with a focus on children and young adults. In the future, I am interested in how chronic illness can affect a child, whether the illness is their own, or one of a sibling or parent; at present, however, I am interested in expanding my knowledge in all aspects of health psychology that could intersect with mental health in children and young adults. Thus, I can easily envision myself working in a pediatric medical facility upon internship and graduation.

As such, I’m primarily interested in clinical science programs that have a strong emphasis in health psychology. For that reason alone, I believe that CUNY would be a great fit for me. However, I additionally think that this could be an extremely good fit with potential mentors. In particular, I’m incredibly interested in working with either Dr. Ford or Dr. Reigada. As my primary clinical experiences have surrounded familial cancer diagnoses, I would love to expand on this work and look at children and young adults who have been diagnosed with cancer with Dr. Ford. I am especially intrigued by her FORTIFY study, which could potentially successfully merge many of my previous research experiences (in social psychology, looking at emotions and emotional well-being, and chronic illness) and her EMPOWER study, as I’m very interested in pursuing my education with randomized controlled trials. I also believe I could be a good fit with Dr. Reigada’s lab, as I saw her speak at this year’s ABCT virtual conference and am absolutely fascinated by her work, and would love the opportunity to learn more about psychogastroenterology.

I believe that CUNY would be the perfect next step for me to continue my research experiences and to begin my clinical training. I look forward to the opportunity to learn more about the program, and thank you for your consideration.

13. Applied Fall 2014 for Fall 2015 matriculation. I applied for clinical science programs. A few more notes: (1) My state is definitely way too long! I felt deeply inadequate so went a little over the top with trying to show that I did belong in grad school. (2) Sharing personal history is unfortunately a risk (there’s a reason I mentioned a family member rather than my own experiences) but it felt important to me to include at least a part of my authentic story in my application. There were plenty of programs I applied to that rejected me, but I received very positive feedback on my statement from the ones who opted to interview me. (3) At the end, I included some context for my low score (~35th percentile, I think?) on the GRE Quant section, and C+ grade in Experimental Psych. I got mixed feedback from mentors as to whether this was useful/necessary to include, and still not sure if it made a difference. Current Position: Intern.  

I never wanted to be in academia; it hit too close to home. Raised by two biologists in rural Maine and New York, my younger sister and I learned about death from the raccoon skulls we found in the woods, and sex by observing a pair of littorina littorea copulate in the algae at literally a snail’s pace. My introduction to psychology was around the age of seven, when my sister and I were told that it was chemicals in my father’s brain that made him act the way he did. It was the early nineties, and the theory of a blameless monoamine “imbalance” was something my parents could offer – a scientific explanation for all of the times he sat almost catatonic at the dinner table with his head in his hands, speaking as if it was painful in a monotone whisper. Rather than apply to college, I moved to New York City to become an actor. Two years later, I graduated from a conservatory with a stack of glossy headshots and a growing realization that I wanted to do more than simply reflect human nature. At Hunter College, my extracurricular interest in psychology was kindled into an active enthusiasm, though at first I listed more towards practice than research. This led me to internship at an organization, The Door, working with some of the city’s most vulnerable young adults and teens. I still use the clinical interviewing skills I learned there to inform the diagnostic interviews I do in my current work. As an intake counselor intern, I rarely got to hear the stories’ endings. Happily, the same is not true for my father’s story. When he talks about that time, he shakes his head in bewilderment. “I was thinking some really crazy things back then,” he says. “The way I felt just wasn’t logical.”

I mention my father’s story here not because he suffered from depression – so do nearly 15 million Americans, in a given year – but because his lengthy struggle concludes with a lasting remission. Despite advances in recent decades in our understanding and treatment of psychopathology and its risk factors and course, many with anxiety and depression are not so lucky. For this reason I plan to pursue a career in clinical psychological science, beginning with my application to the University of Arizona. Of the faculty, I am especially interested in Dr. John Allen’s work on etiology and treatment response in anxiety and depression. Dr. Allen was formative in my discovery of a love for psychophysiology, and I spent many hours as an undergraduate watching his lectures on his website while trying to wrap my head around a particular concept. He was kind enough to answer a few questions I had regarding QRSTool/CMetX earlier in the fall, and I appreciate his clear enthusiasm for teaching and mentorship as well as methodologically-rigorous empirical work.

At Hunter College, I joined Dr. Douglas Mennin’s Regulation of Emotion in Anxiety and Depression (READ) Lab in 2012 because of his affect science approach to treatment-refractory anxiety and depression. I am now one of four senior members of the lab, thanks to a combination of Dr. Mennin’s generosity and mentorship, encouragement and guidance from others in the lab, and my initiative, perseverance, and scientific curiosity. I have been fortunate to experience some exceptional opportunities in the READ Lab, including coordinating and helping with data analysis for our fMRI scans at the New York University Center for Brain Imaging, and conducting clinical assessments for the ongoing trial of Emotion Regulation Therapy1 – as well as having the intellectual support and freedom to pursue my own interests within the larger mission of the lab. Soon after I joined the lab, my interest in psychophysiology developed into an independent project (“Autonomic Dysregulation and Discordance in Generalized Anxiety Disorder”) for which I received an Undergraduate Research Initiative Fellowship. The project also formed the basis for my undergraduate honors thesis which explored differential associations between heart rate variability (HRV) and symptoms of generalized anxiety and major depression, based on the hypothesis that although these disorders share features of distress (i.e. Watson and Clark’s tripartite model), GAD-specific symptoms would be more closely linked to an inflexible pattern of environmental responding as evidenced by lower HRV. More recently, I have been exploring evoked cardiac responses (ECRs) as a method to capture truly moment-to-moment cardiac vagal control and reactivity. Novel, highly arousing or motivationally significant stimuli elicit greater ECRs. Although preliminary2, we have some interesting results which suggest that the tendency to down-regulate, or dampen, the experience of positive emotion is associated with a smaller ECR to affiliative images. The cardiac data were acquired during a passive view task designed for event-related potentials, with the serendipitous consequence that the short interstimulus interval likely requires individuals to interrupt an incomplete ECR during the action preparation stage, in order to shift their attention to the next stimulus. Whether the diminished ECR to affiliative images implies decreased sensitivity to reward or lesser ability to disengage from the threat information in the paradigm will require further investigation, and we next plan to examine the ECR in relation to our (simultaneously-acquired) late positive potential data. One of my interests going forward is in characterizing the relationship between cardiac vagal control and cognitive control as a potential mechanism of anxious psychopathology, building on extant work in neurovisceral connectivity.

A minor drawback of the depth of my involvement with peripheral psychophysiology until now is that I have not yet been able to devote attention to electroencephalography and ERPs beyond collection (although I am slowly gaining some experience working with fMRI data.) These are ideally suited (perhaps essential) methodologies to address some of my research questions, so I intend to develop these skills during graduate training. I am excited to continue to develop greater psychophysiological expertise. The graduate program at University of Arizona is unique in that it offers the tremendously exciting opportunity to develop psychophysiological expertise. As psychophysiological methods become ever-more accessible to investigators, I am passionate about learning so much more in terms of theory-driven experimental design and best practices in data collection, processing and analysis.

1. See my CV for more information and details of my current responsibilities in the READ lab and Dr. Hoyt’s Stress and Coping Lab, also at Hunter College.

2. I am currently working with Dr. Pandelis Perakakis to re-analyze our data using a larger sample with his Matlab program Kardia (rather than the routine I developed in AcqKnowledge.)

In my program of research, I intend to focus on the role of interactions between emotion, motivation and cognition in maintaining and conveying risk for anxiety and mood disorders. Within this broad area, I am particularly interested in how individual differences in these relationships contribute to features of anxiety and depression. Symptoms have a functional nature, as they shape and are shaped by how people interact with their environment. For example, rumination can serve as an attempt to problem-solve or to guide behavior based on what has or has not worked in the past. Yet these symptoms also carry consequences, such as difficulty concentrating, repairing negative moods, or initiating goal-directed behavior. Beyond simply delineating how basic processes in emotion produce impairment and distress, I aim to clarify when and for whom, particularly in the case of heterogeneous phenomena such as self-focused thought, which under some circumstances, may compromise one’s focus, performance, and ability to adaptively regulate emotions, yet in other circumstances it can bolster creativity, distract from suffering, or augment and sustain positive affect. Though imperfect,3 one major advantage of a matrix-based system like National Institute of Mental Health’s Research Domain Criteria is the ability to better evaluate relationships both between and within units of analysis, domains and constructs. One of my long-term aims is to conduct multimodal research grounded in basic behavioral science to better characterize how feeling and thinking work together – for example, the ability of cognitive control or implicit processes (e.g., error monitoring, conflict adaptation) to facilitate or undermine processes such as metacognition or emotion regulation. This work carries potential ramifications for how we disseminate and define empirically-supported treatments, in addition to how we see core processes in psychopathology. My work with both Dr. Hoyt and Dr. Mennin have consistently raised questions such as What determines the point to which individuals with anxiety can compensate for executive function decrements? When do emotion traits present in the population at a dimensional level lead to clinically-significant levels of distress and impairment? I plan to undertake graduate study in order to be able to contribute knowledge from an affect science perspective that may improve the lives of individuals with highly prevalent, but often treatment-refractory disorders. The graduate program in clinical psychology at the University of Arizona is ideally suited for this mission with its commitment to integrating empirical research with an eye towards enhancing human life, as evidenced by both accreditation from the American Psychological Association and the Psychological Clinical Science Accreditation System.

An addendum on some of my course grades, including the C+ in Experimental Psychology, and GRE Quantitative score:

I took the writing-intensive experimental course at a time that I was working close to full-time waiting tables in addition to taking a full course load. The C+ was the lowest grade I had ever received in a college course; hence a vivid lesson in time management that I took to heart (as evidenced by A grades for my honors thesis and independent study courses, which are a

3. Lilienfeld, S. O. (2014). The Research Domain Criteria (RDoC):

14. Applied Fall 2010 for Fall 2011 matriculation. Current Position: Research Assistant Professor.

My interest and dedication to the field of psychology and empirical research has been the foundation of my educational career for both my undergraduate and graduate studies.  My passion and allegiance to the field was cemented during my undergraduate studies at XX. It was here that I experienced coursework and research that led me to pursue a doctoral degree in the field of clinical psychology. During the spring semester of 2006, I enrolled in my first upper division psychology course, titled the Psychology of Divorce. My research interests began to evolve to include such topics as intimate partner violence, child trauma, divorce and family conflict. At that time, I joined Dr. XX’s research lab where I became very familiar with research on these topics. Throughout the rest of my undergraduate career, I continued to enjoy coursework and research in the department of psychology.  While the areas of research which I had considered my main foci shifted slightly to include childhood exposure to violence, my focus remained centered on a close-knit group of related topics.

During my three years of undergraduate work at XX, I collected various research experiences with Dr. XX, graduate students and other undergraduate colleagues. I contributed to a number of projects and learned to perform a wide array of roles in the research lab. My tasks included data collection from archived legal files, development of coding systems for qualitative data, use of data management software, data screening, data analysis and manuscript writing. I was also responsible for developing decision rules, training research assistants, conducting inter-rater reliability analyses and tracking data collection. I completed my honors thesis with a project that validated a domestic violence screening tool for use in divorce mediation. I presented the results at an undergraduate research forum and a national conference. My collaborators and I published this work in the Journal of XX. Through these experiences, I learned the necessity for attention to detail when collecting, analyzing and reporting empirical data.

As I was nearing the end of my undergraduate career, I began to make important decisions about my graduate aspirations. While I recognized that my eventual goal was a doctoral degree in clinical psychology, I desired a wider range of research experience before making a definite decision about my specific field of research interest. Considering my ultimate goal of doctoral training that emphasized research skills and development, I wanted to feel confident in my choice of a research focus. While I was well prepared with my research experience in the realm of intimate partner violence and divorce, I wanted to explore my child specific interests. Because of this, I decided to apply to two research-oriented master’s programs with faculty members conducting child specific research.

I will finish my master’s degree at XX in May of 2011. During my time in this program, I have had the opportunity to pursue my interests of various psychological questions surrounding child abuse and childhood exposure to violence. My master’s thesis includes a survey of medical professionals regarding their attitudes and beliefs about children’s credibility as reporters of abuse and proper interview techniques with child victims of abuse. This project has allowed me to explore this topic in the literature and gain experience with survey data collection. In addition, I recently completed a study of a parenting coordinator program. This project was under the supervision of my undergraduate mentor, Dr. XX. I had the opportunity to collect the original data, organize and code the data, conduct statistical analyses and draw conclusions from the results. I presented the findings at a national conference and the manuscript is currently under review for publication in the Journal of XX. In addition to my own research interests, I have used opportunities to gain diverse knowledge of various methodologies by working on projects outside my primary area of interest. These projects include the topics of inducing truth telling in children, investigating the process of law review journals, and perceptions of sex offender laws.

During my time at XX, I have gained clinical experience with a community violence intervention agency where I co-facilitate therapy groups for both women victims and child witnesses of intimate partner violence. In addition, I have held a teaching assistant position every semester. My duties include preparing and conducting laboratory lectures and activities, grading papers, tests and projects, proctoring exams, holding review sessions and office hours, and reporting grades to students and the University.

