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Student	Research Interest
Carmela Alacantara Clinical Psychology	I am generally interested in examining the role of culture in the expression of psychopathology. In particular I am interested in exploring how culture mediates the expression and experience of psychological distress within the Latino population, with a specific look at the experience of anxiety across the Latino ethnicities.
Latoya Branch CPEP	My interests include factors that both promote and inhibit African American students from pursuing higher education. More specifically, I am interested in the adjustment experiences of first generation college students in comparison to non first generation students. My current research is investigating how background factors and the congruence between pre-college and college environments relate to the academic and psychosocial adjustment of African American students on predominately majority campuses.
Courtney Cogburn CPEP	My core research interests involve the development of identity and interactions between identity and context as they relate to academic, social, and psychological functioning. In particular, I focus on racial identity and gender identity processes across adolescence and young adulthood in African American and Black populations. I am interested in within group variation among African American and Black youth in the ways that they construct their group identities. Additionally, I am interested in the ways that particular developmental and social contexts influence identity construction and change.
Jenell Clarke Joint Doctoral Student in Social Work and Developmental Psychology	My substantive interest is in family structure and its association with adolescent developmental outcomes.
Shauna Cooper Developmental Psychology	My research involves utilizing integrative and ecological frameworks to further understand the contextual factors affecting the normative development of African American adolescents. I am particularly interested in how contextual factors, such as gender and race affect parental socialization in African American families. Further, I also investigate how these contexts directly and indirectly relate to developmental and educational outcomes. My other research interests include examining factors that specifically relate to the educational and psychological outcomes of adolescent females. I am particularly interested in social and relational influences that affect the educational experiences of adolescent females. In addition to these substantive research interests, I am interested in translating the guiding principles of my research into practice.
Kyla Day Developmental Psychology
Ashley Evans Developmental Psychology	My general research interests are in multiple identities: how they are constructed, how they interact, and how they develop over time. More specifically, I am interested in the intersection of gender and racial identities of minority students and how these identities interact to inform academic achievement.
Khalil Ford Personality Psychology	My research interests are racial identity, racial socialization, and discrimination experiences in African American populations. I am also interested in these variables as they pertain to mental health and educational outcomes.
Ishtar Govia Personality Psychology	I’m interested in inter-group and intra-group relations, particularly in ethno-political conflict zones. I am also fascinated by how different social identities (national, ethnic--particularly of mixed ethnic backgrounds, racial, and gender identities) affect inter-group contact outcomes such as perceived threat and perspective taking. These and similar outcomes might vary for people who are normally considered one population (for example, the African Diaspora in England, the USA, Canada and the Caribbean) and so I am particularly intrigued about exploring these in-group variations.
Erin T. Graham Clinical Psychology & Women’s Studies	I am interested in positive psychology as it is expressed within the African American community.  I would like to explore such adaptive qualities as resiliency and effective coping with an emphasis on the contextual (perhaps historical) underpinnings in which such mechanisms are developed and fostered.
Tiffany M. Griffin Social Psychology	I am interested in solo status, hidden stigma and ethnic identity.  More specifically, I am interested in the effects of low SES on academic performance and adjustment, and the intersection of race and social class on college campuses, in respect to solo status.  I am also interested in the similarities and differences in ethnic identity amongst African-descended peoples across the globe, with a specific interest in Brazil.
Tiffany Haynes
Asha Ivey Clinical Psychology	My research interests include racial and cultural influences on suicide and depression, particularly among African Americans. I am also interested in racial and ethnic influences on mental health treatment adherence and the implications for public policy.
Karmen Kizzie CPEP	My research interests are in the areas of culture and identity and how they affect academic outcomes in African American students. I am particularly interested in the area of cultural differences in the socialization of certain cultural values (i.e. academic values) and the role that parents play in this.
