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CPA Research Committee

Research Resources for Psychologists, Trainees, and Scholar‑Practitioners

Expanding access. Strengthening mentorship. Increasing real‑world impact.

The CPA Research Committee exists to expand access to high‑quality psychological research—especially for students, early‑career psychologists, clinicians, and colleagues working in applied and resource‑limited settings across California.

This resource hub is designed to lower barriers to research participation, support mentorship and skill‑building, and help translate psychological science into clinical, community, and policy impact.

👥 Who This Resource Is For

• Graduate students and postdoctoral fellows

• Faculty at teaching‑focused or resource‑limited institutions

• Clinicians interested in practice‑based or applied research

• Psychologists new to grants, publishing, or conference presentation

• Community‑engaged, health equity, and policy‑oriented researchers

🧭 How to Use This Page

• Check grants quarterly and note early concept deadlines

• Track conferences 6–9 months ahead for posters and symposia

• Use trainings to fill methods gaps before submitting proposals

• Pair resources with mentorship and collaboration whenever possible

🔬 Grants & Funding Opportunities

NIH Support for Research Excellence (SuRE) Award (R16)
Calling faculty researchers at resource‑limited institutions—this NIH mechanism is designed to expand research capacity and support sustainable research programs.

APA Grants & Funding Opportunities
A centralized hub of funding opportunities across psychology and behavioral science.
👉 https://www.apa.org/research-practice/funding

APA Division 38 – Graduate Student Research Award
Focused support for graduate students conducting health psychology research.
👉 https://societyforhealthpsychology.org/awards/graduate-student-awards/

🧠 Conferences & Professional Meetings (2025–2026)

Conferences are powerful spaces for learning, dissemination, networking, and mentorship. Below are key regional and national meetings relevant to psychological science, behavioral health, and policy.

• California Psychological Association (CPA) Conference
  👉 https://www.cpapsych.org/general/custom.asp?page=24

• American Psychological Association (APA) Annual Convention
  👉 https://convention.apa.org/

• California Hospital Association – Behavioral Health Symposium
  👉 https://calhospital.org/events/2025-behavioral-symposium/

• CBHDA Behavioral Health Policy Forum
  Transforming Behavioral Health: Changing Lives
  👉 https://www.cbhda.org/bhpf

• California Mental Health Advocates for Children & Youth Conference
  👉 https://cmhacy.org/2026-conference/

• California Behavioral Health Association
  👉 https://www.calbha.org/become-a-member/

• Los Angeles County Psychological Association (LACPA) Annual Convention
  👉 https://www.lacpa.org/annual-convention

• Sacramento Valley Psychological Association Annual Conference
  👉 https://sacramentovalleypsychologist.com/SVPAs-Annual-Conference

📊 Poster Sessions & Abstract Submissions

Society for Biopsychosocial Science and Medicine
Opportunities for poster and paper submissions highlighting interdisciplinary and applied research.
👉 Meeting Submission Portal

🧮 Statistics, Methods, & Data Science Training

Statistics (General)

• Numiqo Statistics Training (YouTube)
  👉 https://www.youtube.com/@numiqo

R Programming

• Marin Statistical Lectures (YouTube)
  👉 https://www.youtube.com/@marinstatlectures

MATLAB

• MATLAB Training Playlist
  👉 https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PL7CAABC40B2825C8B&si=ntDJ0n2fN4aUbtBj

JASP (Free Statistical Software)

• JASP Training Playlist
  👉 https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLVI_iGT5ZuRnIqpav1UaadEJmj2e8QHzn&si=3wNe5of5EmK7ztYf

🧪 NIH & APA Research Training Resources

NIH Office of Behavioral and Social Sciences Research (OBSSR)
Online research training resources across methods, design, and translation.
👉 https://obssr.od.nih.gov/training/online-training-resources

APA Science Training Sessions
👉 https://www.apa.org/education-career/training/science-training-sessions

Publishing & Presenting Research (APA)
👉 https://www.apa.org/research-practice/publish-present

Peer Review in Psychology (APA)
👉 https://www.apa.org/research-practice/peer-review

📈 TADA‑BSSR & Advanced Methods Webinars

Integrating Data Analytics into the Social & Behavioral Science Research Lifecycle
👉

Translating Domain Knowledge into Mechanistic Process Models
👉

Analyzing Complex Behavioral, Social, and Population Health Data (COVID‑19 & Beyond)
👉

OBSSR Methodology Seminar: Text Mining for Behavioral & Social Sciences Research
👉 https://videocast.nih.gov/summary.asp?Live=33304&bhcp=1

🤝 Stay Connected

The CPA Research Committee is committed to mentorship, equity, and building a thriving research ecosystem for psychologists at every career stage.