Lastly, the coursework that I have completed in this program has facilitated immense academic growth. I have had valuable exposure to several graduate level courses including two advanced statistics courses that have been especially helpful in preparing me for doctoral level coursework and research. Furthermore, I have maintained a 4.0 GPA which exemplifies my abilities to succeed in graduate coursework. I believe the past two years of graduate school have allowed me to reach my initial goal of specifying my own research interests. In addition, it has provided me with research, clinical, teaching and academic experiences that have ultimately prepared me for doctoral level study in clinical psychology.

My current research interests include childhood exposure to traumatic situations such as divorce and intimate partner violence. I believe my research goals would be best achieved under the direction of Dr. XX. I can contribute to Dr. XX’s work relating to intimate partner violence in the context of parental divorce by expanding studies to include the child’s perspective of these experiences.  In addition to this research training, I will seek out child focused externships and take available courses offered on topics related to children through both the family studies and psychology departments. My contributions to the psychology department as a graduate student will be supported by my adherence to ethical research practices, attention to detail, extreme dedication to my academic and research commitments and high intrinsic motivation to succeed.

My long-term career goal is a research position in a university setting. I aspire to hold a faculty position where I can complement my research career with teaching at the undergraduate and graduate levels. I believe that the clinical psychology program at XX will provide me with vigorous research training and the clinical training that I need to inspire and understand my research.

15. Applied Fall 2020 for Fall 2021 matriculation. Current: Clinical Research Coordinator; August 2021: Graduate Student.

As a first-generation college student, I had few expectations for college and thought of it as a stepping stone on my career path. I did not expect my college experiences to be as formative as they were, igniting changes in the way I interact with others and, ultimately, my career path itself. After growing up in suburban [state], I went out-of-state to the [university] to pursue a career in medicine, and I was away from my friends and family for the first time. At first, I struggled to connect with my peers and felt very isolated. I eventually came across some local online communities during my first semester and noticed that there were a lot of other students experiencing similar problems to those of my own, and sometimes much more serious. On at least two dozen occasions, I read posts from other students that described a desire to die or end their own lives. No matter what I learned other people were going through, I tried to support them and provide encouragement to seek help because I personally knew how the isolation and stress from the transition to college felt. This is where I first discovered the widespread impact of poor mental health and where my interest in supporting the mental health of others began.

Inspired by my newfound interest in mental health, I began taking courses that covered the topics of brain function and psychology because I wanted to better understand their relationship. Eager to put the Emergency Medical Technician (EMT) certification I earned during my senior year of high school to work, I began volunteering as an EMT at the [university ambulance service]. I worked my way up to the leadership of [university ambulance service], where I have been able to develop my teaching skills, serving as a primary instructor for Basic Life Support courses and a guest lecturer for EMT courses. I am also part of the [university] Medical Reserve Corps, which organizes responses of its members to public health emergencies. Around the same time I began volunteering as an EMT, I discovered Crisis Text Line, a free service that connects people in crisis to volunteer crisis counselors through text messaging. It seemed like a great opportunity to build my skills to continue helping struggling students at the [university], so I applied to become a crisis counselor. Over three years, I spent 300+ hours texting with over 500 people sometimes experiencing the darkest moments in their lives. I became so engaged in the course materials and volunteer work that I decided to pivot my career trajectory toward clinical psychology. With a strong desire to continue developing my interpersonal support skills, I decided to apply to a peer-led stress management group called [scrubbed] through the university’s health clinic. The group’s goal is to support and provide resources to students who are struggling, while also promoting wellness and stress management among all students. I was selected as a volunteer and trained to help students navigate and manage their stress in healthy ways. I remained involved in [scrubbed] through the end of my undergraduate experience.

I got my first experiences working in a mental health clinical setting as I listened to others during some of their toughest times. It was a great honor and incredibly valuable experience which shaped my goal to pursue a career in mental health. While doing my best to help other people, I was able to pick up on patterns that stimulated my interests. I noticed that a lot of the people I talked to were stuck in cycles of increasing stress and worsening mental health symptoms. I wondered why some people seemed more resilient to stress than others and how we can intervene early so that people experiencing disruptive levels of stress do not reach the breaking point that pushes them into a crisis. Mental illnesses and substance use are extremely prevalent in our society, and I have personally seen the effects of their interactions on some of my family and friends. In the examples of substance use that I have noticed, there is often a stressor that initiates the substance use to numb a person’s emotional pain. This observation draws my interests to the connections between substance use, stress, and psychiatric symptoms and the development of interventions that reduce stress and psychiatric symptom severity before substance use ever begins.

In addition to gaining clinical experience, I sought to gain research experience to facilitate my understanding of substance use, stress, and psychopathology. My interests led me to begin working as an undergraduate research assistant in Dr. A’s lab in the [university] Department of Psychiatry. In his lab, I got hands-on experience running psychophysiological experiments in his study observing the effects of an inpatient alcohol use disorder (AUD) treatment program on stress reactivity. I had the opportunity to examine healthy control data from an unanticipated threat task that elicited startle responses and event related potentials. Our findings aligned with existing literature showing that N100 amplitude was larger during uncertain versus certain or no-threat trials and P300 was suppressed during certain and uncertain threat trials relative to no-threat trials. We also found disrupted N100 and P300 patterns in AUD inpatients at baseline, which seemed to converge toward patterns of controls at the end of treatment. It will be critical to continue studying attentional processes related to stressful events in people with AUD. In Dr. A’s lab, I also learned how to conduct a network analysis in R to model complex interactions between symptoms. In a network analysis of NESARC Wave 1 data, we discovered that stress increases the role of “Drinking to Cope” in maintaining the relationship between internalizing disorders, alcohol use, and AUD symptoms, in that “Drinking to Cope” becomes more centralized in the network as the number of stressors increases. I was able to present the preliminary EEG findings and the NESARC findings at two separate scientific meetings. My work with Dr. A not only reaffirmed my interests in studying substance use but also got me excited about psychophysiological methods and the role of stress in psychopathology.

While continuing my work with Dr. A, I had an opportunity to expand my hands-on experience collecting EEG and fMRI data and began working as a Clinical Research Coordinator in the labs of Drs. B and C. Over the last two years, I have managed several research projects, including a randomized trial examining the effects of cognitive training and transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) on cognition in people with psychosis. On these projects, I conducted many diagnostic assessments, clinical interviews, and neuropsychological assessments on people with psychosis. I also gained valuable experience in collecting, processing, and analyzing EEG data under the supervision of Dr. D and his team. I have also been responsible for collecting fMRI data on both 3- and 7-Tesla scanners, as well as managing the imaging database and ensuring we had collected quality data. I had the opportunity to analyze and present preliminary neurocognition outcomes in our tDCS + cognitive training clinical trial, and I am currently working on an analysis to examine how cigarette smoking affects treatment outcomes in people with first-episode psychosis over their first two years of treatment. In addition to analyzing and presenting our data, I contributed to two manuscripts that have been published from our lab — one comparing two quality of life instruments and the other assessing the use of auditory processing speed as a proxy for target engagement in different kinds of cognitive training. A lot of my work has required me to quickly learn new technical skills, like writing code in R and MATLAB, which has been an exciting and rewarding challenge. Additionally, my work with cognitive training has stimulated further research questions about how we might optimize novel and accessible interventions to improve distress tolerance and attentional control in people with substance use disorders. In my time working in the Department of Psychiatry, I enjoyed working in a highly collaborative academic environment that fosters achievement for everyone involved. As I pursue my next steps, I hope to continue working in an environment that promotes collaboration and success for everyone.

As a graduate student, I hope to continue generating knowledge about cognitive processes in human psychopathology in order to guide development of novel prevention techniques and interventions for co-occurring substance use and internalizing disorders. My experience in clinical research, along with my knowledge of psychophysiology and stress reactivity paradigms make me well-positioned to contribute to the work being done in Dr. E’s [lab name] at [university]. Specifically, I would be very excited to be involved in the collection and analysis of psychophysiological data to study cognitive-affective aspects of co-occurring substance use and internalizing disorders. One of my main goals for graduate school is to continue developing my current skills while also building skills that set me up for a career as an independent investigator. My ultimate goal is to work in a setting that allows me to conduct meaningful research, teach the next generation of clinical scientists, and practice therapeutic interventions all in order to reduce suffering and help people live to their fullest potentials. I am confident that the rigorous clinical psychology doctoral program at [university], along with the mentorship of Dr. E, would be an excellent fit for my career goals. I would be happy to provide any further information. Thank you for considering my application.

16. Incoming Clinical Science PhD Student. Applied Fall 2020 for Fall 2021 matriculation. Applicant applied as a post-bac RA and was accepted into program. To demonstate their program of research, applicant included a table of research/training aims with optional application materials.  

Overview: Growing up queer in a religious home and rural community, I was forced to choose between identity concealment and victimization. I continue to face family rejection, today, each time I publish work on sexual and gender minority (SGM) youth (i.e., LGBTQ+ children/adolescents). From multilevel models to semi-structured interviews, this research (and my related scholarship on youth with similarly stigmatized identities; e.g., youth of Color) documents multifaceted stigma, health disparities, and inequitable outcomes in mental health care. These findings necessitate enhanced examination of structural determinants of these inequities; explication of biopsychosocial mechanisms underpinning their effects; and, the development and testing of accessible, efficient, and effective interventions for SGM youth.

Objectives: As an aspiring health equity and intervention scientist, this is exactly the line of research I hope to pursue in the Clinical Science PhD Program at Harvard. I would be thrilled to learn from XXX, XXX, and XXX, gaining the autonomy and expertise to conduct rigorous yet culturally-responsive research enhancing the mental health of, and care for, SGM youth. Harvard’s program is ideally situated on my academic trajectory, emphasizing evidence-based methods and biological, cognitive-affective, and social bases of behavior across scholarship, coursework, and practica; this clinical science model maps seamlessly onto my proposed mechanism- and intervention-related projects (see “Research Questions” below). As a queer, nontraditional, and first-generation student, I appreciate the Psychology Department’s commitment to diversity, inclusion, and belonging and am eager to continue my postbaccalaureate work with the DIB Committee (detailed in “Research Experiences”).

Background: In XXX, I left XXX, returning home to care for my terminally-ill grandparents. There, I coached scholastic bowl teams, organized math/science summer camps, and cotaught math at a Catholic school. In so doing, I became increasingly aware of social stressors impacting my students’ academic engagement and emotional wellbeing. This was particularly true for LGBTQ+ students, who, like me, encountered stigma from peers, parents, and priests: on the playground, at home, and from the pulpit. In this setting, mental health care was incredibly scarce and highly stigmatized. As an educator, I tried desperately to intervene yet felt woefully unequipped. Thus, after my grandparents’ deaths, I enrolled at XXX, inspired to explore clinical science as a tool to combat stigma. 

Education: As a clinical psychology major, I excelled in coursework, taking advanced classes in clinical and research methods, receiving multiple academic honors, and mentoring fellow returning adult students. I participated in a senior capstone at XXX, completing an honors thesis. Therein, I used multilevel modeling to examine the effectiveness of empirically-supported treatments (“ESTs”) for gender minority (GM) youth. Relative to cisgender youth, they endorsed more severe mental health concerns, demonstrated slower symptom improvement, and reported lower satisfaction. This work was funded by the Mamie Phipps Clark Diversity Grant (Psi Chi) and three institutional grants, and I presented findings at two national conferences, winning awards at both. My first-authored manuscript was recently published in Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology. Findings galvanized my interests, underscoring the need for treatment adaptations intervening upon GM stressors (e.g., coping strategies for stigma). 

Research Experiences: As an undergraduate, I was hired as a full-time research assistant in XXX, working on a federally-funded RCT of school-based psychotherapy: administering clinical, behavioral, neuroimaging, and genetic assessments to youth and collecting caregiver-, teacher-, and clinician-reported data. Now project coordinator, I am analyzing these data to determine whether a modular EST (i.e., MATCH) outperformed usual care on mental health and academic outcomes; and, if improvement was mediated by regulatory processes (e.g., attentional control) or clinical biomarkers (i.e., telomere length). Accordingly, I have broadened my analytical abilities considerably to model mechanisms of psychotherapeutic change. As lab manager, I coordinate related activities among XXX and colleagues (from Canada to Kenya), concomitantly serving as a guest lecturer on clinical research methods, cochair of our social justice initiative, and “Prospective PhD and RA Event in Psychology” mentor. Engaging in these roles has advanced my proficiency in data collection and analysis via multiple methods (e.g., fMRI) and platforms (e.g., Mplus, R, SPSS); but, more importantly, these experiences have instilled in me values of collegiality and collaboration, which I strive to cultivate in and beyond our lab.

In further support of XXX, I meta-analyze youth psychotherapy outcomes, contribute to brief digital intervention design, facilitate grant preparation (including a pending R01—an RCT of “FIRST,” a principle-guided youth psychotherapy), and write corresponding IRB protocols. I have designed and first-authored two qualitative studies: one utilizing content analysis to explore EST-implementation in schools (Evidence-Based Practice in Child & Adolescent Mental Health); the other examining school therapy delivery amidst COVID (invited; School Psychology). The first identified unique challenges (e.g., caregiver involvement) faced by school therapists, which have been compounded by the pandemic. I am also coauthor on two secondary analyses of EST trials (in preparation), revealing factors predicting youth symptom severity or mediating outcomes: physiological reactivity (measured via respiratory sinus arrythmia), childhood adversity (i.e., trauma exposure, low SES), and emotion dysregulation. Across these projects, I have recognized the importance of developing interventions that are efficiently delivered, readily accessible, and mechanistically-informed.