Jennifer Maddox CPEP	I am broadly interested in adolescent development within the contexts of families, schools, and neighborhoods.  Particularly, I am interested in how youth perceive the future and the ways in which this impacts achievement oriented behavior.  I am currently studying the context in which future oreintation develops and the way in which this process differs across race and socioeconomic status.
Christopher Merchant Clinical Psychology	My interests are suicide and depression among adolescents.  Additionally, I would like to examine how self-injurious behaviors (cutting, burning, etc) affect diagnosis as "suicidal" and the differing ideation between the two.
Enrique Neblett Clinical Psychology	My primary research interests are racial discrimination experiences and stress and coping processes in Black children and adolescents. Most of my research has centered upon the investigation of how cultural factors – broadly defined – play a role in how Black youth adapt to various forms of race-related stress. In the immediate future, I plan to investigate situation and person-specific antecedents/determinants of racial coping behaviors, individual differences in coping behaviors, and the relationship of coping to short and long-term mental health indices in Black youth.
Lilian Odera Clinical Psychology	I am a 3rd year doctoral student in clinical psychology. I am originally from Kenya, East Africa. I received my Masters degree in Clinical Psychology from the University of Michigan in 2004. My research interests focus on examining the relationship between various types of trauma (including acculturative stress) and health outcomes such as PTSD, depression and somatization among individuals of African descent. I am primarily interested in these relationships among African Americans and Continental Africans with an additional interest of investigating how ethnic and cultural factors affect symptom reports among individuals in these groups. Other interests involve how traumatic experiences influence physiological reactivity within these groups.
Christina Oney Personality Psychology
Wizdom Powell Hammond Clinical Psychology	My research is primarily focused on investigating racially engendered health disparities among African American men. More specifically, my research seeks to examine how African American men construct masculinity and how their conceptualizations of manhood influence their engagement in health promoting activities. In addition, my research is concerned with the investigation of intersecting sociohistorical, cultural (e.g. spirituality/religiosity), and psychological determinants of African American men's health beliefs and practices. Included in this agenda is an interest in the examination of patient-physician interactions/processes, healthcare structure and policies, as well as, discrimination experiences and their relationship to African American men's medical mistrust and health self-determination.
Besangie Sellars Developmental Psychology	Besangie Sellars's research interest lie in aging within the African American community, specifically social relationships and factors that effect well-being and life satisfaction.  Her current research project is looking at social relationships, racial differences, and bereavement outcomes among women who have experienced various types of loss.  In the future, she hopes to expand her research to investigate the impact of social relationships across the life span of older African American men.
Ciara Smalls Personality Psychology	My interests are in the areas of norms of academic involvement, academic socialization, race socialization, and school context on child well-being and academic outcomes. I am particularly interested in understanding how parent and school factors contribute to social adjustment, personal competence, and achievement in African American Adolescents.
John Paul Stephens Organizational Psychology	I have several lines of research related to a positive perspective on people at work. Some of my work has looked at how strengths of good character relate to the type of occupation one is in, and whether possessing a certain character strength in a certain occupation is related to being satisfied in that occupation. I am also looking at how purely positive feedback impacts emotions, self-efficacy and empowerment in leadership development. Another positively-based line of research looks at how high quality connections in the work place help people thrive and be less stressed. For my dissertation work I plan on researching how individuals in choirs pay attention to the self-in-relation-to-other in order to perform the work of singing as a collective.
Travis J. D. Tatum Social Psychology	I am currently researching  interracial dialogue, specifically  whether and/or how Black and White participants fall into teacher and learner roles when talking about race related topics.  I am also interested in intergroup dialogue in general and how to organize dialogue groups for the best learning opportunities for all participants.
Khia Thomas Developmental Psychology	My research interests are in examining the intersections between race and gender, gender role stereotypes, sexuality, and the effects of the media.
Rhonda White Personality Psychology	My research focuses on African American adolescent development across contexts. I pay particular attention to race-related factors which serve as risk and/or protective factors against negative mental health. I also study the family environment as a protective factor for the prosocial development of Black youth.