Awards Program 2018

An event for all award recipients, graduating students, family, friends, faculty, and staff honoring the bachelor’s, master’s, and doctoral Classes of 2018.

AWARDS NIGHT AGENDA Awards Night acknowledges the accomplishments of students who exemplified excellence in their academic pursuits on the bachelors, masters, and doctoral program levels in the Department of Applied Psychology.

6:00 P.M.

Light Refreshments

6:20 P.M.

Welcome

Distinguished Service Award -- Amanda Holda Distinguished Teaching Award -- Dr. Shabnam Javdani Linda & Arthur Carter Family Fellowship -- Dr. Erin Godfrey The Raymond Weiss Endowment Scholarship -- Dr. Jennifer Astuto The Steinhardt Endowed Scholarship -- Dr. Adina Schick The Bernard R. Ackerman Scholarship --Dr. Elise Cappella Outstanding Research Contribution -- Dr. Anil Chacko Gilbert M. Trachtman Fellowship -- Dr. Judith Alpert The Phillip J. Zlatchin Memorial Award -- Dr. Alisha Ali The Adrian Levy Scholarship -- Erika Jackson Excellence in Fieldwork -- Laura Schneebaum The Social Justice Award -- Dr. Gigliana Melzi Outstanding Clinical Service Award -- Dr. Jordan Wright Outstanding School Counseling Service Award -- Dr. Lisa Suzuki The Monroe Stein Memorial Fellowship -- Dr. Mary Brabeck

Awards/Scholarship Presentation The Bernard Katz Award -- Dr. Clancy Blair The Felix Warburg Memorial Award -- Dr. Alejandro Ganimian

* Denotes graduating student

Bernard Katz Award

This award is given to students for their helpfulness, congeniality, and dedication to their program and peers.

Anjali Parmar (APUG)*: Through the Inside Scoop Peer mentorship program, Anjali provided exceptional 1-1 guidance to first-year and transfer students. Anjali has also successfully planned and executed academic workshops and social activities to ensure that applied psychology students found a community on campus and engaged outside of the classroom. Anjali’s commitment to supporting her peers along with her approachable and kind personality exemplifies her dedication to strengthening the APUG community.

Sheena John (CNGU)*: Sheena has been active in the MA online program since joining the inaugural class. She is dedicated to her peers and creating the best possible online school counseling program in providing support to her cohort and constructive feedback to the program faculty. Sheena serves as the online representative to the Steinhardt Counseling Association, where she serves as an advocate and mentor for first-year students. She is present at all events and her friendly and warm personality makes other students feel welcome.

Andrew Ribner (DEV): Andy is so generous in helping undergraduates, MA, and fellow PhD students in research and social issues. He helps run community building events, and goes above and beyond as a mentor for his peers, teaching statistics to anyone in need of help, and devoting time to the undergraduate courses. His proactive engagement and commitment to supporting initiatives within the department have made him an integral member of the AP community.

Felix Warburg Memorial Award This scholarship is given to students who have demonstrated academic excellence and commitment to the Dept.

Sophia Wang (APUG): Sophia is a stellar student whose academic dedication earned her a place in the competitive Steinhardt Sophomore Honors Seminar. Sophia currently serves as both the OPUS representative and Layout and Design Coordinator. As Coordinator, she single-handedly designed and currently oversees the opusZINES, a new initiative that gives students a more informal platform to share ideas. Sophia demonstrates both scholarly excellence and immense dedication to the Department through her diverse leadership roles.

Leah Sobel (HDSI)*: Leah is an intellectually-curious student and researcher with a strong interest in the development of gender and sexual identity. Since 2016, she has been a hard-working member of the RISE team, a data collection effort that involves girls at risk of being involved in the juvenile justice system. She is also deeply involved in the Steinhardt community, and currently serves as HDSI Grad Society Secretary, graduate assistant to the Psychology Women Quarterly, and is active in meetings and efforts to engage and communicate with students across the program.