At Harvard, I began an enduring collaboration with XXX, now assistant professor at XXX. Together, in XXX, we wrote a grant for the XXX, funding two projects. First, I coauthored a qualitative description of GM youth’s negative therapy experiences (e.g., misgendering; 2020 APA symposium; R&R at EPCAMH). Subsequently, I designed and executed another qualitative study (deductive content analysis) conceptualizing adverse childhood experiences (e.g., nonaffirmation) unique to GM youth (first-authored poster recognized at 2020 APA convention; manuscript under review at Child and Adolescent Social Work). Extending the scope of my research, I recently coauthored a spatial meta-analysis (with XXX and XXX), showing that Black youth from higher-racism states benefited less from psychotherapy (R&R at JAACAP). Collectively, these inquiries highlight the insidious nature of stigma and the necessity of elucidating and addressing its underlying processes. This year, I was appointed XXX research coordinator, contributing extensively to XXX’s K23 (an app-based provider-training intervention in gender-affirming care) and her master’s-level CBT course (as a teaching assistant). Relatedly, I volunteer for the Boston Children’s Hospital Gender Multispecialty Service research team (a research-collaborative to improve gender-affirming care) and the XXX, establishing connections with SGM community members, engagement critical to treatment adaptation.

Research Questions: In my doctoral training, I wish to widen my theoretical perspectives (e.g., psychological mediation framework) and hone my methodological skills, supporting the research of XXX, XXX, and XXX and applying these new lenses and tools to increasingly independent projects. Specifically, to interrogate SGM-specific structural stigma, its sequalae, and associated mechanisms (and thus to inform treatment), I seek to answer the following questions (for more details, see attached “Research and Training Aims”):

1. Do existing measures of structural stigma generalize across SGM youth subpopulations (e.g., GM youth, bi+ youth, SGM youth with intersectional minority identities)?
2. Beyond health disparities, is structural stigma associated with, or predictive of, other outcomes (e.g., academic achievement, interpersonal violence, psychotherapy efficacy, neural development, biological aging) in SGM youth?
3. For SGM youth, what mechanisms—including stigma-related (e.g., internalized homophobia/transphobia, rejection sensitivity), psychosocial (e.g., emotion dysregulation), and biological (e.g., HPA-axis reactivity) stress processes—exacerbate the mental health effects of structural stigma?
4. When delivered to SGM youth living in highly stigmatizing contexts via a brief digital modality, will an EST with content targeting these potentially modifiable mechanisms outperform an unadapted EST?

Training Aims: These queries broadly encompass structural stigma and its measurement, stress processes and their assessment, and intervention development and testing, areas of inquiry in which XXX, XXX, and XXX are leading experts. I believe that I would flourish within XXX’s junior-colleague mentorship model, expanding my methodological armament to more comprehensively measure structural stigma specific to SGM youth (e.g., aggregating social policies, attitudes, and climate). By contributing to his ongoing scholarship—including NIMH-funded studies of (1) mediators of the stigma-health association in young SM adults and (2) mutable factors driving, and resilience processes attenuating, the effects of structural stigma on HIV outcomes—I intend to become well versed in multi-method (e.g., longitudinal, prospective, quasi-experimental, life-course) and multi-measure (e.g., attentional threat bias, identity concealment, inflammatory markers) designs, bolstering my planned investigation of stigma-related effects and their potentially synergistic mechanisms. To this end, I would similarly benefit from guidance from XXX, whose cutting edge-research probes biopsychosocial processes by which adversity (e.g., trauma—to which SGM youth are disproportionately exposed) impacts development and thus confers risk for psychopathology. I would be excited to assist with her extant studies (e.g., “FACEs” “STAR”), extending my familiarity with interdisciplinary assessment approaches (e.g., digital phenotyping, emotion-related fMRI tasks, diurnal cortisol patterns), eventually employing such techniques to identify if and how SGM youth’s stress responses are influenced by structural stigma or implicated in the stigma-psychopathology pathway. Finally, I would be honored to continue my collaboration with XXX, whose work focuses on accessible (e.g., community-based), efficient (e.g., single-session), and effective (i.e., principle-guided) psychotherapies, in considering how to best design, tailor, implement, and evaluate mechanism-driven interventions for SGM youth.

Summary: Building on my history of academic accomplishment and research productivity—and through new research and training opportunities with XXX, XXX, and XXX—I endeavor to contribute meaningfully to their work while putting my interests into action, with the ultimate goal of ameliorating the deleterious consequences of structural stigma and advancing mental health care for SGM youth. Although embracing my identity and pursuing these aims has largely alienated my biological family, I have found a welcoming and supportive chosen family at Harvard, and I hope to make William James Hall my home (or, at the very least, my Zoom background) as a Clinical Science PhD student.

17. Applied 2020 for 2021 matriculation. Accepted into a Public Health PhD program.

As a child playing as a raccoon in Sly Cooper, each level had twenty secret messages I could collect beyond the main objective. Scouring each corner, I would try every possible path combination until I found all the messages, across every level of the game. During my adolescence, I applied this method while unlocking each Xbox achievement in Dark Souls, and into my emerging adult years hunting for unique item variants in Minecraft Dungeons. Playing video games showed me how persistence, exploration, and innovation can lead to new discoveries. Beyond gaming, I have taken a similar approach in seeking multiple routes in my research, which centers around utilizing multiple methodologies to examine the interactions between the socioecological and biopsychosocial models to understand non-suicidal self-injury (NSSI), with ultimate goals of informing evidence-based policies to reduce NSSI. I believe that the Public Health Sciences program (behavioral science concentration) at [University], coupled with Dr. [Masked]’s expertise in suicide and community-engaged methods will provide me with diverse opportunities to research suicide and NSSI, and I would be honored to receive his mentorship in my graduate studies.

During my time as an undergraduate at Towson University, I experienced challenges that made researching NSSI difficult. First, no faculty mentors were studying NSSI, and second, Towson University’s IRB committee expressed concerns about the ethics of NSSI research among students, including whether participation could exacerbate urges to self-harm, increase suicide risk, or cause prolonged emotional distress. Instead of abandoning my desire to research NSSI, I sought research experience in clinical and cognitive psychology labs, adapting my research questions to constructs related to NSSI (i.e., attachment difficulties, trauma, unwanted pursuit behavior, anxiety, and pain perception). During these experiences, I gained valuable research skills (e.g., psychophysiological data collection, research design, ethics, advanced statistical techniques) and presented 14 unique conference presentations (e.g., APA, SRA, APS, EPA).

However, I remained interested in NSSI and wanted to develop methods to assess the ethics of NSSI research. As a first step, during the Experimental Psychology Master’s program at Towson, I sought a small grant to complete my master’s thesis on Mturk (not with students) to ease some of the IRB’s concerns. My Master’s thesis (with Dr. [Masked]) analyzes how an individual’s age of onset for NSSI, experience of pain, and type of childhood abuse experience impacted their NSSI method, function, and frequency. In addition, I decided to directly study the fears, beliefs, and stigma toward NSSI research and participants’ reactions to the research in efforts to address the IRB’s broader ethical concerns. First, I developed the attitudes toward NSSI scale (ATNSSIS) through a two-part study of validation and confirmation of the study’s subscales. As a secondary project using the same dataset, I worked with Dr. [Masked] to measure the emotional consequences (e.g., emotional reactions, drawbacks, benefits, participation, and global evaluations) to participation in NSSI research that led to a publication in the Journal of Empirical Research on Human Research Ethics. These projects showed me that (1) participants hold negative attitudes toward NSSI, and (2) participants with a history of NSSI endorse an overall positive research experience. I am optimistic that these studies can be valuable for myself and others by providing IRB committees evidence that NSSI and suicide, while stigmatized, can be ethically studied. Further, I have learned that when challenges are presented in research, there is opportunity for innovation and scientific discovery. Moreover, across my graduate career, I have taken and received at least an A- in several statistics courses, including (1) Advanced Experimental Design I and II, and (2) Multivariate Methods and Statistics.

Throughout these projects, I have developed early research mentorship skills that I hope to expand upon in graduate school. In addition to overseeing and training undergraduate RAs, I led professional development meetings where I presented materials I had created on academic writing and the process of research. Further, to provide an outlet for student research and an introduction to the peer-review process, I founded the first psychology research journal at Towson University (TU PGSA Journal). As managing editor, I provide in-depth feedback on manuscript submissions; I am proud that this journal emphasizes quality methods and effective writing over statistical significance. Finally, I have served as both a writing tutor (for undergraduate and graduate research projects) and an undergraduate TA across 3 courses. These experiences have only furthered my interest and excitement for a career in academia.

I remain the child who explored every path until I found the answer, and I am excited to bring this enthusiasm to my work in Dr. [Masked]’s lab. I believe that my existing skills in research design and data analysis, my drive to learn, and my passion for NSSI and suicide research will contribute to fruitful collaborations with Dr. [Masked]. I am excited to learn from him more about the stigma faced by members of the National Coalition for Sexual Freedom, and I also have interests in examining the emotional consequences of participation among trauma exposed and self-injuring LBTQIA+ individuals longitudinally. Moreover, I am interested in assessing a trauma-informed public health approach to suicide care. In addition, while I have studied NSSI cross-sectionally, I am hoping to explore different methods (e.g., ecological momentary assessment) for assessing NSSI and suicide during my graduate studies. I would be honored to receive his mentorship to develop my knowledge of research design, statistics, and professional development.

18.  Applicant applied as a post-bacc research coordinator. This statement was submitted to the program she ultimately attended. The first and last paragraphs were tailored to each program. Additional notes: I hope my statement will be helpful for future, non-traditional applicants or applicants whose research interests may have changed! At the time of application, I did not have research experiences that directly related to my proposed PhD training goals. I focused on highlighting the transferrable skills I have to offer and explaining how/why my research interests changed over time.

Discovering and creating have been two of my favorite pastimes. From using a hairnet as a shower hair catcher, which my household still uses to this day, to fixing a noise issue in a prototype by lowering the voltage going to a fan component, I became fascinated with the idea of creating solutions. Even now, I continue to search for solutions (nowadays, to address individuals’ mental health needs) and answers to my research questions. This is what I wish to accomplish at University of _______’s Clinical Psychology PhD program. Working with Dr. _______ would allow me to test neuropsychological assessments with diverse populations and study the interactions between psychopathology and brain injury, particularly in the adolescent and emerging adult population. As an aspiring neuropsychologist who wants to test and validate assessment tools for underserved and minoritized individuals, I believe that my research interests align well with those of Dr. _______. In short, I believe that your program would be the ideal setting for my training goals.

My technical background in _______ engineering offers a unique perspective to clinical psychology and strengthens my skills as a future evidence-based clinician and researcher. Initially interested in energy efficiency and materials characterization, I found myself seeking ways to optimize ways of analyzing and sharing data. I taught myself how to code in Excel Visual Basic for Applications (VBA) to write compiler code to expedite data analysis and used this newly acquired skill in both industry and research settings. I also learned how to work in interdisciplinary groups with individuals from different technical backgrounds. These experiences helped me coordinate two projects, for which I led a team of engineers and technicians to collect measurements related to the production line I was tasked with improving. I ran analysis of variance (ANOVA) tests to determine significant factors and correlations between experimental variables. I presented a talk and scientific poster to share my research findings, which ultimately identified key information required to optimize material production at the company.

Although these experiences provided an excellent introduction to methodologies and the scientific process, _______ engineering did not satiate the intellectual curiosity I experienced in my non-engineering coursework. For instance, my undergraduate physiological psychology course left me craving for more knowledge. How did biology impact human behavior and psychopathology? How do deficits or surpluses of certain neurotransmitters manifest in individuals? Soon I declared a secondary major; I grew certain that my love for my newest major meant something: my future PhD training was meant to be in clinical psychology.

After working as a full-time engineering intern and independently organizing experiments, I realized that my passion for problem-solving stemmed from my desire to understand the etiology of psychopathology and address individual needs in the mental health field. To start my career in psychology, I joined Dr. _______’s lab to study risk factors of suicide and depression in adults. In addition to reading and coding clinical interview responses into REDCap databases, using my engineering perspective, I was able to support the graduate students in their research efforts. I helped them reorganize the lab’s REDCap databases and streamline the data entry and analysis process in SPSS for metrics like the Cognitive Triad Inventory and the Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale. The work I did in this lab fueled my growing desire to address the mental health needs of individuals and have a clinical impact on their lives as well as those around them.

My research interests shifted towards understanding how to evaluate physiological changes and its linkage to psychopathology. To better prepare myself for a research career in psychology, I learned about research techniques in Dr. _______’s research design and analysis class. I wrote a research proposal on a cross-sectional neuroimaging study that examines the linkage between body-focused repetitive behaviors (e.g. trichotillomania and dermatillomania) and substance use disorders to the reward systems of the brain. I proposed using a functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) task to observe brain activation in individuals when viewing distressing or pleasurable images. This assignment sparked an interest in the intersection between neurosciences and psychology. However, I was still curious to see how I could directly impact individuals through clinical work and research.         

