Louisiana Psychologists, Researchers Present at American Psychological Assn

Louisiana psychologists will present at the American Psychological Association Annual Convention, to be held August 8-11 in Chicago, with highlighted keynote on “Deep Poverty,” a theme that current APA president, Dr. Rosie Phillips Davis has made a focus.

An array of Louisiana psychological scientists, professors and practitioners from Louisiana will be presenting at the convention.

Bonnie Nastasi, PhD, Tulane University, will co-chair the Symposium: “A Child Rights Empowered School Psychology—Toward a Better Future,” along with Stuart N. Hart, PhD, Independent Practice, The Villages, Florida.

Dr. Nastasi will also present on, “Conceptual Foundations for School Psychology and Child Rights Advocacy.” Presenters will include discussions on, “Promotion of Family Support,” “Child Rights, Enlightened Child Protection,” and “Toward a Preferred Future for School Psychology.”

Nastasi is active in the promotion of child rights and social justice within the profession of school psychology and is an Associate of the International Institute of Child Rights and Development. She has conducted work in Sri Lanka, India (Mumbai), and New Orleans, and was the lead partner on an international study of psychological well-being, with colleagues at 14 sites in 12 countries (New Orleans is one of the sites). She has served as President of the International School Psychology Association, as president of Division 16 of APA, and as co-chair of APA’s Committee on International Relations in Psychology, among many other positions. In 2015, she spoke at the 8th Annual Psychology Day at the United Nations, held at the UN headquarters in New York City, on, “Promoting Psychological Health and Well-Being of Children, Youth, and Families Under Stressful Conditions: Engaging Local Communities in Cultural Construction of Programs.”

Dena Abbott, PhD, Louisiana Tech University, and Victoria Rukus, MEd, also from Louisiana Tech University, will discuss “Isn’t Atheism a White Thing? Centering the Voices of Atheists of Color,” for the APA Symposium: “Atheist Research in Psychology—Current Trends and Future Directions.”

For the APA Symposium, “The Cost of Caring—An Examination of Healthcare Providers’ Recovery in Puerto Rico Post-Hurricane Maria,” Jen Scott, PhD, from Louisiana State University along with others will discuss, “PostTraumatic Stress and Burnout Among Healthcare and Social Service Providers Post-Hurricane Maria.”

Dr. Scott will also discuss, “Long-Term PTSD Symptoms Among Health and Psycho-Social Workers Hurricane Maria Survivors,” and “Coping Styles and Resilience of Health and PsychoSocial Service Providers Who Are Also Disaster Survivors.”

Sarah Black, PhD, University of New Orleans, will participate in a discussion of “Is This Treatment Helping My Patient? Utilizing Modified Brinley Plots to Measure Clinical Change,” for Symposium: Secondary Analyses in Randomized Trials of Psychosocial Treatments for Pediatric Mood Disorders. Dr. Black runs the Biological and Environmental Risk for Affective
Disorders Lab at UNO and is interested in how “parenting, parental psychopathology, and stress may interact with biological processes to leave children and adolescents especially vulnerable to psychopathology across the lifespan.”

Stacy Overstreet, PhD, Lea Petrovic, MS, and Whitney Davis, MA, from Tulane University, will present, “Advancing an Equity Agenda in Trauma-Informed Schools,” for the Symposium, “The Social Justice Implications of Trauma-Sensitive Schools—A Critical Dialogue.” Dr. Overstreet has led a group of psychologists and community partners in a first-of-its-kind study for learning how schools can best meet the needs of traumatized youngsters. She and her team received a $2.1 million grant from The Institute of Justice.

Alexandra E. Bookis, from Tulane University, will present, “Practicing and Teaching Parental Control,” in the Skill-Building Session: Leading Parenting Groups—How To Teach the Art of Balancing Warmth and Control.

Julie Arseneau, PhD, Southeast Louisiana Veterans Health Care System, New Orleans, will join Penelope Asay, PhD, Illinois School of Professional Psychology for the Roundtable Discussion V, “Addressing Sexual Harassment of Clinical Trainees in an Ethical, Empowering, and Compassionate Way.”

In the Paper Reading Session: III—”Social Value and Social Justice,” Pallavi Singh, PhD, and Tracey Rizzuto, PhD, Louisiana State University will present, “Understanding Partnerships in a PolicyMandated Environment Through Social Network Analysis.” Dr. Tracey Rizzuto is Associate Director at the LSU School of Leadership and Human Resource Development and has worked in violence prevention at the Baton Rouge Area Violence Elimination (BRAVE) program and Crime Strategies Unit (CSU). She has helped build a partnership with the Centre for Counter– Intelligence in Denmark where they have a jihadi re-entry program very similar to the BRAVE program and was selected by the Department of Justice to participate in the Office of Justice Programs Diagnostic Center.

