Kelly is in her first year in the SDSU MA in Psychology program. She graduated fall of 2023 with my BA in Psychology at California State University Northridge (CSUN). During my second year at East Los Angeles Community College, she began as a research assistant through the Building Infrastructure Leading to Diversity (BUILD) Promoting Opportunities for Diversity in Education and Research (PODER) program which continued after she transferred to CSUN. During her three years as a BUILD student researcher, she worked in two labs which aimed to promote and study mental health within historically marginalized groups. Over her summers, she participated in summer research programs such as BUILD Research Collaboratory (BRC) Summer Coding Research by San Francisco State University which was held virtually, and the Summer Training Academy for Research Success (STARS)at the University of California, San Diego (UCSD) where she worked on a project studying the “Determinants of Mental Health Utilization Among Youth: The Roles of Race, Need, and Feeling Cared For”.
Research foci: Mental Health in minoritized communities, long term outcomes of childhood
adversity, Black and Latinx community mental health, Cultural impacts on mental health,
Interventions to promote mental health, school mental health, mental health seeking behavior, and
children/adolescent overall well-being
Research Interest:
Kelly is interested in studying factors that contribute to poor mental health particularly what interventions
and tools promote overall well being in marginalized and underserved communities.
Hobbies:
Kelly loves to swim and dive into the waves at the beach, sightseeing (especially at sunset), karaoke,
trying new hobbies, and food places.