In hopes of providing mental health solutions, I joined Dr. _______’s [research lab name] as a lab coordinator. While the COVID-19 pandemic affected our lab, I successfully led efforts to rework multi-level protocols for a large-scale, National Institutes of Health-funded randomized clinical trial, so that our 30-person lab team could continue to administer our study remotely. Moreover, I conducted over 30 of the remote study sessions—on top of the initial 13 in-person sessions—to test and improve our protocols. These modifications not only allowed our project to continue running on-schedule, but they also created opportunities for families across the nation to participate in our study and access our online interventions targeting depressive symptoms in teens; the study had previously been restricted to families living locally. I also noticed poor retention during the study’s ecological momentary assessment (EMA) data collection period. In response, I co-created additional procedures to improve survey response rates, involving: 1) a standardized text-messaging protocol to check in with our adolescent participants, and 2) streamlined generation of personalized clinical reports, which we share with participating families to discuss the teen’s EMA data and depressive symptoms over time. To practice open science and disseminate this work, I co-authored and published the report generation code to Open Science Framework (OSF) and presented the outcomes of our incentive program as a conference symposium talk at the Association for Behavioral and Cognitive Therapies Conference in November 2021.

Beyond my regular duties as a lab coordinator, I am also pursuing independent research projects to learn more about literature reviews, technical writing, and mixed methods data analysis. One of my endeavors includes co-authoring an in-progress, systematic review of brief interventions targeting self-injurious thoughts and behaviors in youth. Contributing to article screening, coding, and analysis revealed the importance of science communication and the dissemination of study outcomes. I am also developing codebooks for qualitative data assessing adolescent causal explanations for depression and barriers to treatment for this population. Since this is my first time working with qualitative data, I am enjoying learning novel data analysis techniques alongside developing the codebooks. Both types of projects—systematic reviews and mixed methods data analysis—have taught me the importance of interrater reliability and validation, as well. Furthermore, these research efforts have fostered not only additional interest in understanding the etiology and development of psychopathology but also finding ways to overcome barriers to accessing treatment.

University of _______ would provide me with the necessary resources to achieve my career aspirations. With the goal of testing assessment tools to better understand the neurocognitive processes and development of psychopathology in adolescents and even geriatic patients, I believe that Dr. _______ would be the ideal mentor for my training. After shadowing neuropsychologists at University of _______, I noted how some assessments (e.g. NAB naming test) have become outdated and oftentimes culturally inappropriate for some patients. As a result, Dr. _______’s recent work with Spanish- and Mandarin-speaking patients resonated with me; I am excited at the prospect of testing assessment tools in cross-cultural settings and hope to do similar work in my career. Beyond Dr. _______’s lab, the practicum partnerships in neuropsychology (e.g. _______ Institute) would provide me with training opportunities with diverse patient populations and allow me to serve the surrounding communities. As a future clinical psychology trainee, I hope to leverage my technical background and contribute to University of _______’s ongoing research in clinical assessments and cognitive functioning.

19. Applied Fall 2021 for Fall 2022 matriculation

In my junior year at X University I found myself on the fast track toward graduate studies in social psychology until a spring-term course called Treating Mental Illness shifted my focus towards clinical psychological science and conclusively changed the trajectory of my career. I was bitten by the “clinical bug” courtesy of my teaching assistant for the course X, whose thoughtful lectures on Dialectical Behavior Therapy, and the biosocial theory of borderline personality disorder it was based on, piqued my curiosity. X patiently answered my myriad questions each week at office hours while encouraging me to get involved in research to pursue these queries further, and by the end of the semester I was convinced. I began work in a clinical science lab over the summer and never looked back. In retrospect, the course provided me with two consequential insights. First, that the development of effective treatments necessitates the identification of mechanisms underlying mental health conditions, and second, that I am fascinated by the role behavioral dysregulation plays in regulating emotions and maintaining symptoms of psychopathology. I am interested in pursuing graduate studies in Clinical Psychology at X University to conduct research on emotion dysregulation — among other relevant transdiagnostic mechanisms and predictors of maladaptive and self-injurious behaviors — with the aim of advancing assessment, improving prevention, and guiding development of evidence-based interventions.

My first experience in psychological research was as a volunteer in Dr. XYZ's social psychology lab at X University’s X School of Business, where I assisted with projects examining the influence of implicit bias on interpersonal interaction. This experience provided a strong foundation and sparked a passion for experimental work in psychological sciences. My honors thesis, completed with Dr. XYZ, used a novel measure to track the daily incidence of identity threats experienced by people with marginalized identities. The norm in the extant literature was to study identity threats pertaining to a particular identity (e.g., racial group or gender), but our aim was to find a generalizable effect of identity threat which transcended the experience of any one group. To accomplish this goal we obtained a diverse MTurk sample, including understudied stigmatized identities such as being an ex-convict or having a disability, and used a multilevel modeling approach with identity as a random effect. We found that regardless of identity, subjects reported similar behavioral responses when experiencing identity threat: they attempted to downplay their differences and/or play up their similarities to others. These behaviors predicted feeling inauthentic, which was related to greater loneliness and perceived stress. Our conceptualization of identity threat as a ‘transdiagnostic’ component of marginalized populations’ experience was influential in shaping my broader outlook on research.

Following my ‘Aha! moment’ that my interests lay in clinical psychological science, I began work in Dr. XYZ’s lab at X University where I assisted with an R01-funded study examining approach motivation and cognitive control as transdiagnostic factors related to the onset and maintenance of psychopathology. New to clinical research, and motivated to better understand the research question, I read Dr. XYZ and her colleagues' publications. Their work suggested a theoretical framework positing that poorly constrained responses to emotions are a core mechanism that increases vulnerability to psychopathology. I was galvanized by the notion of a mechanism that could clarify why some individuals are more susceptible than others to develop psychological disorders because it has the potential to inform treatment on a broad scale. It lent deeper meaning to my duties in the lab –– in particular when I administered eligibility interviews, speaking with people who felt so paralyzed by depression that they could not motivate themselves to get out of bed, and individuals so activated by aggression that they reported lashing out viciously at others. Despite their heterogenous diagnoses, both groups struggled on a basic level with behavioral responses to emotion that impaired their ability to lead a fulfilling life. Observing the theoretical basis of the project in action on a day-to-day basis and understanding its potential to broadly advance our understanding of psychopathology both strengthened my resolve to conduct clinical research.

After graduating from X University in May 2020, I accepted a research coordinator position working on two NIMH-funded studies with Dr. XYZ at the University of X. In addition to general lab management, I am responsible for coordinating recruitment of individuals with internalizing and externalizing disorders, and more targeted and specific recruitment of those with suicidality and hoarding disorder (HD). One of my more salient experiences in this role has been facilitating a self-help group for people with HD. I have been struck by participants’ paradoxical narratives regarding their acquiring behavior — how it can be perceived as pleasurable, and often provides a distraction in the moment, but afterwards prompts powerful regret and shame, thus exacerbating negative affect in the long term. I am fascinated by the way this positive feedback loop mirrors processes across psychopathology –– including non-suicidal self-injury, substance use, risky sexual and aggressive behavior, restrictive/binge eating, and avoidance –– and it fits well within the transdiagnostic perspective I have contemplated through my prior experiences. My day-to-day tasks in the lab have provided a range of valuable experiences including exposure to general data management, psychophysiological data, scientific writing, and preparing a research poster I presented at the recent Association for Behavioral and Cognitive Therapy conference. Immersing myself in research under Dr. XYZ’s mentorship has allowed me to absorb the full scope of the clinical research process from study design to data analysis, to gain hands-on experience at each step, and –– critically –– has helped me to further crystallize my research goals.

The high value the University of X places on providing evidence-based training and its record of top-quality, influential research are vitally important to me. This standard of training will prepare me for my long-term goal of a career in a university setting where I can help train future generations of clinical scientists while conducting meaningful research informed by clinical experience. I believe that the unwavering support and guidance I’ve received from my mentors have been instrumental to my achievements thus far and that Dr. XYZ, given her history of research on transdiagnostic mechanisms of psychopathology, would be an ideal faculty mentor to guide me through this next phase of my education. I admire her work establishing neuroticism as a transdiagnostic mechanism of emotional disorders which can be targeted in treatment, as well as her recent work on XYZ Treatment, and would be excited to collaborate on projects testing personalizable, mechanism-driven interventions as a member of her lab. My prior experience working with patients at increased risk for suicide has prepared me to contribute meaningfully to Dr. XYZ’s research program, and I feel confident that our collaboration would help me cultivate the skills required for a career as an independent investigator. Four years of research experience since my fortunate placement in X’s class have amplified my enthusiasm and commitment to a career in clinical psychological science, and I hope to continue my training toward this goal at the University of X’s Clinical Psychology Ph.D. Program.

20. Applied Fall 2021 for Fall 2022 admission. Applied the cycle after graduating with a bachelors. Worked in research assistant positions in between graduating and applying. CV had a 2 student journal articles, a manuscript in preparation, and a number of conference posters. Interviews for 2 institutions, admitted into 1. 

In my culture as an Asian-Canadian, older adults are valued and highly regarded by the family. As I witnessed my grandmother decline due to Lewy Body Dementia, followed by my grandfather’s decline due to the caregiver burden he experienced, the circumstances of their passing led me to volunteer at the [Name] Hospital and Manor in [Location], Canada. There, I sought to build relationships with older adults who had similar conditions as my grandparents, ultimately motivating me to pursue a career in clinical neuropsychology. I thoroughly enjoyed listening to the stories of residents, and found solace in providing them comfort when their own families could not. In observing how decline in cognition interferes with how we function and enjoy life, I have also observed first-hand how lonely and frustrating facing these changes can be. As such, I aspire to be a professional to promote healthy aging and aid in the management of cognitive decline and neurodegenerative conditions. I am confident that the University of [Name]’s clinical psychology MSc-PhD program with specialization in neuropsychology will allow me to reach this goal.

My research experience is multi-faceted and I exercised a diverse range of skills at [Name] University. I was intent on pursuing life sciences; however, I became enthusiastic about completing my own research project in my first psychology course. My passion was noticed by a teaching assistant who recruited me to volunteer in Dr. [Supervisor 1]’s lab. There, I gained experience working with electroencephalography (EEG) equipment, a driving simulator, and an eye tracker. My work with Dr. [Supervisor 1]’s specialized research equipment, and the various measures of brain-behaviour relationships inspired me to learn more about how the brain functions and changes. I found the process of setting up and using EEG particularly fascinating, as I learned how to prepare participants for imaging and to observe brain activity in real-time. During EEG sessions I learned that I valued working individually with participants, especially in a hands-on fashion, as I could connect with them on a deeper level than my other research-assistant work. My research position provided enriching experiences, which fostered my desire to conduct research and work with people.

As my interest in psychology grew, my cGPA grew to reflect that, increasing sufficiently enough to be admitted into the honours program where I designed my own experiment. As an avid video game player, I investigated whether video game experience influenced accuracy in a visual spatial attention task called [Task]. I worked with a graduate student to analyze the data in Excel and MATLAB and found that gamers showed less of an accuracy detriment compared to non-gamers, likely due to gamers having similar experiences with short-duration stimuli. This suggests that video games can train us to better process our environment or offer intervention and rehabilitation of cognition. Following my honours, I disseminated my research to academic audiences at a symposium and two conferences. Though I studied a convenient sample of university students due to the pandemic, it would be interesting to explore the role of video games in those with cognitive difficulties or decline. As video games may enhance aspects of cognition, it is encouraging to reflect on my time at [Hospital and Manor] where residents enjoyed video games during exercise sessions. Acting as the primary researcher was a valuable experience and I hope to aid older adults similarly through my graduate studies by pursuing research on healthy aging and directly working with them in clinical work.

To further apply the research skills I acquired during my honours, I started a research position with Dr. [Supervisor 2] in [Institution]’s Gerontology department, where I work with graduate research assistants in addition to the tasks assigned to undergraduates. With the team, I conducted a scoping review of user-led research in people with sensory disabilities and contributed to the creation of user-led assessment tools for auditory and visual disabilities and dementia. This work led to a presentation at the [Name] conference, media publications and a manuscript-in-preparation on [Title]. In early 2022, I will begin collecting data with participants with dementia, allowing me to gain more experience working with clinical populations. My experience working closely with graduate students has provided me with a unique preview of graduate-level expectations and workloads. I am confident that this experience has prepared me for the rigorous expectations and commitment required to excel in my own graduate studies.

In the summer of 2021, I received a SSHRC Undergraduate Student Research Award (USRA) under Dr. [Supervisor 3] to examine variables of mental and physical health as well as fears during the pandemic. In building upon my experiences working on cognition and older adults separately, it was enlightening to combine my research interests with Dr. [Supervisor 3], a neuropsychologist. Through her lab, I was exposed to neuropsychological research topics, worked with graduate students, and familiarized myself with various clinical measurement tools such as the UCLA Loneliness scale and the State–Trait Inventory for Cognitive and Somatic Anxiety, allowing me to gain a preview of the neuropsychology stream of clinical psychology. To conclude my USRA project, I learned IBM SPSS Software and analyzed data to produce two submitted conference abstracts on COVID-19 fears in older adults; relevant topics as the world recovers from the pandemic. In working with Dr. [Supervisor 3], my desire to study both cognition and older adults was further affirmed.