Rui Yang (DEV): Rui is a brilliant and hardworking doctoral student. She leads the Chinese families research team, where she oversees data analysis, while also supervising and mentoring numerous students in the process. Rui is committed to producing high quality academic work and is a deep thinker and exemplary researcher. On top of her scholarly contributions to the department, she is also a dedicated team-player in the doctoral program, helping to organize various advents such as Admissions day and weekly colloquia.

Felix Warburg Memorial Award (cont.)

This scholarship is given to students who have demonstrated academic excellence and commitment to the Dept.

Esther Burson (PSI): Esa embodies both academic excellence and commitment to the department. She combines theoretical savvy with methodological rigor in her research on perceptions and stereotypes juvenile justice system staff have of juvenile-justice involved girls.

On top of her impressive research experiences and publication history, she serves as student representative to the school-wide Doctoral Affairs Committee and is an invaluable resource and mentor to Applied Psychology undergraduates.

Tess Yanisch (PSI): Tess is an involved member of the Applied Psychology community, working as both a highly sought-after teaching assistant in graduate statistics courses and as an exemplary team manager on her research team, where she acts as both supervisor and mentor for other students. Both her second year paper and her planned dissertation focus on questions about citizen participation with strong implications for both theory and social change interventions. Tess is not only an impressive scholar and researcher, but also an impactful leader on campus.

Distinguished Service Award This award is given to graduating undergraduate students for dedication and service to the Department of Applied Psychology.

Shanice Hamilton (APUG)*: Shanice has been a pillar of consistency for our department, continually devoting her time and effort to the program. She has volunteered to speak with families during Parents’ Day, as well as on panels at prospective student events on numerous occasions. Shanice has been an integral member of APUG Club, serving as Freshman Representative before taking on the Vice President and Treasurer roles. Shanice has served as an Orientation Leader and Orientation Leader Captain in the New Student Seminar courses where she worked to bridge the transition for incoming students to NYU.

Yashvardhani Shankar (APUG)*: Yash Shankar was an exceptional leader in APUG Club as the Community Service Chair, a role that allowed her to increase community engagement through service and professional development programming. In collaboration with the Midnight Run Organization, Yash spearheaded a successful donation drive for those currently experiencing homelessness in NYC. Her creativity and passion for civic engagement have strengthened the connection between the undergraduate program and the NYC community.

Distinguished Teaching Award This award is given to a Ph.D. student who demonstrates excellence in the area of teaching.

Nirit Gordon (CNPS)*: Nirit has taught 2 undergraduate and 5 graduate courses at NYU. Her faculty course observations are routinely glowing. Nirit works diligently to update all aspects of the course to create an interactive learning climate that fosters students’ critical ability to apply the science of teaching to its application in classrooms. In students’ remarks about the course, it was clear that Nirit had accomplished the rare practice of setting high expectations while building an open and interactive environment.

Linda & Arthur Carter Family Scholarship This scholarship is given to graduate students who are conducting empirical research related to child development.

Katelyn Fletcher (DEV): Katelyn Fletcher is currently a Research Assistant with the Language and Play Lab, where she works on a project observing mothers and their infants across New York City. By engaging a rich corpus of recorded infant-caregiver interactions, Katelyn unlocks insights into aspects of child development to better understand how developmental differences unfold across time. Katelyn’s research has significant implications for child development across the world as she further uncovers how children play.

Sophia Hwang (PSI): Sophia is a remarkably independent scholar who produces impressive theoretical and analytical work. Her research is primarily concerned with the contexts of youth academic and social development and the opportunities those contexts afford for interpersonal interactions that influence children’s development. Alongside this research, Sophia has been engaged in a university-community partnership for the past three years to study the educational supports youth receive in afterschool programming and the impact of those supports on developmental outcomes.