📩 Subscribe for Updates

Subscribe to receive:

• Funding and grant alerts

• Research trainings and webinars

• Conference deadlines and calls for abstracts

• Mentorship and collaboration opportunities

🤝 Get Involved

Interested in contributing or connecting?

• Submit a resource for inclusion

• Join a CPA Research Committee working group

• Explore mentorship or consultation opportunities

We prioritize resources that support equity, access, and participation for psychologists from historically excluded and resource‑limited settings.

This page is curated by the CPA Research Committee and updated regularly.

— CPA Research Committee

CPA Research Newsletter – Field Notes Issue #2

Welcome to Psychology Field Notes, a newsletter spotlighting clinician-led research, applied innovations, and practice-informed policy from across California and beyond. Here you’ll find stories that connect psychological science to real-world care, equity, and systems change.

Featured Article: Research In Action Spotlight Article

Evaluation Is Research: How Intersections Consulting Equips Programs to Lead With Evidence and Equity
Dr. Darlene Hall’s journey into program evaluation didn’t start in a lab—it began in the pairing of women’s studies courses and an undergraduate research methods class. One invited her to question systems of power; the other gave her tools to study those questions rigorously. Together, they sparked a lifelong passion: using research not just to understand the world, but to help transform it. Read more →

Section 1: CPA Research Committee News (Ongoing Initiatives)

1.1 CPA Research Committee Update: APA 2025 Highlights
California researchers are leading national conversations in psychology. From health equity to integrated care, CPA members are shaping the future of research at this year’s APA Convention. Read more →

1.2 CPA Research Committee Update: Convention 2024 Highlights
At this year’s CPA Convention, research committee members shared insights on gender diversity, public health, and reimagining research design. Read more →

1.3 CPA Research Committee Update: Mentorship Program Recap & What’s Next Supporting California’s next generation of clinician-researchers.
This year’s mentorship program fostered meaningful cross-stage connections, with new opportunities already launching for 2025. Read more →

Section 2: What’s New in California Research

2.1 Dissertation Spotlight: Beyond Bars – Reentry, Race, and Resilience
Exploring resilience and reentry through the voices of formerly incarcerated Black men. This powerful qualitative study reveals how identity, mentorship, and healing intersect in reentry, challenging systems to do better. Read more →

2.2 Dissertation Spotlight: A Student’s Academic Impact, Vision for Research, and Journey to Becoming a Psychologist. Read more →
Christine Hagion-Rzepka’s research shows how student-led inquiry, rooted in lived experience, can illuminate healing and justice.

2.3 Dissertation Spotlight: Amin Salek on the Placebo/Nocebo Effect and the Mind-Body Bridge. Integrating neuroscience, belief, and healing in health psychology.
Dr. Amin Salek, a graduate of Loma Linda University, explores how expectations shape outcomes in his high-impact dissertation, offering a new lens for integrated care. Read more →

Section 3: Learn and Grow: Workshops, Tools & Resources

3.1 Culturally Responsive Research Skills: A Tool-Rich Guide for Clinicians and Students
Actionable frameworks for more ethical and equity-driven research. This resource-packed guide walks you through conceptual models, readiness checklists, and participatory methods to deepen your practice. Read more →

3.2 Building Trust, Being Change: Culturally Responsive Research Partnerships
When research starts with community, everyone benefits. This spotlight on culturally grounded research highlights the work of Dr. Isha Metzger and the power of centering those most impacted. Read more →

3.3 From Silos to Synergy: A Clinician’s Call for Integrated Research
What if every care setting became a site of discovery? This perspective piece offers a bold vision for embedding research into clinical workflows and building systems that learn from care.
Read more →