After graduating with primarily research-oriented experiences, I gained clinical volunteer experience at [Name] crisis text line and [Name] Women’s centre. While working directly with clients, I have further developed my clinical-interpersonal skills and learned how to provide trauma-informed care to clients with mental health concerns and conditions, particularly those experiencing LGBTQ2A+ issues and housing displacement. Both positions helped me recognize the importance of building and maintaining rapport with clients and developing my early clinical awareness. My current position as a report writer for [Name] Psychological Services offers me insight into the details of assessment reports. In my role, I review forms and clinical reports for clients with various psychological concerns, and breakdown test results for psychoeducational and neurodevelopmental assessments. It is intriguing to read reports and to see how symptomatology present differently in each client. This experience inspires me to one day complete assessments of my own.

I am drawn to the University of [Name]’s clinical psychology MSc-PhD program due to its specialized neuropsychology track which will aid me in obtaining the necessary training and internships that will support me in receiving clinical neuropsychology licensure to practice. The program’s approach in delaying clinical work until the second year, when clinical knowledge is solidified, is another unique quality that will serve to best prepare me to work with clients. I feel that Dr. [Potential Supervisor 1] or Dr. [Potential Supervisor 2] will best support me in pursuing work with my desired population. My USRA work on cognition and COVID-19 in older adults is similar to Dr. [Potential Supervisor 1]’s focuses on cognitive health and healthy aging, attracting me to her current projects, particularly her neurocognitive impacts of long-COVID-19 project. Her mentorship will readily equip me to pursue work with older adults. Dr. [Potential Supervisor 2]'s imaging and neurodegenerative work is also of interest; her mentorship will aid in expanding my EEG experience to other neuroimaging methods and to older adults. My passions and career aspirations lie in furthering my understanding of the brain and to conduct research while aiding populations that matter to me. I am hopeful that these goals can be achieved through this program and with Dr. [Potential Supervisor 1] or Dr. [Potential Supervisor 2].

21. Applied Fall 2021 for Fall 2022 matriculation. Family Social Science PhD student. This was my second time applying, but my essay was pretty similar to the one I used at the first time.

Two experiences, in particular, taught me about the power of familial support for people’s wellbeing. First, I observed Chinese psychiatrists communicate with patients and their families. Second, I worked as a research assistant in a lab studying family communication and developmental psychology. Witnessing family interactions across cultures has helped shape my interest in the field of social science and fostered my passion to study these interactions in greater depth.

In 2017, I pursued the opportunity to shadow psychiatrists in China as a volunteer for two summers. In this role, I helped clients and their caregivers build coping skills and learn how to provide a supportive environment. I observed different kinds of family interactions and witnessed a variety of supportive and non-supportive behaviors during these conversations. Through this process, I learned that the patient’s behavior, whether they are coping well or struggling, seems to hinge upon the dynamics between the patient and the person taking care of him. I also noticed the wide variability in Chinese parents’ consideration of their children’s mental states, leading me to wonder about how this variation affected parenting and children’s well-being.

Motivated by my previous experience, I sought out the opportunity to work in ____ lab at the University of ___. I worked in the lab for two years, and during that time, was promoted to a Lead Research Assistant. In this role, I was responsible for the upkeep of lab space, supervising, and training other undergraduates. My work at ___ Lab introduced me to psychological research at the behavioral and contextual levels. It also gave me a chance to build the technical skills necessary for observational research, such as using Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) to analyze large datasets. I learned about the importance of parents’ supportive messages in child development. I coded and analyzed children’s and guardians’ responses during experiments to assess their interactions and behaviors. I also completed an independent study project assessing attachment security and emotion expression among children referred by Child Protective Services. Compared to the insecure group, participants with secure attachment had more adaptive emotion expression when discussing topics with their caregivers. This finding led to the suggestion that secure attachment may be a protective factor for maltreated children. In addition to this project, I co-authored a publication with a graduate student and Dr. ____. My experience in the ____ lab was exciting and rewarding, and it affirmed my decision to pursue a research career.

During my time at ____ University as a Master’s student, I pursued my interest in various questions about parent-child interactions. Under the supervision of Dr. ____, I completed a case study to investigate the development and functions of anger in parenting: how parents may use anger as a tool to conduct behavior modification, and how effective this strategy can be. I collected parental admonishment sequences from unstructured family mealtimes videos. I found that there are positive effects of channeling parental anger expressions, such that with anger, parents can immediately get the child’s attention and protect them from getting hurt. However, anger may lead the parent to view the child’s behaviors seem more problematic. In my future research, I would like to further investigate the long-term effects of channeling parental anger when monitoring children’s behaviors.

Currently, I am interested in researching risk and protective factors for children at risk for developing emotion regulation problems. For example, what kinds of messages can assist children’s coping mechanisms? Further, how do message exchanges among family members impact the degree of social support and their relationship? I am pursuing a Ph.D. in Human Development and Family Studies at ____ in order to answer my research questions apply using multiple methods to study the impact of adversity on the dynamic systems of development in children and adolescents. I am dedicated to developing innovative evidence-based prevention and intervention strategies to promote children’s healthy socioemotional development. I also hope to learn more advanced methods of experimental design and statistical analysis in the context of developmental and other longitudinal processes.

Furthermore, I am interested in Dr. ____’s _____ Lab and would love to investigate the long-term effects of interventions on adolescents’ mental health and their families. Dr. ____’s and Dr._____’s works also align with my interests. I would be curious to study a child’s mental health in the context of their experiences, family, and community. After shadowing psychiatrists in Chinese hospitals for two summers and witnessing family interactions in two different countries for eight years, I realized that cultures impact the way families function and communicate. Therefore, I am also interested in learning more about the role family relationships play in different cultures and finding culturally appropriate ways to promote resilience in adolescents.

The work of Dr. ___, Dr. ____, and Dr. ____ bring family processes from different contexts to the forefront, and I would love to learn more about the way these critical relationships interact with psychological protective and risk factors in adolescents. Based on my interests and goals, I believe I would be a good fit for the program. Research has become my passion over the past several years, and I aspire to hold a faculty position where I can complement my research career with teaching at the undergraduate and graduate levels. I believe the _____ University will provide vigorous professional training that I need and an ideal environment for me to conduct research benefiting children and their families.

22. PsyD Student (Starting Fall 2025). Applied fall 2024 for fall 2025.

Why͏͏ do͏͏ some͏͏ no͏t͏͏ consi͏der͏͏ psycholog͏y͏͏ a͏͏ re͏al͏͏ scienc͏e͏͏ or͏͏͏͏ pr͏ofession?͏͏ Why͏͏͏ is͏͏ the͏re͏͏͏ a͏͏͏ strong͏͏ stigma͏͏ a͏round͏͏ seek͏ing͏͏͏ ps͏ychologica͏l͏͏͏ help?͏͏ How͏͏ can͏͏͏ we͏͏ d͏evelop͏͏ tre͏a͏tm͏ents͏͏ that͏͏ reflect͏͏ our͏͏͏ diver͏se͏͏ wor͏ld͏͏ and͏͏ avoid͏͏͏ a͏͏͏ “one-size-fi͏ts-all”͏͏ menta͏lit͏y?͏͏͏ These͏͏ are͏͏͏ a͏ll͏͏ questions͏͏ I͏͏ have͏͏ asked͏͏ mys͏elf͏͏ throug͏ho͏ut͏͏ ͏my͏͏ journey͏͏ in͏͏ psycholog͏y.͏

Psych͏ology͏͏ w͏asn’t͏͏͏ my͏͏ initial͏͏ ͏goal.͏͏ Gr͏owing͏͏ up͏͏ in͏͏͏͏ an͏͏ immigr͏ant͏͏ household͏͏ of͏͏ ͏mental͏͏ healt͏h͏͏ skeptics,͏͏ I͏͏ ͏was͏͏ expe͏c͏ted͏͏͏ to͏͏ become͏͏ a͏͏ “real”͏͏ doctor,͏͏ which͏͏ gave͏͏ me͏͏ p͏ause͏͏ ͏when͏͏͏ determining͏͏ my͏͏ career͏͏͏ path.͏͏ H͏owever,͏͏ after͏͏͏ enrolli͏ng͏͏͏ in͏͏͏ my͏͏ Intro͏͏ to͏͏ Psychology͏͏ ͏class,͏͏͏ ͏I͏͏ beg͏an͏͏ to͏͏͏ understand͏͏͏͏ w͏hy͏͏͏ scientists͏͏ dedicate͏͏ th͏eir͏͏ lives͏͏ to͏͏ studying͏͏ b͏eh͏avior.͏͏͏͏ I͏͏ ͏recognize͏d͏͏͏ the͏͏ importa͏nce͏͏ of͏͏ ͏st͏u͏dying͏͏͏ t͏h͏e͏͏͏͏ min͏d͏͏ a͏nd͏͏ mental͏͏ health.͏͏͏ I͏͏ re͏alized͏͏͏ ͏my͏͏͏ init͏ial͏͏ ͏feelin͏gs͏͏͏ were͏͏ misguide͏d͏—psychology͏͏͏ is͏͏ not͏͏ only͏͏ ͏a͏͏ true͏͏͏ scie͏nce͏͏ but͏͏͏ a͏lso͏͏͏ vital͏͏͏ for͏͏ understand͏ing͏͏ ou͏r͏͏ diverse͏͏ and͏͏ ever-c͏hanging͏͏͏ ͏w͏orld.

I͏͏ began͏͏ my͏͏ journey͏͏ in͏͏ psycholog͏y͏͏ by͏͏ ͏volunte͏e͏r͏ing͏͏͏ as͏͏ an͏͏͏ assista͏nt͏͏ i͏n͏͏ ͏Dr.͏͏͏ Genna͏͏ Hymowitz’s͏͏ lab,͏͏ where͏͏ my͏͏ main͏͏ r͏ole͏͏ was͏͏͏͏ ͏c͏ontacting͏͏͏ poten͏tial͏͏ pa͏rt͏icipant͏s͏͏ f͏or͏͏ the͏͏͏ Step͏͏͏͏ into͏͏͏ He͏alth͏͏ lab,͏͏ ͏focus͏ing͏͏ on͏͏ bari͏atrics.͏͏ Participati͏ng͏͏͏͏ in͏͏ lab͏͏͏͏ meet͏ings͏͏ w͏ith͏͏ the͏͏ ͏Mind͏͏͏ and͏͏ B͏ody͏͏ Clinical͏͏ Resea͏r͏ch͏͏ Ce͏nt͏e͏r͏͏ mad͏e͏͏ me͏͏ fall͏͏͏ in͏͏ love͏͏ with͏͏ ͏psychology͏’s͏͏ ͏ability͏͏ to͏͏ tie͏͏͏ tog͏ethe͏r͏͏͏ so͏͏ many͏͏ interests͏͏ and͏͏ bu͏ild͏͏͏ a͏͏͏͏ c͏ommunity͏͏͏ of͏͏ p͏eople͏͏ passionate͏͏͏ ab͏out͏͏ stud͏ying͏͏͏ the͏͏ science͏.͏͏ Whil͏e͏͏͏ ͏the͏͏͏ Step͏͏ in͏t͏o͏͏͏ Health͏͏ lab͏͏͏ laid͏͏ the͏͏ f͏oun͏dation͏͏ for͏͏͏ my͏͏͏ interest͏͏ in͏͏ workin͏g͏͏ with͏͏ researchers,͏͏͏ I͏͏͏ so͏u͏ght͏͏ opportunities͏͏͏ to͏͏ o͏bse͏rve͏͏ ͏a͏nother͏͏ aspect͏͏ of͏͏ psychology:͏͏ therapy.

