Category Archives: Graduate School

APAGS CSOGD Committee Spotlight: JD Goates

This blog post is a part of a series developed by the APAGS Committee on Sexual Orientation and Gender Diversity (CSOGD) to celebrate LGBTQ+ graduate student leaders in psychology. If you are interested in learning more about APAGS-CSOGD and leadership opportunities within APAGS, please contact Emily Boswell (she/her). 

What is your name and pronouns?

JD Goates (They/Them)

What is your program and year?

Rising 3rd year student in Counseling Psychology PhD program at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville

What brought you to CSOGD?

From the first few years of my undergraduate, I had wanted to get involved with APA in various queer advocacy efforts. Working for the empowerment of queer students had been fundamental to my core identity for many years. I quickly recognized that CSOGD was a strong fit with me in its collaborative efforts across APA and other organizations for the advocacy of LGBTQ students. I have been so lucky in my short time in CSOGD to work with some incredible people.

What LGBTQ+ advocacy projects are you involved in?

Currently, I am involved in various non-profits seeking to provide resources to queer youth and their families in my home state of Utah. Additionally, I am working with groups that provide physical, financial, and mental health resources to students attending universities with restrictive and anti-LGBTQIA+ policies.

What are your research interests and experiences?

Broadly, my research focuses on my communities—fat and LGBTQIA+ folks’ experiences as they relate to internalized stigma, minority stress, and professional empowerment. Previously, I have done work in help-seeking behaviors of LGBTQIA+ college students as well as individuals’ engagement in activism and the disruption of anti-fat attitudes. I am currently finishing my thesis, a grounded theory study focused on the experiences and practices of non-binary psychotherapists and am excited to get started on my next projects!

What are your clinical interests?

Clinically, my interests are primarily focused on using emotion focused therapies through a Liberation Psychology lens with queer folks, individuals seeking bilingual (Spanish) services, and clients from traumatic religious experiences in community mental health.

What other interests do you have?

I am a huge outdoors and music person. Growing up in Utah meant that the mountains were my playground, and, as a classically trained vocalist, my opera house on occasion. 

This blog post is a part of a series developed by the APAGS Committee on Sexual Orientation and Gender Diversity (CSOGD) to celebrate LGBTQ+ graduate student leaders in psychology. If you are interested in learning more about APAGS-CSOGD and leadership opportunities within APAGS, please contact Emily Boswell (she/her). 

What is your name and pronouns?

Allison Gregg (she/her/hers)

What is your program and year?

3rd year doctoral candidate at UT Southwestern’s Clinical Psychology PhD Program

What brought you to CSOGD?

I wanted to work with other students/ trainees across psychology disciplines to create a more inclusive environment for LGBTQIA+ folx. Often times the experience of being a queer student can be isolating regardless of your program’s dynamic, and so it was important to me to contribute to efforts aiming to connect and support other queer students as CSOGD does.

What LGBTQ+ advocacy projects are you involved in?

I recently joined the Society for Clinical Neuropsychology’s Diversity Subcommittee of the Public Interest Advisory Committee to aid in efforts to increase inclusion, representation, and equitable assessment of LGBTQIA+ individuals in clinical neuropsychology. I’m also involved in local advocacy and outreach efforts for trans kids here in Texas.

What are your research interests and experiences?

My research interests focus on the neurocognitive impact of Major Depressive Disorder, as well as the cognitive effects of antidepressant neuromodulation interventions.

What are your clinical interests?

My area of focus is in clinical neuropsychology, and I am interested in the affirmative and inclusive neuropsychological assessment of individuals along with differential diagnosis of various neurocognitive disorders. 

What other interests do you have?

Taking care of my two pups and exploring new restaurants, parks, and museums with my girlfriend.

Introducing the 2022 PSRG Winners

Sponsored yearly by APAGS, all APA graduate student affiliates are eligible to apply for the  Psychological Science Research Grant (PSRG), a $1,000 grant used to fund innovative research projects conducting psychological science research studies, with additional funding reserved specifically for diversity-focused research. This year, 12 exceptional graduate student projects have been selected from the pool of highly competitive applications. Below are summaries and highlights of their awarded projects. 