3.4 Training & Online Learning Tools for Psychology Researchers
Free, accessible training to build research and clinical capacity. Explore interactive modules and updated NIH courses designed to support ethical, community-engaged research in real-world settings. Read more →

3.5 Start with Ethics, End with Impact: Online GCP Training for Social and Behavioral Research
Updated training to support responsible, inclusive, community-based research.
This Good Clinical Practice course, refreshed in 2024, equips investigators with the skills to lead safe, ethical, and stakeholder-engaged studies. Read more →

3.6 APA Inclusive Neuroscience Training Series: From Margins to Mainstream
Equity-focused learning at the intersection of brain science and identity. This self-paced APA training centers inclusive neuroscience, helping psychologists and trainees apply culture-conscious methods in research and care. Read more →

3.7 Training for Complexity: NIH/JHU Mixed Methods Research Tool
Design better studies for real-world health questions. This free tool supports clinicians and researchers in planning, executing, and analyzing mixed methods studies across diverse populations. Read more →

Section 4: Funding, Grants, and Awards Opportunities

4.1 Spotlighting the Future of Psychology: Apply for National Recognition
Nominate a colleague—or yourself—for early career awards. These prestigious APA awards uplift California psychologists and expand our impact on the national stage. Read more →

Section 5: Advocacy in Psychological Science

5.1 Advocacy Without Testifying: Tools for Action
Want to make change without taking the mic? Here’s how. From meetings with legislators to grassroots organizing, this guide outlines practical, powerful ways psychologists can advance policy. Read more →

5.2 Protecting Progress: APA Joins Nationwide Call Against Project 2025
Psychologists are taking a stand to protect science, equity, and human rights. Learn how APA and national partners are responding to threats posed by Project 2025—and what’s at stake for mental health systems. Read more →

Section 6: Research Tools

6.1 Kudos App: A New Tool to Amplify Your Research Reach
Make your findings discoverable, citable, and public-friendly. Kudos helps psychologists translate and promote their work, turning publications into powerful tools for impact and engagement. Read more →

6.2 The Future of Staying Current: AI Tools to Track and Translate Research
New tools are changing how clinicians engage with science. Explore how AI-driven apps can help psychologists keep up with fast-moving fields—while making evidence more actionable in daily practice. Read more →

6.3 Free, Friendly, and Fully Capable: How JASP is Changing the Research Game
An open-source tool for APA-compliant statistics—without the learning curve. JASP offers clinicians, students, and community researchers an intuitive alternative to SPSS, with full functionality for real-world analysis. Read more →

Section 7: Call to Action

6.1 Research takes a Team—Let’s Build California Research Team Together Read more →

Field Notes - CPA Research in Action | 2025

Christine Hagion-Rzepka’s research is a profound reminder of what student-led inquiry can offer our field—when research grows from lived experience, it can illuminate paths to healing, justice, and structural change.

For psychology students navigating trauma, disability, or nontraditional pathways, her work models how lived experience can become a powerful research compass. Now pursuing her second doctorate—this time in clinical psychology at Saybrook University—Hagion-Rzepka brings more than two decades of experience as a pastoral counselor, nonprofit founder, and disability rights advocate.

Her dissertation, The Healing Journey of Domestic Violence Survivors (HJDVS), reanalyzes archival interview data using grounded theory to explore the process of how women who survived domestic violence within a heterosexual marital context continue to endeavor to recover decades after the trauma. For California Psychological Association (CPA) students and early-career professionals, this research offers both inspiration and direction: a testament to the power of survivor-led inquiry and practice-based evidence.

Mapping the Healing Pathway

The HJDVS study generated a five-phase conceptual model, A Conceptual Map of the Healing Pathway, that charts survivors’ long-term healing process. This model challenges the myth that healing is automatic over time. Instead, it underscores the necessity of intentional engagement, relational support, and inner work. It also names the nonlinear nature of healing, including potential setbacks or “detours” on the healing trajectory, where sometimes participants regressed or stagnated rather than progressing toward wholeness. In contrast, post-traumatic growth was present in many, though not all, of the participants in this heuristic study, demonstrated by meaning-making, transformation, and a new sense of self in which the victimization experience was integrated into the participant’s self-concept.