Natalia Rojas (PSI): Natalia is already considered a research leader in New York City. In her role as a research assistant to research-policy partnerships with the city’s Universal PreKindergarten initiative, she provides valuable input on multiple dimensions of quality improvement and measurement for the largest city-level program of its kind in the United States. Her dissertation will be the first measure of quality of early education for dual language learning children that can assess the experiences within classrooms.

Raymond Weiss Endowment Scholarship This scholarship is given to students who demonstrate a commitment to innovation through supporting research, education, and intervention projects to solve social problems.

Mishel Bunkley (HDSI)*: Mishel is a motivated researcher committed to community service and advancing social justice. Mishel has taken a leadership role and coordinated lab efforts in a study involving Syrian refugee children. As an emerging scholar, she is concerned with approaching communities and individuals in a respectful manner and representing their perspectives and experiences authentically and ethically. In her work, she is willing to challenge stereotypes and dedicate time to understand the complex structures that create and maintain systems of inequity in our society and the rest of the world at the same time.

Daniel Suh (DEV): Daniel is an intellectually-curious and dedicated scholar working on innovative research in the field of early child learning and STEM education. His research has implications for education of preschoolers, and development of interventions to solve social disparities in child learning and development. Daniel impressively pursued two National Science Foundation Fellowships in his first semester at NYU. He is not only an outstanding researcher, but a dedicated mentor for students at both NYU and Seoul National University.

Steinhardt Endowed Scholarships

This scholarship is given to students whose work displays interdisciplinary approaches to solving applied problems.

Devon Crosby (APUG)*: Nicole has an outstanding scholastic record, strong work ethic, and is committed to using interdisciplinary perspectives to working with disenfranchised groups.

Nicole has excelled as an advocate in the ROSES program, demonstrating her outstanding capacity to provide evidence-based interventions. Nicole’s involvement with ROSES will no doubt create positive, necessary change within the lives of the girls she works with, as well as the systems and policies that have led to their involvement.

Hannah Ephraim (APUG)*: Hannah stands out as an honors student. Her senior research project takes an interdisciplinary perspective to explore the relation between women’s physical and mental health. On top of her independent research, she has previously served as a Prenatal Educator and Research Assistant at Bellevue, where she educated pregnant women on postpartum depression, treatment, and resources, and contributed to a study on postpartum depression.

Mallika Lakshman (APUG): Mallika is both an exemplary student and Research Assistant with the ROSES project whose work as a data collector demonstrates a superb attention to detail and strong communication, interpersonal, and organizational skills. Mallika goes above and beyond in this role and has emerged as a leader on the team who thinks contextually about the stratification of societies that places the girls who are referred to ROSES, in particular, at-risk for structural violence.

Bethanie Railling (APUG)*: Bethanie is a motivated honors student engaging urgent research that will have a large, beneficial impact on NYU. She is currently investigating the experiences of community college transfer students to four-year universities. The goal of this project is to create programs to ease the transition for students to succeed at NYU. She is also a mentor to undergraduate transfer students in APUG and the CCTOP Program where she is a constant resource and help to incoming transfer students.

Cynthia Wang (APUG): Cynthia is currently a Research Assistant at the Center for Research on Culture, Development, and Education, where she codes naturalistic video-records of motherinfant interactions for parental and infant language use. She has demonstrated not only a strong commitment to the study of human development but also engages with children’s academic success in her role as a teacher with Sprout Up, where she instructs low-SES students about environmental science.

Bernard R. Ackerman Scholarship This scholarship is given to students in the HDSI and PSI programs, who display exceptional ability and promise in the areas of research, advocacy, and activism.

Katelyn Greco (HDSI)*: Katelyn’s work as a member of the RISE team proves her exceptional ability and promise in the areas of research, advocacy, and activism. She recently secured a highly competitive position with the Citizen’s Crime Commission, where she will be working in an advocacy role with dozens of organizations engaged in violence prevention. Additionally, she conceptualized and is implementing an ambitious thesis that includes a systematic review of the assessments of trauma and proposes a measure of victimization across contexts with a focus on institutional victimization.

