Social Justice & Diversity Awards

It is with much pride that we can now share with you the names of the students who submitted essays and will receive the Social Justice/Diversity Committee’s first Student Equity awards. We have often talked about the great need for more clinical psychologists from diverse backgrounds and now we have actually contributed our small part to improving that situation. The essays we received were of exceptional quality with respect to the students’ experiences, their academic accomplishments, and their commitment to further the issues of equity in the practice of clinical psychology.

First, I want to thank our Co-Presidents David Blasband, PhD and Cheryl Bowers, PhD for so fully and thoughtfully supporting this program when I first presented it to them. I also want to acknowledge, with much gratitude to my three colleagues; Max Camarillo,Ph.D, Kirsten Carraway, Ph.D. and Jon Girvetz, Ph.D, who agreed along with me to serve on our ad hoc Awards committee to read and rate students’ essays as well as to provide mentoring sessions for the awardees. Most importantly, we could not have provided these deserving awards without our Board’s support and, especially, without all of you, our MBPA members, who so generously and caringly contributed to the monetary awards given to the students.

Here are the awardees:

First place awardees receiving $2,500 each are Zaida Lopez from CSUMB and Samantha Chacon Sifuentes from UCSC.

Second place awardees receiving $1,000 each are Melissa-Ann Lagunas from CSUMB and Yoko Katahira-Ables from UCSC.

I received heartfelt notes of appreciation from all the students upon learning of the results.

With much gratitude to all,

Diane Bridgeman, PhD

Chair, MBPA Social Justice/Diversity Committee