Seekin͏g͏͏ mental͏͏ healt͏h͏͏ care͏͏͏ was͏͏ taboo͏͏͏ i͏n͏͏ my͏͏ family,͏͏͏͏ a͏͏͏ possible͏͏ side͏͏ effect͏͏͏͏ of͏͏ the͏͏͏ hard-working͏͏͏ immigrant͏͏ minds͏et.͏͏ Very͏͏ little͏͏ time͏͏ was͏͏͏ ͏left͏͏͏ over͏͏ to͏͏ think͏͏͏ a͏bout͏͏ ͏the͏͏͏ i͏mpacts͏͏ of͏͏ depre͏s͏sion,͏͏ a͏n͏xiety,͏͏ and͏͏ o͏t͏her͏͏͏ mental͏͏ health͏͏ str͏uggles͏͏ w͏hile͏͏ my͏͏ parents͏͏ w͏orked͏͏͏ t͏ir͏eles͏sly͏͏ to͏͏ support͏͏ a͏͏ ͏family͏͏͏ ͏and͏͏ adjust͏͏ to͏͏ a͏͏͏ foreig͏n͏͏ environment.͏͏ Th͏eir͏͏ sacri͏fices,͏͏ while͏͏͏ appreciated,͏͏ ͏we͏r͏e͏͏ a͏͏ heavy͏͏ burden͏͏͏ and͏͏ came͏͏ wit͏h͏͏ ͏m͏uch͏͏ shame͏͏͏͏ ͏when͏͏ it͏͏ came͏͏ to͏͏ s͏pe͏aking͏͏ on͏͏ my͏͏ s͏e͏lf-care͏͏ pra͏ctices.͏͏ I͏͏͏ took͏͏ t͏his͏͏͏ in͏͏ stride͏͏͏ in͏͏͏ an͏͏ ͏attempt͏͏ to͏͏ rep͏ay͏͏ my͏͏ parents,͏͏ allowi͏ng͏͏ my͏͏ mental͏͏ health͏͏ to͏͏ take͏͏ a͏͏ b͏ac͏k͏͏͏ seat͏͏ in͏͏ my͏͏ life,͏͏ jus͏t͏͏ ͏as͏͏͏ they͏͏͏ had͏͏͏ done͏͏͏ t͏hroughou͏t͏͏͏ m͏ine.͏͏͏ I͏͏͏ once͏͏ ͏vi͏ewed͏͏ ͏this͏͏ as͏͏͏ an͏͏ o͏pportunity͏͏ to͏͏ b͏uild͏͏͏͏ a͏͏͏ tough͏͏ skin͏͏ but͏͏ now͏͏ recognize͏͏ th͏at͏͏ it͏͏ just͏͏ le͏d͏͏͏ to͏͏ we͏akness.͏͏ I͏͏ ͏did͏͏͏͏ not͏͏͏ allow͏͏͏ mys͏elf͏͏ to͏͏͏ ͏properly͏͏ ͏regulate,͏͏ bottl͏ing͏͏ u͏p͏͏ ͏thoughts,͏͏ issu͏es,͏͏ and͏͏ emotions͏͏ unt͏il͏͏ it͏͏ beca͏me͏͏ unconta͏i͏nab͏le.͏͏ In͏͏ turn,͏͏ I͏͏ fail͏e͏d͏͏ to͏͏ ͏develop͏͏ p͏roper͏͏ resilienc͏e͏͏͏ skills.͏͏ ͏I͏͏ compare͏͏ this͏͏ to͏͏ building͏͏ a͏͏ ladder:͏͏ In͏͏͏ times͏͏͏͏ of͏͏ desperation,͏͏ one͏͏ may͏͏͏ find͏͏ that͏͏͏ using͏͏ rot͏ting͏͏͏ wood͏͏ for͏͏ the͏͏͏ steps͏͏ of͏͏ a͏͏͏ ladder͏͏ is͏͏ s͏ufficient,͏͏͏ b͏ut͏͏ over͏͏͏ time,͏͏ the͏͏ w͏ood͏͏ will͏͏ ͏c͏ontinue͏͏ to͏͏ decay,͏͏͏ lead͏ing͏͏ to͏͏ a͏͏ fall.͏͏ Only͏͏ by͏͏ bui͏lding͏͏͏ a͏͏ strong͏͏ ladder͏͏ ͏with͏͏ reliable͏͏ steps͏͏ can͏͏͏ one͏͏ t͏ruly͏͏͏ trust͏͏ that͏͏ they͏͏ wi͏ll͏͏͏ not͏͏ fa͏ll͏͏͏ again.͏͏ In͏͏͏ find͏ing͏͏ this͏͏ weakness,͏͏ I͏͏ ho͏ped͏͏͏ to͏͏ build͏͏͏ a͏͏ strong͏er͏͏ founda͏tio͏n͏͏ for͏͏ m͏ysel͏f͏͏͏͏ based͏͏͏ on͏͏ self-awarene͏ss͏͏ and͏͏͏͏ resilience.͏͏͏ ͏I͏͏͏ proactive͏ly͏͏ reached͏͏͏ out͏͏ to͏͏ the͏͏ d͏irector͏͏͏ of͏͏ train͏ing͏͏ at͏͏͏͏ Sto͏ny͏͏ B͏ro͏ok’s͏͏ Counseling͏͏ a͏nd͏͏ Psycho͏logical͏͏ ͏Services͏͏ (CAPS)͏͏ to͏͏ inquire͏͏͏͏ about͏͏ opportunities,͏͏͏ and͏͏ I͏͏ was͏͏ ͏f͏ortunate͏͏͏ en͏ough͏͏ for͏͏͏ them͏͏ to͏͏ dev͏elop͏͏͏ a͏͏ position͏͏ spec͏ifically͏͏͏ for͏͏ me.͏͏ Throu͏g͏h͏͏ CAPS,͏͏ I͏͏ work͏ed͏͏ closely͏͏ with͏͏ both͏͏ psycholo͏gists͏͏ and͏͏ future͏͏ ps͏ychologists͏͏ daily,͏͏ while͏͏͏ encouraging͏͏ my͏͏͏ peers͏͏ to͏͏͏ u͏tilize͏͏ t͏he͏͏ Cen͏t͏er’͏s͏͏ r͏esources.͏͏͏ ͏Al͏l͏͏ the͏͏ while͏,͏͏͏ I͏͏͏ was͏͏ inspired͏͏ by͏͏ thos͏e͏͏ pur͏sui͏ng͏͏ their͏͏ doc͏torate͏͏ in͏͏ psychology͏.͏͏ One͏͏ ͏i͏ntern,͏͏ i͏n͏͏ ͏p͏arti͏cular,͏͏ deeply͏͏ impacted͏͏͏ ͏my͏͏ vi͏ews͏͏ o͏n͏͏͏ acce͏ssi͏bility.͏͏ She͏͏͏ ͏opene͏d͏͏ my͏͏͏ e͏yes͏͏ to͏͏ the͏͏ impo͏rtance͏͏ of͏͏ norma͏l͏izing͏͏͏ the͏͏ us͏e͏͏͏͏ o͏f͏͏͏ other͏͏ mediums͏͏ ͏for͏͏ therapy,͏͏͏ su͏ch͏͏ as͏͏ Z͏oo͏m,͏͏ and͏͏͏ ho͏w͏͏ COVID-19͏͏ a͏ltere͏d͏͏ the͏͏ ͏wa͏y͏͏ individuals͏͏ f͏ind͏͏ care.͏͏ This͏͏ resonated͏͏ w͏it͏h͏͏͏ me͏͏ ͏as͏͏ I͏͏ reflected͏͏ on͏͏͏ my͏͏͏ own͏͏ s͏t͏ruggles͏͏ with͏͏ ment͏al͏͏ he͏alth͏͏͏͏ and͏͏ the͏͏͏ ͏diff͏icul͏ty͏͏͏ ͏of͏͏ find͏ing͏͏ ͏stable͏͏ support͏͏ syste͏ms͏͏ ͏during͏͏ the͏͏ pandemic.͏͏ I͏͏ felt͏͏ that,͏͏͏ to͏͏ keep͏͏͏ t͏he͏͏ mome͏nt͏um͏͏͏ of͏͏͏ acces͏sible͏͏͏ care͏͏ services,͏͏ I͏͏͏ wou͏l͏d͏͏ need͏͏ ͏to͏͏ ͏be͏͏ proactive͏͏͏ myself.͏͏ I͏͏ was͏͏͏͏ inspired͏͏ to͏͏ be͏c͏ome͏͏͏ a͏͏ peer͏͏ e͏ducato͏r͏͏ ͏at͏͏ th͏e͏͏͏ Center͏͏ for͏͏͏ Prevention͏͏͏ and͏͏͏͏ Outre͏a͏ch͏͏ (CPO),͏͏ wh͏ere͏͏ I͏͏͏ guide͏d͏͏ other͏͏ st͏udents͏͏ to͏͏ n͏avigate͏͏ college͏͏ life͏͏ an͏d͏͏ deve͏lop͏ed͏͏͏ re͏search-bac͏ked͏͏ ac͏tivities͏͏ to͏͏͏ show͏͏͏ ͏my͏͏ peers͏͏ that͏͏ mental͏͏ and͏͏ ph͏ysic͏al͏͏ self͏-care͏͏͏͏ can͏͏ be͏͏ both͏͏ easy͏͏ an͏d͏͏ ͏fun.͏͏ I͏͏ once͏͏ again͏͏ saw͏͏ how͏͏ mul͏tidimension͏a͏l͏͏͏ w͏e͏llne͏ss͏͏͏ can͏͏ be͏͏ and͏͏ how͏͏ m͏ental͏͏ hea͏lth͏͏ impacts͏͏ ph͏ysical͏͏ health,͏͏ social͏͏͏ ͏health,͏͏ and͏͏ vice͏͏ versa.͏͏ Once͏͏ more,͏͏ I͏͏ surro͏un͏ded͏͏ myself͏͏ with͏͏ profe͏ssiona͏ls͏͏ from͏͏ ͏various͏͏ disciplinary͏͏ backgro͏unds,͏͏ all͏͏ joi͏ned͏͏ together͏͏ by͏͏͏ a͏͏͏͏ shared͏͏ mi͏ssion͏͏ of͏͏ b͏ettering͏͏ the͏͏ campus͏͏ community.͏͏͏ However,͏͏͏͏͏ as͏͏ someone͏͏͏ interested͏͏͏ i͏n͏͏͏ research͏,͏͏ I͏͏͏ f͏ind͏͏ it͏͏ important͏͏ n͏ot͏͏ only͏͏͏ to͏͏ plac͏e͏͏ mysel͏f͏͏ in͏͏ situations͏͏ that͏͏͏ ͏reinforce͏͏͏ the͏͏ go͏o͏d͏͏ ͏of͏͏ psychology,͏͏ but͏͏ also͏͏ to͏͏ act͏ively͏͏ seek͏͏͏͏ areas͏͏ fo͏r͏͏ impr͏o͏vement͏.͏͏ I͏͏ joined͏͏͏ a͏͏ memoir͏͏ writing͏͏ grou͏p͏͏͏ called͏͏͏ Memoirs͏͏ to͏͏ ͏(Re)Imagin͏e͏͏ Mental͏͏ Health͏care,͏͏͏ and͏͏͏ hearing͏͏͏ th͏e͏͏͏ stories͏͏ of͏͏ ͏indiv͏id͏uals͏͏ wit͏h͏͏ negative͏͏ experiences͏͏ in͏͏ the͏͏ system͏͏͏ fueled͏͏ my͏͏͏ commitment͏͏͏ ͏t͏o͏͏͏ not͏͏ only͏͏ admire͏͏ ͏psy͏chology͏͏ but͏͏ also͏͏ ͏t͏o͏͏ ͏a͏dvocate͏͏͏ for͏͏͏ meani͏ngfu͏l͏͏ c͏hange.͏͏ It͏͏ w͏as͏͏ through͏͏ these͏͏͏ exp͏eriences͏͏ t͏ha͏t͏͏͏ my͏͏ i͏nterest͏s͏͏ in͏͏ psycholog͏y͏͏ ͏took͏͏͏ their͏͏ true͏͏͏ form:͏͏͏ resilie͏nce,͏͏ int͏ersectionality,͏͏͏͏ acc͏es͏sibi͏lit͏y,͏͏ and͏͏͏ the͏͏ impacts͏͏ and͏͏ causes͏͏ of͏͏ stigma.

Since͏͏ ͏gr͏aduat͏ing,͏͏͏ I͏͏ find͏͏ myself͏͏͏ ͏i͏n͏͏ ͏a͏͏͏ position͏͏ as͏͏ an͏͏͏ edu͏cati͏on͏͏͏ specialist͏͏ in͏͏͏ Richm͏ond͏͏ C͏enter’s͏͏ ͏Neuro-Behavioral͏͏ u͏ni͏ts.͏͏ I͏͏ now͏͏ work͏͏͏ with͏͏͏ res͏ide͏nts͏͏ ͏who͏͏ hav͏e͏͏ varying͏͏ ͏cogn͏it͏ive͏͏ abilitie͏s͏͏ and͏͏͏ conditions͏͏͏͏ su͏c͏h͏͏ as͏͏͏ aphasia,͏͏ tr͏aumatic͏͏ b͏rain͏͏ in͏jury,͏͏ anxiety,͏͏ and͏͏ depression.͏͏ I͏͏ assist͏͏͏ my͏͏ resident͏s͏͏͏ in͏͏ dev͏elo͏pin͏g͏͏ functional͏͏ skills,͏͏ strategies͏͏ to͏͏ improve͏͏͏ memory,͏͏ and͏͏ e͏motional͏͏ ͏regu͏lation͏͏͏ skills.͏͏ I͏͏ ͏resear͏ch͏͏ new͏͏ tec͏hniques͏͏ and͏͏ work͏͏ with͏͏ ͏my͏͏ multidisciplina͏ry͏͏ ͏te͏a͏m͏͏ t͏o͏͏͏ bett͏er͏͏ ͏the͏͏ lives͏͏ ͏of͏͏͏ our͏͏ ͏reside͏n͏ts.͏͏ In͏͏͏ t͏his͏͏ position,͏͏͏ ͏I͏͏͏͏ have͏͏ the͏͏ oppor͏tunit͏y͏͏ t͏o͏͏ ͏assist͏͏ oth͏ers͏͏ in͏͏͏ building͏͏ a͏͏ strong͏͏ founda͏tion͏͏ for͏͏ the͏ir͏͏ lives͏,͏͏ just͏͏ as͏͏ I͏͏͏ have͏͏ ͏been͏͏ working͏͏͏ ͏on͏͏ building͏͏ my͏͏ ͏own.