Bernard R. Ackerman Scholarship (cont.)

This scholarship is given to students in the HDSI and PSI programs, who display exceptional ability and promise in the areas of research, advocacy, and activism.

Stephen Braren (DEV): Stephen is an outstanding scholar making exceptional progress on data analysis and manuscript preparation on topics related to the psychobiological effects of behavioral and physiological stress on child development and family functioning. In addition to his research endeavors, Stephen is engaged as a mentor for underrepresented students at LaGuardia Community College, and is an extremely hard-working and dedicated researcher, activist, and advocate.

Travis Cramer (PSI): Travis has proved himself as an excellent researcher, independent and thoughtful thinker, and wonderful addition to the PSI Program. Winner of a prestigious and competitive IES-funded fellowship for his doctoral study at NYU, in his independent research, Travis brings a social network lens to examine how new learning is acquired and translated into practice by young children. Travis is on the cutting-edge of education research, and his new approach to training teachers has the potential to make a substantial difference in the lives of some of many vulnerable young children.

Kate Schwartz (PSI): Kate is a stellar student, thinker, and scholar interested in education policies and programs in low-income contexts, and rigorous methods for understanding and enhancing their effects. Toward this aim, Kate is engaged in multiple innovative research projects, which include work with the Spencer Foundation, focused on middle grade school transitions, and the non-profit Publicolor, dedicated to preparing disengaged students for college and career through the development and use of commercial painting skills and the transformation of schools into warm, welcoming spaces.

Outstanding Research Contribution This award is given to students whose research demonstrates excellence and originality.

Elysha Clark Whitney (APUG)*: Elysha’s thesis examines the relation between expressive language, executive function, and narrative skills of 200 Latino preschoolers. She is thorough in conducting literature searches and makes thoughtful connections, integrating information meaningfully. She demonstrates an impressive work ethic, is self-motivated, and solves problems creatively. Elysha developed a narrative coding scheme combining and adapting available schemes while also thinking about measurement issues for the analyses.

Parham Horn (CNPS): Parham Horn has the distinction of being an Institute of Education Sciences Predoctoral Interdisciplinary Training Fellow and a research fellow on the INSIGHTS into Children’s Temperament project. Completing her third year as a doctoral student, she already has 7 publications and has participated in three national conference presentations. In addition, she is tireless in recruiting teachers and conducting assessments of our participants, often traveling to distant NYC schools and working on weekends.

Juan Del Toro (DEV): Juan has initiated multiple projects that led to papers published in peer review journals, including two of the top journals in the field: Developmental Psychology and Child Development. Juan has also taken the lead role in other projects, including one that examined the extent to which perceived opportunity barriers mediated relationships between perceived discrimination and academic and psychological adjustment.

He currently is working on his dissertation while being a Senior Research Scientist at the Center for Police Equity.

Gilbert M. Trachtman Fellowship Fund This scholarship is given to students for their contributions to serving children, parents, and teachers and being agents of change.

Dong Eun Kim (CMHW)*: Dong Eun is an intellectually-curious student with specific interest in multicultural issues in counseling, especially related to children. This is reflected in her previous research, where she studied the effect of parenting stress on the relationship between infants’ sleep and behavioral problems, for which she received funding from the Korean government.

She is attentive to the burgeoning need for multicultural counseling practices and has shaped her professional and scholarly work to fill this gap.

Sarah Peralta (CMHW)*: Sarah’s passion for social justice gives her the ability to absorb knowledge in diverse settings; she currently serves as a Research Assistant in the Transgender Identity Formation Study, where she studies narratives of trans, gender fluid, and other marginalized individuals through an intersectional lens. She also works as a Counseling Intern at the Bereavement Center of Westchester, where she counsels youth and works to destigmatize grief and grieving. Sarah’s work will undoubtedly impact families and communities by reframing the inefficient systems that marginalize populations.