“This study refutes the myth that healing is a mere function of time and instead shows it requires active engagement and intentional effort.”
— Paraphrased from The Healing Journey of Domestic Violence Survivors

For clinicians and educators, the model offers a practice-based roadmap for understanding long-term survivor experiences—rich in nuance, rooted in lived experience, and attuned to growth as well as acknowledging the significant losses inherent in intimate betrayal and victimization perpetrated by a spouse.

Student Experience: Honoring the Whole Journey

For students managing chronic illness, disability, caregiving responsibilities, or trauma histories, Christine’s route is a powerful reminder that excellence doesn’t require erasure. Her success challenges the idea that only linear, uninterrupted training pathways produce strong clinicians. In fact, it may be the layered experiences—of healing, surviving, returning—that deepen one’s clinical presence.

Christine became disabled herself as a result of domestic violence. Rather than minimizing this part of her life, she has made it central to her scholarship. Her most recent chapter, “The Invisible Minority: Addressing Disability in Graduate Psychology Training Programs,” critiques ableism in psychology training and outlines actionable steps toward inclusion. These include:

• Integrating disability as an important topic in curricula, not only as an overlooked element of diversity, but as an understudied and underserved population in its own right

• Ensuring physical and cognitive access to learning, alternatives to assessment protocols, and clinical sites

• Allowing flexible timelines without stigma

• Designing learning environments that honor embodied or neurodivergent differences

These insights resonate powerfully for CPA graduate student members, many of whom are actively navigating both professional demands and systemic barriers.

Calling in What’s Missing: Expanding the Lens

Importantly, Hagion-Rzepka names the current limits of her dataset. The HJDVS sample includes only cisgender women in heterosexual marriages. She openly acknowledges the need for future research with male, queer, transgender, and nonbinary survivors. Rather than viewing this as a flaw, she frames it as a research invitation: the beginning of a longer journey of inclusion and complexity in trauma-informed scholarship with other populations of interest.

It is important for researchers to see themselves not just as inheritors of existing research, but as architects of what’s next. Christine’s work asks us to lean forward into new models of creation and develop processes that are more humane, inclusive, and empowering for people with diverse experiences, including a wide range of ability statuses.

Training Implications for Supervisors and Faculty

Christine’s work also speaks directly to faculty, supervisors, and training program leaders. Her dual identity as both a disabled scholar and clinical trainee sheds light on how policies, language, and culture can exclude—or empower—emerging professionals.

She calls on educators to:

• Examine ableist assumptions in evaluation metrics

• Practice flexibility without lowering rigor

• Understand how trauma or disability may shape supervision relationships

• Provide mentorship that affirms lived experience as a source of insight

One concrete recommendation: invite students to bring their personal lens into case formulation—as a form of epistemology. Who we are shapes how we see, what we notice, and what we value. Good training makes space for that complexity.

Spiritual Integration and Transformational Healing

As both an ordained minister and a psychologist-in-training, Hagion-Rzepka brings a spiritually informed lens to her work. While her dissertation model is secular in design, it carries deep roots in existential meaning-making, sensitivity to spirituality in all its forms, and self-reclamation.

She often references the importance of community, faith, and symbolic healing—elements that are especially resonant in culturally grounded or integrative care models. This dimension of her work adds to the growing call within the field to honor spirituality not just as background, but as a meaningful force in healing.

Practical Applications: A Tool for Therapy, Teaching, and Systems Change

Hagion-Rzepka’s Conceptual Model of the Healing Pathway is clinically implementable. It can be readily adapted in clinical practice, it can validate a client’s nonlinear progress or offer a shared language to describe turning points in recovery. In academic settings, the phases can enrich case formulation exercises or supervision dialogues.

For systems professionals—such as domestic violence victim advocates, clergy, or legal practitioners—the model may support trauma-informed reforms in how survivors are supported, evaluated, or empowered. It could also inform peer-mentorship structures, survivor education materials, or culturally adapted interventions.

A Scholar’s Journey of Impact

Christine Hagion-Rzepka’s academic arc—rooted in faith, resilience, and justice—demonstrates that the journey to becoming a psychologist can be nonlinear, profound, and transformative. She previously earned a doctorate in biblical counseling and holds dual master’s degrees in public health and clinical psychology. She founded a nonprofit for survivors of family violence, which she operated for 15 years prior to returning to graduate school.