Whi͏le͏͏ I͏͏͏ enjoy͏͏͏ this͏͏͏ “͏clinical-li͏ke”͏͏͏ po͏sition,͏͏ I͏͏ recognize͏͏ that͏͏͏ there͏͏͏ is͏͏ far͏͏ ͏more͏͏͏ to͏͏ le͏arn͏͏ about͏͏ ͏psychology͏͏ t͏han͏͏ where͏͏ my͏͏ undergrad͏͏ le͏ft͏͏͏ me.͏͏ I͏͏ hop͏e͏͏͏ ͏to͏͏ p͏articipate͏͏͏ in͏͏ r͏esearch͏͏ focu͏sing͏͏͏ on͏͏ t͏he͏͏͏ ͏different͏͏ social͏͏ determinants͏͏͏ ͏of͏͏ men͏tal͏͏ health͏͏͏ as͏͏͏ we͏ll͏͏͏ as͏͏͏ no͏ntradi͏tional͏͏ ͏approaches͏͏ t͏o͏͏͏ t͏he͏rapy,͏͏ s͏uch͏͏͏ a͏s͏͏ art͏͏ and͏͏͏ m͏u͏sic.͏͏ In͏͏ ͏t͏he͏͏ future,͏͏͏ I͏͏ s͏ee͏͏ my͏se͏lf͏͏͏ as͏͏͏ a͏͏ li͏censed͏͏ cli͏nical͏͏ p͏sychologis͏t͏͏ working͏͏ in͏͏ ͏indivi͏dual͏͏ a͏nd͏͏ group͏͏ therapy.͏͏ I͏͏ aspire͏͏͏͏ to͏͏ ͏wor͏k͏͏ in͏͏͏ higher͏͏͏ ͏educati͏on,͏͏ helping͏͏ shape͏͏ the͏͏͏ next͏͏ ͏g͏eneration͏͏ ͏of͏͏ psycho͏logists͏ and inspir͏e͏͏ them as͏͏ those͏͏͏ before͏͏ ͏me͏͏͏ have͏͏ ins͏pired͏͏ me.

O͏nly͏͏͏͏ by͏͏ furtherin͏g͏͏ my͏͏ st͏udies͏͏ can͏͏͏ ͏I͏͏ develo͏p͏͏ th͏e͏͏ skills͏͏ necessary͏͏ to͏͏ effectively͏͏͏ trea͏t͏͏ mental͏͏͏ health͏͏ issues͏͏͏ on͏͏͏ both͏͏͏ a͏n͏͏͏ individual͏͏ and͏͏ sy͏stem͏ic͏͏ ͏lev͏el.͏͏ ͏To͏͏ ach͏ieve͏͏ ͏my͏͏͏ goal͏,͏͏ ͏I͏͏ need͏͏ to͏͏ develop͏͏͏ dive͏rse͏͏ ͏tre͏at͏ment͏͏ methods͏͏ ͏in͏͏ a͏͏͏͏ ͏pr͏ogra͏m͏͏ that͏͏͏ aligns͏͏ with͏͏ my͏͏ pas͏sion͏͏ for͏͏ spreading͏͏ a͏ware͏ne͏ss͏͏ and͏͏ accep͏t͏ance.͏͏ Touro’s unique Health Emphasis PsyD program’s ability to integrate the healthcare system into the curriculum is not the only thing drawing me into the program. Several faculty members have caught my eye such as Dr. Frank Gardner. His work with veterans connects with me as a child of a veteran myself. Additionally, Dr. Gardner’s focus on mindfulness-based interventions as well as the role of emotional acceptance and regulation on health are familiar to me. Much of the work I do in the in-patient rehab facility revolves around these topics. In my profession I also find discussions about the quality of life after medical diagnosis to be extremely relevant, which lead me to Dr. Lila Pereira. Similarly to Dr. Pereira, I am also curious about exploring the role of digital storytelling in trauma processing for young adults as I myself have participated in a digital writing and storytelling group for individuals impacted by the mental healthcare system. Lastly, Dr. Jeffrey Gardere’s work is inspiring and I would be honored to study under one with so many accolades. His focus on shattering stigma and the development of cultural competence for the next generation of psychologists connects with me as a student hoping to make a difference not only now, but for those I guide in the future. I hope to make changes that outlive me, and I see the same ambition in those who are a part of Touro’s program.

͏The͏͏͏ diverse͏͏ ͏skill͏͏ set͏͏ I͏͏͏ hav͏e͏͏ ͏devel͏oped͏͏ through͏͏ my͏͏ undergraduate͏͏ expe͏riences͏͏ and͏͏͏ ͏b͏eyond͏͏ w͏ill͏͏ e͏nsu͏re͏͏ my͏͏ s͏ucces͏s͏͏͏ in͏͏ a͏͏ graduate͏͏ pr͏ogra͏m͏͏ a͏n͏d͏͏ career͏͏͏ as͏͏ a͏͏͏ psych͏ologist.͏͏͏ All͏͏ of͏͏͏ ͏my͏͏ posi͏tions͏͏ hav͏e͏͏ shown͏͏ me͏͏ ͏the͏͏͏ impo͏rtance͏͏ of͏͏͏ not͏͏ o͏nly͏͏ par͏tic͏ipating͏͏͏ in͏͏ research͏͏͏ but͏͏ applying͏͏ it.͏͏ ͏͏ I͏͏ believ͏e͏͏ develop͏ing͏͏ psycholo͏g͏ists͏͏ w͏ho͏͏ ͏recognize͏͏ ͏the͏͏ flaws͏͏ in͏͏ o͏ur͏͏͏ s͏yst͏ems͏͏͏ a͏nd͏͏ ͏actively͏͏ seek͏͏ to͏͏ be͏tter͏͏ ͏it͏͏ i͏s͏͏ how͏͏ psy͏c͏ho͏logy͏͏ can͏͏ grow͏͏͏͏ int͏o͏͏ a͏͏ br͏ig͏h͏ter͏͏ f͏u͏ture.͏͏ I͏͏ hope͏͏͏ to͏͏ take͏͏͏ the͏͏ first͏͏ steps͏͏͏ in͏͏ b͏ei͏ng͏͏ ͏that͏͏͏ kind͏͏ of͏͏ ps͏ychologist͏͏ b͏y͏͏ ear͏n͏ing͏͏ my͏͏ doctorate͏͏ at͏͏͏ Touro.͏͏ I͏͏ look͏͏ for͏ward͏͏ to͏͏ the͏͏͏ opp͏ortunity͏͏ to͏͏ be͏͏͏ selected͏͏ for͏͏ this͏͏ est͏eeme͏d͏͏ pr͏ogram,͏͏ and͏͏ I͏͏ thank͏͏ y͏o͏u͏͏ for͏͏ your͏͏ consideratio͏n.

23. Incoming Clinical Psychology PhD student. Applied Fall 2024 for Fall 2025 matriculation. I applied straight out of undergrad and finished my undergrad 1.5 years early. Goal is to become a clinical scientist and practitioner. I applied in a cycle that was extremely tough in terms of NIH funding cuts, so only got into one place. My interviews were a lot more detailed in terms of why I liked that specific institution in particular.

I am applying to the XX Clinical Psychology PhD program to pursue a career as a clinical scientist and licensed practitioner. My research interest lies in identifying the psychological, social, and cultural factors that lead to high-risk health behaviors e.g. substance use, and how these behaviors intersect with comorbid medical conditions and disorders e.g. depression, anxiety, and PTSD. Through the pursuit of this knowledge, I hope to inform the development and dissemination of individualized treatments and population-level interventions that address disparities in mental health outcomes for underserved populations.

I first became interested in pursuing a career in psychology in high school when I completed a class presentation that focused on reading literature about the opioid epidemic with a social justice lens. I discovered that people who identified as Black or American Indian/Alaska Native were disproportionately affected, facing higher rates of incarceration and overdose-related deaths. This sparked my research interest in how minority stress and intergenerational trauma contributed to these disparities, and engaging in direct clinical work with these historically marginalized populations.
        I decided to pursue my interests by majoring in psychology at the University of XX. I began working as an undergraduate research assistant for Dr. XX during my first year at the University’s School of Public Health, Department of Behavioral and Community Health Sciences. In this role, I contributed to an NIH-funded study where our team developed and piloted a theory- and evidence-based online intervention that aimed to reduce substance use and mental health disparities among LGBTQ+ youth called Providing LGBTQ+ Adolescents with Nurturance, Trustworthiness, and Safety (PLANTS). This intervention trained school staff to increase their skills, self-efficacy, and knowledge in protecting, affirming, and supporting LGBTQ+ youth. I gained valuable skills such as systematic intervention development using intervention mapping, building data collection systems in REDCap for our pilot cluster-randomized controlled trial, recruiting participants, conducting and analyzing qualitative interviews, and preparing manuscripts for publication. This included preparing tables for our PLANTS trial protocol paper published in JMIR Research Protocols and conducting literature reviews that substantially strengthened the introduction of a manuscript about LGBTQ people’s use of social safety net programs, published in Analyses of Social Issues and Public Policy. In addition, I am a co-author who contributed original writing to a manuscript about the development of the PLANTS intervention and a manuscript about the untoward effects of PLANTS, both of which are in the revise and resubmit phase, as well as a manuscript about the primary outcomes from our pilot trial, which is currently in progress. This project culminated when I presented this work with a first-author poster at the 2024 National LGBTQ+ Health Conference in Atlanta co-hosted by Emory University and the Institute of Sexual and Gender Minority Health and Wellbeing at Northwestern University. My findings showed that PLANTS did not backfire and generate more stigma, which we measured as adverse events school staff experienced during the trial period (e.g. backlash from parents) and school staff’s stigmatizing attitudes towards LGBTQ+ people.

Given my burgeoning interests, Dr. XX invited me to contribute to an NIH-funded project focused on refining a game-based intervention intended to reduce alcohol-related harms among LGBTQ+ youth. I conducted and analyzed interviews with LGBTQ+ youth (n = 15) that focused on receiving feedback to improve our game, as well as LGBTQ+ youth’s friends’ experience with alcohol use and LGBTQ+ youth’s experience with social media. To inform future clinical work and interventions, the interviews about alcohol use focused on exploring the nuanced experience of alcohol use among LGBTQ+ high school students, which has become the focus of a manuscript that I am preparing to submit as a first author. I also assisted in preparing for an R01 efficacy trial by refining our project’s master protocol and manual of procedures, conducting literature reviews, co-leading and training new research assistants on data collection procedures, and contributing ideas through regular team meetings. In this role, I challenged myself to learn new research tasks diligently and developed an even greater enthusiasm for conducting research promoting health equity. This will serve as a foundation for the skills and training I need to pursue research at the doctoral level, with a particular focus on including diverse voices in research. These projects led me to see how clinical psychology and public health are mutually informative fields, with public health’s emphasis on community-engaged research and mixed methods research to identify risk factors for mental health disparities and clinical psychology’s ability to inform interventions by identifying psychological factors of health risk behaviors and creating effective, evidence-based coping skills that can be disseminated in interventions. I also learned how factoring in social and cultural factors can provide a new perspective for identifying risk factors and developing interventions to reduce mental disorders and high-risk health behaviors. For example, PLANTS aimed to address a social factor like feeling supported by school staff that has been proven to reduce negative mental health and substance use outcomes among LGBTQ+ youth. I look forward to applying the skills and knowledge I have gained to creating evidence-based counseling treatment plans as a clinician and conducting equity-focused research that will benefit historically underserved communities.
        My interests in alleviating disparities and identifying risk factors of mental disorders through interdisciplinary interests in public health and psychology intersected during my sophomore year when I joined the Clinical Application of Neuroscience Lab at XX under the mentorship of Dr. XX and Dr. XX. I assisted with electroencephalogram (EEG) data collection for a study examining how exposure to discrimination, racial stress, and trauma affects emotional and behavioral development in adolescent girls. For our study aimed at understanding the neural mechanisms underlying compulsive behaviors, I conducted phone screens, which included assessing for symptoms of compulsive behaviors, as well as bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, and substance use disorders; pre-processed fMRI data and entered them into REDCap; and completed video coding of participant visits for engaging in compulsive behaviors. I enjoyed how this research allowed me to examine the biological underpinnings of mental disorders and enabled me to interact with participants experiencing clinical impairment and distress. This research experience enriched my knowledge of the biopsychosocial model often used to describe mental health disparities. It also reinforced my desire to identify risk factors for mental disorders, build meaningful relationships with patients, and create evidence-based treatment plans as a licensed psychologist.
        My desire to become a licensed psychologist was further confirmed when I became a trained volunteer crisis counselor with Crisis Text Line during my first year in college. In this role, I learned how to assess texters using the best practices of suicidology. I spent 250 hours using active listening and collaborative problem-solving and bringing compassionate, culturally sensitive support to de-escalate crises for over 500 texters. This experience reinforced my desire to foster authentic connections and transform patients’ lives by providing treatments that go beyond providing resources and are tailored to the needs of diverse, underserved populations.