For the APA Poster Session: I Kimberly Hutchinson, PhD, Lawrence Dilks, PhD, and Billie Myers, PhD, of the Southwest Louisiana (SWLA) Psychology Consortium, Lake Charles, Louisiana; Burton Ashworth, PhD, University of Louisiana at Monroe; and Mindy StutzmanMoore, PhD, SWLA Psychology Consortium, will present research on, “Mixed Dementia: What Does It Really Look Like?”

For a Poster Session: Early Career Research and Innovation, Michael V. Garza, MA, Louisiana Tech University; and Ashley C. Santos, BA, Northwestern University, and Lore M. Dickey, PhD, North Country HealthCare, Bullhead City, AZ, will present “Functions of Self-Injury in a Transgender Sample: Exploratory Factor Analysis.”

In Poster Session: II, Keoshia Harris, MA, Louisiana Tech University, will present, “A Qualitative Examination of the Strong Black Woman Schema in Black College Women,” with co-researchers.

“Cognitive Variability Is Related to Cognitive and Functional Status: Findings from the Civa Study,” will be presented by Alyssa N. De Vito, MA, Matthew Calamia, PhD, Scott Roye, MA,
Ashley Pomes, Kristen Chedville, Lainey Henican, and Gabriel Daniels, all from Louisiana State University.

Eric Deemer, PhD, Purdue University; Stacey Duhon, PhD, Grambling State University; and DiLean SaintJean, MS, Louisiana Tech University; and Seoyoung Lim, MS, Purdue University, will present, “Validation of the Stereotype Threat in Science Scale-Race (STSS-R),” in the Poster Session: II—”Theory, Methods, and Measurement.”

Theresa A. Wozencraft, PhD, Manyu Li, PhD, Thomas Cain, BS, Marissa Pitt, BS, Alexandra G. Nordman, and Caroline Wegener, from the University of Louisiana at Lafayette, will present, “Coping, Distress, and WellBeing in Gulf Coast Natural Disaster Victims.”

Christopher Monceaux, MS, Louisiana Tech University; Melanie Lantz, PhD, Oklahoma State UniversityStillwater; and Dena M. Abbott, PhD, Louisiana Tech University, will present, “The Relationship Between Bisexual Counseling Competence, Moral Reasoning, and Attitudes.”

In Poster Session: III— Contemporary Issues in Counseling Psychology, Dena
M. Abbott, PhD, Louisiana Tech University and co-authors will present, “Sexuality Training in Counseling Psychology.”

Yang Yang, PhD, Hung-Chu Lin, PhD, and Manyu Li, PhD, from University of Louisiana at Lafayette, will present, “Resilience and Gender Moderating the Relation Between Paternal Rejection and Health-Risk Behaviors.”

Jarrad D. Hodge, BS, and Michael Cunningham, PhD, from Tulane University, will present “Academic Achievement, Youth Experiences, and the Role of Academic Self-Esteem as a Potential Buffer,” for Poster Session: I—Assessment and Intervention to Improve Mental Health and Behavior Across Contexts.

Dr. Cunningham is Professor of Psychology at Tulane University, who holds a Joint Appointment as Provost in the African and African Diaspora Studies Program. Dr. Cunningham’s work is uniformly esteemed and he was honored in 2013 with the Distinguished Contributions Award from the prestigious Society for Research in Child Development, among others. He is Editor for Research in Human Development (20182024), Associate Editor for Child Development (2007 – present), and on the Editorial Board Member Journal of Negro Education (2011 – 2017), among many other scholarly activities where his expertise in the psychology of racially diverse individuals is utilized. He is the 2018 recipient of the 2018 Award for Psychology in the Public Interest by the Louisiana Psychological Association.

For Poster Session: IV— Critical Topics in DataBased Decision-Making and Professional Issues Kathryn A. Simon, MS, MEd, Lea Petrovic, MS, Stacy Overstreet, PhD, and Courtney N. Baker, PhD, from Tulane University will present, “The Cost of Caring: Predictors of Compassion Fatigue Among Urban Public Charter School Teachers.”

In Poster Session: III— System-Level Assessment, Intervention, and Consultation, “Assessing the Association Between Teachers’ Emotional Regulation Strategies and Self-Efficacy,” will be presented by Jason S. Frydman, PhD, MA, Courtney N. Baker, PhD, and Stacy Overstreet, PhD, Tulane University.

 

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