The Phillip J. Zlatchin Memorial Award This award, established in honor of Professor Zlatchin, a member of the faculty from 1947 to 1959, will be awarded to graduate students for their contributions to improving the life conditions of vulnerable individuals or communities.

Jasrin Jalal (CMHW)*: Jasrin’s determination has driven her to take full advantage of being in NYC at NYU and in finding ways to define her career goals and fulfill her commitment to helping others. Last year, to fulfill an assignment, she proposed a plan to counsel children whose parent(s) abused substances. Currently, she is working at Weill Cornell, her internship site, with substance abuse clients. In addition to her class work and internship, Jasrin volunteers at New York Cares, an agency working with children and families in need. She is passionate about working with marginalized groups and social advocacy.

Megan Granski (CNPS): Megan is committed to serving marginalized communities, using creative ways to engage difficult-to-reach populations, and integrating research and practice.

She has become a leader and undergraduate mentor on the ROSES team and as an editor of the IHDSC dissemination project. She is leading a meta analysis that examines the impact that treatment modality has on responding to boys’ and girls’ disruptive behavior challenges, which will be disseminated to stakeholders across New York City and New York State.

Mackenzie Whipps (PSI): Mackenzie’s academic and scholarly work is distinguished by her focus on vulnerable populations. Specifically, she is concerned with disadvantaged children during the perinatal period. Her mix of applied work with advocacy organizations, hospitals, and hospital associations, and other civil society organizations is especially remarkable in our program. She is currently writing her dissertation on mothers’ experiences learning to breastfeed in an American birth hospital.

Adrian Levy Scholarship This scholarship is given to help support Master’s Counseling students who have committed to working with individuals with disabilities (e.g., physical, developmental, cognitive).

Sheena John (CNGU)*: Sheena is an outstanding student, impressive not only for her stellar academic performance but for her participation in the classroom and her dedication to her classmates. She has a strong commitment to bettering the lives of others through her extensive volunteer and missionary work. Sheena is also an involved member of the Steinhardt community, serving as the NYU Steinhardt Counseling Association First Year School Counseling Representative, then as Secretary for the Counseling Association, as well as on the NYU Mentorship Program.

Loren Johnson (CNGU)*: Loren is a bright, hard-working scholar whose intellectually curious nature makes her a stand-out team member. She is currently a research assistant in the FACES lab, working on the refinement of an evidence-based psychosocial treatment for children with ADHD. She has not only done a first-rate job conducting this work, but has identified several other areas that require greater empirical investigation. There is no doubt that her efforts will further advance the science in this area of child development.

Claudia Lenz (CNGU)*: Claudia has dedicated her academic and professional life to advocating for those with disabilities. She has previously worked as a physical education instructor and behavioral technician for individuals with disabilities who came from culturally-diverse backgrounds and is currently an intern at School of the Future. Beyond her professional commitments, she also serves as Vice President of the Steinhardt Counseling Association, where she coordinates meetings, events, and student mentorship.

Marisa Mathews (CNGU)*: Marisa has displayed exemplary commitment to children with disabilities in her professional work. As a former teacher, she previously developed a program to teach students executive functioning skills, and enthusiastically makes connections between her current coursework and her experiences as an educator. She demonstrates her expertise in both teaching and education research in her role as a Teacher Consultant and Advisor to Scholastic, where she provides feedback on curriculum goals and correlated magazines and publications designed for the classroom.

Excellence in Fieldwork This award is given to an undergraduate student in recognition of their outstanding commitment, engagement, and growth at their fieldwork site.

Rotem Blat (APUG)*: Rotem is volunteering at the Brooklyn Free School, a school with a strong focus on education for social justice. In her first semester, Rotem went above and beyond by creating a psychology class that would be interesting and informative, while remaining true to the school’s mission. She spent hours outside of her fieldwork commitment consulting with various professionals about best practices, and carefully constructed lessons.

She also collaborated with the students to figure out the topics to focus on and how to evaluate the students’ performance. She was so successful that the students even asked her to continue the class for another semester.