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Scary Statistics: Resources to Help Reduce Fear and Get on with Your Research

Statistics can seem scary and unapproachable: maybe math was not always your strongest subject or you’re still processing the trauma of by-hand ANOVAs in undergraduate statistics classes. Luckily, this blog is designed to help you make friends with statistics and move forward with your research. Specifically, I’ll focus on resources to help guide you through: 1) deciding which statistical analyses to run for a given question and 2) tools to use to run those statistical analyses.

Part 1: Choosing an appropriate statistical analysis

Step 1: Be familiar with commonly-used statistical analyses.

  • This free online self-paced course covers correlations, probability, confidence intervals, and significance tests.
  • This free online self-paced course covers regression, comparing groups, ANOVA, and non-parametric tests.
  • CenterStat provides free videos on youtube, including Structural Equation Modeling (or sign up for a free live class!)
    • They also offer classes on a wide range of more advanced statistics topics for a fee on their website.
  • If you prefer written information, Professor Peggy Kern created very helpful handouts!

Step 2: Choosing a statistical analysis to address your question.

  • You should consider whether the outcome of your analysis is addressing your research question. For example, if you did a correlation but you don’t know what the r value means for your research question, then you have wasted your time.
  • You also want to make sure that your research design/methods meet the requirements for the statistical test. For example, if you wanted to do an independent samples t-test but only have 1 group, then you are using the wrong test.
    • Decision trees can help visualize how to narrow down which test to use and what aspects to consider when choosing a test.

Source: https://www.peggykern.org/uploads/5/6/6/7/56678211/edu90790_decision_chart.pdf

Part 2: Using Statistical Software

  • Your University may have access to statistical software such as SPSS, SAS, and Matlab. In addition, R is free to download on their website and provides powerful statistical computing and graphics.

In conclusion, statistics are a powerful tool to use in research. With the right support, you too can learn to use it appropriately and effectively. Do not rush into running statistical tests, but first assess whether the test is appropriate. Learning a new statistical software, like R, takes time. Don’t be discouraged if you are learning it slowly, the best way to learn is to try!

Best of luck on your statistical journey!

Transgender in Science: The Power of Mesearch

This blog post is a part of the series, “So Good,” developed by the APAGS Committee for Sexual Orientation and Gender Diversity. This series will discuss current events and how these events relate to LGBTQ+ graduate students in psychology. If you are interested in contributing to the “So Good” series, please contact Mallaigh McGinley (they/them).

I believe that science can help us move towards a more kind, more just, and more equitable world, and that science can truly change lives for the better. When I initially attended undergrad from 2004-2006, I found I was consistently questioning myself and my life’s path. I felt, as I had for my entire life, that there was something wrong with me. No matter how hard I tried, I could not come up with the answers I needed to be successful. What I needed was to take the time necessary to figure out what I perceived was wrong with me, and to figure out what my path could actually be. I finally returned to continue my undergraduate degree in the Spring of 2015 after pursuing a completely different career in the restaurant industry. While I hadn’t exactly figured out what felt off, I did have a path – I saw the way the world treated those who did not fit within the standard conceptions of what was “normal” (e.g., transgender people, queer folks, BIPOC), and I wanted to do something to make it better. It’s the typical undergraduate student’s reason for pursuing an education in psychology: I wanted to help people. Less than one month after returning, I began to see news articles about the first in a series of papers from a longitudinal study following transgender children (Olson, Key, & Eaton, 2015). Reading the coverage of this article, and eventually the article itself, helped me realize that there were children out there who felt the way that I had felt as a child, and that they were remarkably similar to their cisgender peers. What this told me in that moment was that the way that I had felt all my life wasn’t beyond normal human variation; there was nothing wrong with me. It was then that I realized the power of scientific research to impact individuals and societies, while engaging in positive social change. While we have talked many times since I initially reached out to her, I don’t know if I have ever actually told Kristina that the article itself actually led me to becoming comfortable with who I am, and it led coming out. So… thanks, Kristina!

But we still live in a world where transgender people are misunderstood and discriminated against, in spite of landmark court decisions like Bostock v. Clayton County as well as the so-called “Transgender Tipping Point” that Time magazine declared in 2014.

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