2021 & 2022 Trainees

Graduate level students join as MPSI trainees and fellows from a wide range of departments across campus to concentrate on issues related to child and family development. Our interdisciplinary team of faculty mentors and advisors works with each student to strengthen their research skills, writing, community outreach and academic focus. COVID-19 may have forced some re-routing in their journeys, but they still traveled far.

In the past two years, our MPSI students have:

• Given 37 national and local presentations of their research
• Won 12 academic Awards and scholarships
• Authored or co-authored 11 publications
• Submitted 8 papers for publication
• Published 1 book chapter

Highlights . . .

Lama Hassoun Ayoub

1. Society for Community Research and Action Student Research Grant ($1000) 2021
2. Betty Neitzel Summer Funding Fellowship ($4000) 2021
3. Graduate Student Poster Day Award in Psychology 2020
4. Co-authored the chapter Taking Problem-Solving Courts to Scale: Diverse Applications of the Specialty Court Model in Reentry Courts as Problem-Solving Courts, Lexington Books, 2021.
5. Presented virtually at five national conferences on issues related to restorative justice, sexual violence and race, multi-cultural identify, and incarceration, including the World Congress on Intergenerational Trauma, 2021; the Society for Research in Child Development, 2021; and the American Arab, Middle Eastern, and North African Psychological Association Inaugural Conference, 2020.

Alexandra Ehrhardt

1. WSU Psychology Department Graduate Service Award 2022
2. Co-authored "Peer victimization, schooling format, and adolescent internalizing symptoms during the COVID-19 pandemic: Between- and within-person associations across ninth grade," Development and Psychopathology. 2022.
3. Submitted as co-author, "On shaky grounds: Friendship instability predicts increased peer victimization across the ninth-grade school year," to the Journal of Adolescence (under review). 
4. Presented at one national and two local conferences, including her poster, "Best Friends for Never? Examining Longitudinal Associations Between Adolescent Peer Victimization, Friendship Instability, and Internalizing Symptoms," at the Society for Research on Adolescence Meeting in New Orleans, LA.

Jess Goletz

1. Oral Presentation Award, the Psychology Graduate Student Day 2022
2. Co-authored a two-part article in Infant Mental Health Journal (2022), "From the Voices of Supervisees: What is Reflective Supervision and How Does it Support their Work? (Part I); and "A Theoretical Model of Reflective Supervision" (Part II).
3. Gave five research presentations at Wayne State graduate symposiums and competitions. She received an award at the 2022 Psychology Graduate Student Presentation Day for her oral presentation, "A Different Man Now: Exploring Masculinity and Fatherhood During the Postnatal Period."

Nicole Kouri

1. The Betty J. Neitzel Summer Research Award 2021
2. Co-authored two journal articles: Behavioral and Biological Indicators of Risk and Well-Being in a Sample of South African Youth, Journal of Child & Adolescent Trauma, accepted 2022; and A Meta-Analysis of the Relationship between Shame and Dissociation, Journal of Traumatic Stress. accepted 2022.
3. Submitted as first author in 2022, "Shame-Induced Dissociation: An Experimental Study of Experiential Avoidance."
4. Presented to the national Society for Research on Child Development Meeting in 2021.

Bridget Murphy

1. John Teahan Memorial Award 2021
2. Presented at three national and one international conference on research related to mental health in urban minorities, separation-individuation in college students and academic orientation in diverse college students. The international presentation was to the International Congress of Psychology in Prague in 2021.

Emily Pasman

1. Best 3-Minute Thesis Award, Lifespan Alliance Research Day 2022
2. Elizabeth Brehler Scholars Award, WSU School of Social Work 2021
3. Authored Reducing stigma toward medication for opioid use disorder through social
4. work education, research, and practice, Social Work Practice in the Addictions, 2021
5. Co-authored two journal articles in 2022: Simultaneous use of opioids and benzodiazepines in a rural opioid treatment program. Journal of Addictive Diseases; and Comorbid emotional and substance disorders of Medicaid/Medicare beneficiaries at an opioid treatment program serving small urban and rural communities, Frontiers in Psychiatry.
6. Submitted five publications (two as first author) that are now in the revise and resubmit phase or under review.
7. Presentations at four national and four regional conferences on research related to opioid use disorder, alcohol misuse, overdose, stigma and attitudes toward addiction, family dynamics, and education for recovery.

Jamie Pittman, Fellow

Anna Rushing, Fellow

1. Presentations on mother-child cooperation at the 2022 Association for Psychological Science Convention in Chicago, and virtually to the 2021 Society for Research on Child Development and the World Association for Infant Mental Health World Congress.
2. Anna also presented on "Birth Order and Behavior Problems in 3-year-olds" at the Midwest Psychological Annual Meeting in 2021.

Sarah Wilhoit, Fellow

1. The Charles L. Gdowski Memorial Award for 2022
2. Presentations on the association of mother-child cooperation with family conflict and child emotional control, for the Society for Research on Child Development and the World Association for Infant Mental Health World Congress.

Merrill Palmer Skillman Institute Report 2021/2022
Editor : Cheryl Deep
Designer: Catherine Blasio