University: Howard University
Hometown: Chicago, IL
NIH Research Project:
The Use of Racial Stereotypes in Physician Clinical Decision Making
Mentor: Colleen McBride, Ph.D.
Social and Behavioral Research Branch
National Human Genome Research Institute
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This spring I obtained my B.S. in psychology with a minor in chemistry from Howard University, and this fall I will begin a Ph.D. program in counseling psychology at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
Since my freshman year in college I have immersed myself in the research culture and have taken advantage of many opportunities that provided me with specific skills and opportunities to prove myself in the field of psychological research. I have participated in the Howard University College of Arts and Sciences Honors Program, the Career Opportunities in Research Program, the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Summer Research Opportunities Program, and the Howard University Ronald E. McNair Post-baccalaureate Achievement Program, all which provided me with additional knowledge and experiences in the field of psychological research.
Over these years I had the opportunity to conduct research with both personality and clinical psychologists and to complete a senior honors thesis entitled Skin Color Satisfaction: An Examination of the Expression of Race Self Complexity in Discourse Related to Skin Color, which served to combine these interests.
Through my experience as a UGSP Scholar, I have the opportunity to gain further experiences with interdisciplinary research by working with Dr. Colleen McBride in the Social and Behavioral Research Branch of the National Human Genome Research Institute. This summer, I am working on a project that looks at the activation of racial stereotypes on minority patients by primary care physicians. It is the ultimate goal of this project to understand if this stereotype activation affects the incidence of referrals for genetic testing in at-risk populations. |