In sum, I have cultivated significant clinical and research experiences over my undergraduate career which have prepared me to commence my graduate studies. I believe the Clinical Psychology PhD program at XX University is the ideal environment for me to pursue my aspiration of becoming a clinical psychologist due to XX’s rich training, including research apprenticeship with faculty with interdisciplinary interests, clinical training complemented with seminars on multicultural issues, and commitment to teaching training. Mentorship has played a crucial role in shaping my research interests and it is important to me to keep growing as a researcher alongside experts in the field, as well as gain mentorship experience to promote diversity in the field of psychology research. I am eager to work with Dr. XX, particularly his line of research with developing interventions addressing substance use, which aligns well with my previous undergraduate experience developing and testing interventions for substance use. In addition, I am excited to work with Dr. XX, whose interests align well with my interests in exploring individual and environmental factors influencing alcohol use, as well as reducing disparities in alcohol use, which has been the focus of my undergraduate research. I would also be thrilled to work with Dr. XX, whose work on alcohol use and sexual and gender minorities aligns well with the research I have been passionate about during my undergraduate career focusing on alcohol use among sexual and gender minority youth. I am confident that the XX Clinical Psychology PhD program will greatly expand my intellectual curiosity through the pursuit of scientific knowledge and equip me for a lifelong commitment to providing compassionate, culturally sensitive, and socially just mental health care.

24. Incoming 1st Year Graduate Student (Counseling Psychology PhD). Applied Fall 2024 for Fall 2025 matriculation. Applied mostly to Counseling Psychology PhD programs (applied to 1 combined program and 1 clinical-community program as well); talked a lot about identity as a Black Woman in my SoP.

 Community care is a value that deeply resonates with me. In my adolescence, I saw it firsthand in my family. I watched my mom dutifully take an evening out of each week to volunteer at the local community health clinic, while my father delivered weekly meals to seniors through the Hampton Roads area’s Meals on Wheels program. Moreover, both of my parents, being immigrants themselves, dedicated countless hours over the years helping family members in Ghana navigate the visa process to immigrate to the United States. Watching my parents consistently care for marginalized members of our community set a foundational value in me: the importance of care and compassion. Through my undergraduate and postgraduate career, I have put community care into practice through genuine consideration of others and consistently finding ways to connect others to resources that will bolster their well-being.

During my undergraduate studies, I found joy in service-oriented programs at the [University attended] which allowed me to carry out these values. I served for three years as a resident advisor, building 1:1 relationships with residents, executing large-scale programming on topics, such as multiculturalism and academic planning, and responding to substance abuse and mental health crisis situations. I also served three years as a peer advisor for African American students, acting as a “big sister” to Black freshmen and transfer students. It was in this role that I began to construct my deeper interest in student mental health, particularly that of Black college students and adults. I realized how impactful it was to form a community through mentorship, especially at a predominantly white institution (PWI) like [University attended]. When I was a freshman, my mentor was also a Black woman who consistently supported and encouraged me to act as a servant-leader at the university. I continued this lineage of mentorship through these organizations, playing on my strengths as a natural relationship builder. 

However, my interest in Black mental health and the principles of community care actualized midway through my college career at the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. I became acutely aware of my identity as a Black woman in America, watching as Black folks endured two pandemics: that of COVID-19 and the communal stress effects due to police violence and racial trauma. I witnessed the Black community act in collective self-care during this time through protests, mutual education programs, and fundraising/crowdsourcing projects. I began to understand the ways systemic oppression exacerbates negative mental health (and other adverse health outcomes) for Black people. However, through compassionate care and hope for others, community persists. These observations, as well as my own lived experience, led me to decide to pursue a graduate degree in counseling psychology. I want to bring my own experiences as a Black woman into exploration by examining Black peoples’ strength and protective factors on college campuses and beyond. I particularly seek to understand in what ways Black people cope with racial battle fatigue and generational trauma, whilst also maintaining care for their community and hope for their futures. With this in mind, I believe that the [School of Interest] Counseling Psychology PhD program will provide me with the experience to bolster my research and counseling skills with an emphasis in equity and healing justice frameworks.

My journey in the field of psychological research foundationally began at [University attended] and has developed incrementally over the past four years. In Winter 2021, I took a practicum research course on community-engaged participatory research methods under the supervision of [Faculty Name(s)] and the [Community Organizing Group Name], a community organizing group in [location]. The group focuses on gender-based violence prevention and reducing stigma around mental health. Each class, we shared stories of lived-experiences with members of [Community Organizing Group Name], pointing out commonalities and differences in racial prejudice experienced in America to that in [location]. Talking to community members about their needs and incorporating their perspectives into the design of a research project from the ground up helped me realize my passion for research that is based in the principles of cultural humility, co-learning, and equity. Learning CBPR methodology showed me that community care and relationship building could be executed in an academic setting. I continued to examine this in my Spring 2022 undergraduate thesis project, examining the plantationocene, environmental racism, and the complex relationship Black people have with nature given legacies of colonialism and chattel slavery. I explored how these histories still have remnants in today’s society by way of police and white surveillance in schools, parks, and other public spaces. Moreover, my thesis involved an ethnographic experience where I led a group of Black women from my major program out on a hike on our college campus where we grappled with our experiences of nature and Blackness as women at [University attended]. Given our parallel research interests in environmental justice and storytelling as methodology, [Faculty mentor of interest #1] is my 1st-choice mentor. I am fascinated with her work on constructs of resistance and justice for Black women and am curious to propose investigating how nature can also serve as a site of resistance and healing for Black women. 

In my current full-time role as Executive Assistant to the [Supervisor Name and Title] at [Place of Employment], my values of leading through care and connection have built my knowledge in psychology education and training. I respond to weekly emails from students seeking guidance on psychology education. These questions span several topics, such as post-baccalaureate options for psychology undergraduate majors and pathways to graduate school for international applicants. During my tenure at [Place of Employment], I have mobilized a list of resources for such inquiries with the goal of promoting greater access to information for those who seek it. Performing actions such as these are essential to my personal value of care, ensuring the public knows what their options are. In tandem with my [Place of Employment] position, I sought out additional, research-based experience to further develop my statistical and methodological skills. I took a position as a Research Assistant at [Place of Employment #2]. In this role, I program surveys to assess student and teacher perspectives on resources and pilot assessments to aid [Place of Employment #2] in evaluating the effectiveness of existing career and college planning tools with an emphasis on minority student perspectives. I have constantly studied diversity elements where relevant, leading me to conduct an independent literature review on post-secondary planning resources for Black boys who have been systematically harmed in the K-12 system. This in-progress memo will be shared internally with the [Place of Employment #2 Executive] team that provides advice for Black students regarding their futures. Through this project, I exhibit my continued commitment of care to the Black community through research on how my company can better support Black students’ futures. My work and research experiences with this project has also prepared me to collaborate well with [Faculty member of interest #2] due to our overlapping interests in structural inequities (such as those in the education system), as well as healing solutions for minority communities. 

I believe that given my diverse range of research experiences and commitment to the principles that undergird counseling psychology as a field, I will be an excellent candidate for graduate work in the counseling psychology doctoral program at [School of Interest]. Collaborating with your accomplished faculty, particularly [Faculty member of interest #1] or [Faculty member of interest #2], will give me the opportunity to further explore psychological and contextual factors of mental health within diverse communities through a liberatory lens. Specifically, through this program, I can continue to explore the ways community care bolsters well-being for diverse populations of Black individuals.

25. PhD Student (2nd year). Applied Fall 2024.

Imagining my role as a Perinatal Nursery Intern at The Motherhood Center, I anticipated engaging with birthing parents suffering from perinatal mood and anxiety disorders. In fact, most mothers I meet do present with visible symptoms of distress. Yet on my first day, I met a cheerful mother, who I will refer to as Nadia. As a licensed therapist, Nadia is highly accomplished, but I came to know her by the radiance she exuded. Intuitively, I sensed that there was more to Nadia’s story than her consistently blissful affect suggested. One day, expecting to be greeted by her trademark smile, I instead saw tears cascading down her face. I listened attentively as she disclosed her terminal cancer diagnosis and volatile relationship with her ex-husband, who had cheated on her throughout her second pregnancy. Cognizant of the limited time she had left, Nadia struggled with the idea of leaving her children in a world without her, to be cared for by someone she did not trust. As I grew closer with her toddler who, suffering from severe, insecure attachment, latched onto me, I unexpectedly, but gladly became a pillar of support for Nadia through my simple, yet impactful gestures of compassion.

I concretized a nuanced understanding of the social stigma and pervasive medical dismissal that chronically ill, minority, and otherwise disenfranchised perinatal populations face in receiving care. I recognize that, as a health-compromised, biracial, single mother struggling with her mental and physical health, Nadia is likely to be underserved, marginalized, and overlooked in many ways. As an emerging researcher, I began to wonder, how do individuals suffering from severe somatic and mental ailments engage in reproductive life planning? What barriers prevent perinatal populations from accessing equitable reproductive care? Driven by my curiosity, I envision myself as a doctoral student, a multidisciplinary innovator, advancing reproductive justice for diverse, perinatal communities.

At Barnard, I took on various challenges as a leader in mental wellness initiatives such as WinkMe, a self-love club for women. Instilled with feminist ideals and a gender-equitable perspective, I recognized that nonbinary students did not have a space to engage in positive self-talk and create authentic connections. Heeding this call to action, I reconstructed WinkMe into a more inclusive place for gender-expansive individuals to discuss self-love, sexuality, and body neutrality. I witnessed transformative growth in students and, rather unexpectedly, I enhanced my capacity to be introspective and vulnerable. Possessing a newfound purpose as an advocate for student well-being, I emerged emboldened: unafraid to speak up, inspire change, or recognize the power in listening to others.

I engaged with psychology through a gendered, sociological lens in my community leadership, but my affinity for perinatal psychology was inspired by a more personal experience. In March of 2020, at the onset of the pandemic, my sister gave birth during a time of widespread fear and isolation. I witnessed the pervasive psychological distress that characterized her early development as a mother. Yet, I also recognized the impact of our daily Zoom calls, the power of her positive thinking and resilient mindset, and the proliferation of her Judaism. Invigorated by my emergent understanding of perinatal distress, I examined the interplay between spiritual flourishing, psychological well-being, and matrescence in a graduate school paper, using my sister as a case study. Through my intrinsic desire to connect seemingly dissonant fields, I internalized a bio-psycho-social perspective.

Impassioned by my salient role as an aunt, I began to contemplate the factors that influence reproductive identity formation. In an effort to explore my ever-developing inquiries, I joined the Maternal & Reproductive Psychology Lab, led by Dr. Aurelie Athan. Exemplifying strong data visualization skills and an ability to organize complex information into coherent tables and figures, I spearheaded writing the results section of our first paper on the role of reproductive identity in sex-education. Inspiring collective confidence in my team by affirming our ability to produce meaningful research, I took initiative during times of slowed productivity, conducted literature reviews, and co-wrote the discussion section to ensure our deadlines were met. As one of the lead authors of our first paper, I recognize that I am distinctly prepared to serve my team as both a collaborative researcher and independent thinker. As I transition into the role of lab coordinator, I am synthesizing several years of research through data cleaning, preparing manuscripts for publications, and transforming our findings, reforming sex-education to include units on reproduction and its relationship to identity.

        Perinatal, gender, and reproductive psychology are, by nature, interdisciplinary. At the crossroads of these fields, an obstetrician, a sex-education teacher, and a perinatal psychologist collaborate to unveil novel opportunities for critical care. My passions have guided me toward Pace, a revolutionary hub for health, education, and psychology. As a New Yorker, I have witnessed Pace’s distinct approach to advancing social justice that transforms students into globally-aware citizens, ethical researchers, and introspective clinicians. I aspire to be part of the inspiring community, interdisciplinary thought, and collective action, galvanizing my commitment to provide accessible and equitable psychological care to disenfranchised communities. As an aspiring doctoral student, I envision uniting with Pace’s empowered leaders such as Dr. Mowder, Dr. Chisholm, Dr. Vinocur, and Dr. Dickerson to pursue cross-disciplinary research on the role of childfree aunts and uncles in childrearing practices and the interplay between identity formation and stigma for single mothers, chronically ill individuals, and the queer community as they encounter reproductive decisions and crises of psychosocial development. As I bridge the gap between reproductive justice and gender-based health, I will further hone the pillars of my ethical leadership practice, fostering resilience, self-confidence, and emotional acuity in my clients.

On her last day of treatment, Nadia exuded even more confidence than on the first day we met. Smiling, she handed me a letter: “Thank you for caring for me and my baby. There is a connection I can't describe, but that I know you both felt, and I felt it too. It put me at such ease during this hard time in my life. You are going to be an amazing therapist!” I often think about Nadia, and while I provided her with compassion to facilitate her healing process, I recognize that I still have more to learn. On the journey to becoming a psychologist, I certainly anticipate being challenged in my beliefs, thoughts, and basis of knowledge, but this is a process of intellectual discovery as much as it is an opportunity to advance the skills I have garnered as a perinatal intern, a mental health advocate, a proud aunt, and an innovative researcher. Animated by the vision of myself as a clinician, I emerge bold and empowered, confident that within the Clinical Psychology Doctoral Program at Pace, I will proliferate my ever-developing, yet distinct passions to become a true advocate for reproductive justice.