Jenessa Shapiro Graduate Research Award

The Jenessa Shapiro Graduate Research Award provides assistance to a graduate student from an underrepresented background with the cost of conducting research in personality and/or social psychology up to $1,000. A minimum of two student awards are given per year. This award can be given at any stage of a student’s graduate career; that is, the research does not need to be part of the student’s dissertation.

Award Info

About the Award

This year’s recipients

Marielena Barbieri, University of Massachusetts Amherst

Marielena Barbieri is a graduate student in the department of Psychological and Brain Sciences at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. Her research focuses on examining how exposure to stressors impact Latinx adolescent’s health outcomes using a biopsychosocial lens and identifying sources of resiliency that may serve to be protective.

Aldo M. Barrita, University of Nevada, Las Vegas

Aldo Barrita is a queer Mexican-immigrant, 3rd year doctoral student in the Psychological and Brain Sciences PhD program at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. His research explores the immediate impact of microaggressions on racial and sexual minoritized individuals, including bilingual psychometrics development for these everyday attacks.

Sakshi Ghai, University of Cambridge

Sakshi Ghai is a third-year doctoral student in Psychology at the University of Cambridge with affiliations to the Department of Psychology and the MRC Cognition and Brain Sciences Unit. Her research focuses on the cognitive and social effects of digital technologies, specifically in the context of gender and the Global South. Sakshi is hoping to diversify behavioral science.

Jeanean B. Naqvi, Carnegie Mellon University

Jeanean Naqvi is a doctoral candidate at Carnegie Mellon University whose research examines how culture, race, and gender moderate the impact that close relationships have on health.

Apoorva Sarmal, University of Georgia

Apoorva Sarmal is a second year PhD student in the Psychology Department at the University of Georgia where she works with Dr. Allison Skinner-Dorkenoo. She is interested in investigating underlying mechanisms of stereotyping and prejudice. Specifically, Apoorva researches race and gender disparities to promote diversity and inclusion.

Richard Edgar Smith, II, University of Michigan

Richard Smith II is a Ph.D. candidate in the Personality and Social Contexts Psychology program at the University of Michigan. Broadly, his research investigates how historically marginalized people experience and respond to various identity threats, with a unique focus on how differing coping strategies impact psychological, physical, and interpersonal outcomes.

Brittany Rae Torrez, Yale University

Brittany Rae Torrez is a fourth-year doctoral student in Organizational Behavior at Yale School of Management. Brittany Rae is broadly interested in understanding the psychological processes that contribute to the reproduction of inequality during organizational hiring and evaluation processes with the aim of uncovering barriers that marginalized groups encounter in organizations.

About the Award

The award is named in memory of UCLA professor Jenessa Shapiro, who thought it was extremely important to promote diversity and inclusion in her lab, at the university, and in the field more generally. Jenessa took concrete actions to do this in a number of ways, ranging from volunteering for mentorship lunches at professional conferences to serving on committees to address issues of diversity within her departments as well as at the National Institutes of Health. She also engaged in countless other less visible activities to contribute to the goals of diversity, inclusion, and social justice that she never advertised.

Eligibility

Requirements

1. Applicants must be graduate students in personality and/or social psychology in good standing with their university. Applicants must be enrolled full-time (or working on their dissertation research for an equivalent of full-time enrollment regardless of actual registration status).

2. The research may be in any area of social or personality psychology.

3. Applicants must be a member of an underrepresented group in social/personality psychology (these groups include, but are not necessarily limited to, ethnic and racial minorities; first-generation college students; lesbian, gay and bisexual students; transgender students; and students with a physical disability).

4. Applicants cannot have previously won the Jenessa Shapiro Graduate Research Award.

How to Apply

Submission Criteria

A description of the proposed research (no more than 2 pages single-spaced).
One additional paragraph describing the use of funds if awarded.
A current CV
A sentence or two specifying which underrepresented group(s) you consider yourself to be a part of (these groups include, but are not necessarily limited to: ethnic and racial minorities; first-generation college students; lesbian, gay and bisexual students; transgender students; and students with a physical disability). This information is being collected for the purpose of creating a representative group of awardees.

Advisor Recommendation

A letter of recommendation from the applicant’s academic advisor is required to complete the application process. Please note that this letter has a maximum length of (1) page, single-spaced. Please communicate to the faculty member who will write your recommendation letter the importance of adhering to this maximum page limit. In addition, please do not submit more than one letter of recommendation; only one will be forwarded for review. The letter writer will submit his/her letter on-line.

How to Submit

apply here

The application period is February 20 - April 20.

Past Recipients

2020

Adaora Ubaka, University of Illinois at Chicago

Ariana Munoz-Salgado, University of Michigan

Danielle Parra, University of Michigan

Derek Brown, UC Berkeley Haas School of Business

Jordan Wylie, City University of New York

Joyce He, University of Toronto Rotman School of Management

Katlyn Lee Milless, The Graduate Center, CUNY

Kimberly Martin, UCLA Michael Perez, Texas A&M University

Mikaela Spruill, Cornell University

Mitchell R. Campbell, University of Wisconsin - Madison

Shauna M. Bowes, Emory University

Tyler Jimenez, University of Missouri

2019

Lucy De Souza, The American University of British Columbia

Danica Kulbert, Tulane University

Jaboa Lake, Portland State University

Angelica Leigh, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill

Ariel Mosley, University of Kansas

Eugene Ofosu, McGill University

Zachary Reese, University of Michigan

Contact

For more information, please contact awards@spsp.org

Share this page