Social Justice Award This award is for students for their contribution to improving the life conditions of vulnerable individuals or communities.

Brittany Baez (APUG)*: Brittany dedicates her time to allyship and advocacy through events like #LatinosForBlackLivesMatter, and Decolonizing Our Diet. As Co-Chair of the National Dominican Student Conference, she plans a weekend-long conference for over 300 attendees with academic workshops, influential speakers, and networking events. As Community Chair for Latinos Unidos Con Honor y Amistad and President of Hermandad de Sigma Iota Alpha, Brittany connects with the Latino community through events, co-sponsorships, and providing a space of support for her peers.

Hannah Ephraim (APUG)*: Hannah is deeply committed to advocacy work for women and health. She is the Founder and Manager of Winning and Grinning, an empowerment group for women diagnosed with endometriosis. In this role, she organizes fundraising events and manages social media sites to provide a platform for women to connect and receive motivation and support. She continues this work as a Health Educator with the Endometriosis Foundation of America where she educates adolescents in NYC on issues related to women’s health, facilitates discussions, and promotes treatment-seeking behavior.

Outstanding Clinical Service This award is given to students who demonstrate outstanding skills in the area of clinical practice.

Ricardo Kriete (CMHW)*: Ricardo is completing his internship at Mount Sinai’s CVTC program where he has been providing mental health services to survivors of trauma. Ricardo has embraced the process of his own professional development via participation in various on-site workshops and/or training programs, and has demonstrated a deepening literacy in the treatment of trauma. During internship class discussions, he provides relevant feedback to his fellow interns in a supportive and affirming way, which inspires them to think more critically about their work with clients.

Rachel Lacks (CNPS): Rachel has taken it upon herself to seek out a great deal of clinical training and experiences, above and beyond what is typically expected of her at her level of training. As a result, she has excelled clinically, working with children from a variety of backgrounds and with a variety of presenting issues. Her work has helped many children and families, and she shows an excellent balance between precision and rigor with her interventions and adaptability to the experience of her clients. This balance lends itself toward her becoming a truly excellent clinician.

Outstanding School Counseling Service This award is given in recognition of outstanding work in support of the goals of school counselors: the promotion of academic, career, personal/social development, equity and success for all students.

Eric Valerio (CNGU)*: Eric is described by his internship instructor as a “brilliant and creative student.” He is able to take various theories about different areas related to counseling (e.g., bullying, stress, college preparation) and create programs for students at his school. His project on stress was divided into seven weeks with pre and post assessment and was positively received. He is able to make complicated issues simple and has created several projects this semester in group counseling that are critical in supporting the learning needs of his peers.

Monroe Stein Memorial Fellowship This award is given to a graduate student who can demonstrate a need as well as a commitment to his/her career to bettering the lives of children.

Lisa Anang (CMHW)*: Lisa possesses the intellectual curiosity, interpersonal awareness, and emotional maturity that are indicators of an effective and caring future clinician. She is currently a Counseling Intern at LaGuardia Community College, where she helps students with autism spectrum disorders and anxiety navigate strategies to succeed in college. On top of this, she coordinates and facilitates education and wellness outreach and workshops for the college.

She is an outstanding advocate for students in higher education.

Corianna Sichel (CNPS): Corianna has an extensive record of creating, implementing, and evaluating interventions geared towards children’s wellbeing. Her work is of high impact from research, practice, and policy perspectives and she is poised to become a leader in creating innovative services that would not be available – and would not be evaluated and disseminated – without her leadership. Beyond her unparalleled dedication to social justice, she is a consistent source of instrumental support to her peers and the undergraduate and masters students that have benefited from her mentorship on our research team.

Acknowledgments Special thanks to the families and friends who support our students in these endeavors and who were able to attend tonight.

Thank you to all the presenters, for taking the time to help us celebrate our stellar students.

The Awards Committee would also like to thank the AP staff who helped throughout the entire year and with tonight’s events.