Her current work models what Field Notes seeks to amplify: research that is practice-based, equity-oriented, and led by those with lived wisdom. And it offers a quiet revolution for those still in training: you don’t have to leave parts of yourself out of the academy. Sometimes, your story is reflected in your research.

About the Researcher

Christine Hagion-Rzepka is a longtime advocate for people with disabilities and those who are neurodivergent. An ordained minister, she has been a pastoral counselor for two decades and earned her first doctoral degree at Trinity Seminary. She has presented at more than 20 national and international conferences, and served as a peer reviewer for two academic journals for a combined total of 6 years. She is pursuing her second PhD in clinical psychology at Saybrook University with a goal of obtaining licensure.

Recent Publications:

• Hagion-Rzepka, C. (2025). The invisible minority: Addressing disability in graduate psychology training programs. In A. Jesus (Ed.), Instructional Approaches to Health Professions Education. IGI Global. https://doi.org/10.4018/979-8-3693-4334-0.ch13

• Hagion-Rzepka, C. (2024). The role of interpersonal neurobiology, influence of birth trauma, and colic in attachment failure. In S. K. Gupta (Ed.), Handbook of Research on Child and Adolescent Psychology Practices and Interventions. IGI Global. https://doi.org/10.4018/978-1-6684-9983-2.ch007

Master’s Thesis Archive:

• Hagion-Rzepka, C. (2005). Beyond Battering: The Long-Term Effects of Domestic Violence. San José State ScholarWorks.
  https://doi.org/10.31979/etd.ck38-xv5s

This article was developed with the support of OpenAI’s ChatGPT to assist with synthesis and drafting. Final content reflects human review, editorial oversight, and professional judgment

Field Notes - CPA Research in Action | 2025

Evaluation Is Research: How Intersections Consulting Equips Programs to Lead With Evidence and Equity

How one psychologist turns research into a tool for liberation and empowerment

Dr. Darlene Hall’s journey into program evaluation didn’t start in a lab—it began in the pairing of women’s studies courses and an undergraduate research methods class. One invited to question systems of power; the other gave her tools to study those questions rigorously. Together, they sparked a lifelong passion: using research not just to understand the world, but to help transform it.

As a student, she explored how gender norms shaped women’s experiences. That early work helped her realize the value of research outside of academia: research that could be rooted in lived experience and used in the service of justice. Her first research project asked a bold question: How does participation in women’s studies affect students’ views on gender norms? That study brought 1980s feminist curriculum off the page and into lived reality. It was no longer just theory; it was a measurable change. She saw how numbers could reflect human experience and how research could make the invisible visible. Her love of research began.

That passion still drives her today. Today, she runs her own consulting business, Intersections Consulting. One aspect of her business helps mission-driven programs clarify their impact, secure funding, tell their story, and grow—using research tools often seen as inaccessible to community leaders. She demystifies research for these programs by teaching evaluation terms in easy-to-understand and relatable language, helping programs ask meaningful questions, and supporting programs as they create their own evaluation tools. All of this, ultimately, builds internal capacity and power, keeping research knowledge inside the organization. Evaluation becomes a vehicle for reflection, change, and flipping societal power dynamics. For Dr. Hall, program evaluation becomes a liberatory practice—grounded in care, clarity, community, and justice.

Evaluation as Empowerment

For Dr. Hall, program evaluation is far more than metrics and logic models. It's about relationships, justice, and real-world experiences. She’s the first to acknowledge that research has a complicated legacy. “I have a love-hate relationship with research,” she shares. She noted that academics are known to go into communities, take from them, then proclaim expertise on those communities. While research can be used to control, dominate, and shape narratives, it can also affirm lived experience and redistribute tools meant to belong only to the powerful, keeping communities in charge of their own narratives. This is the power of evaluation for Dr. Darlene Hall.

While experiencing exclusion and misuse of power throughout the field since her undergraduate days, Dr. Hall critically engages psychology by integrating it with radical feminism, particularly the writings of lesbians of color such as Audre Lorde. As a graduate student, she leaned on these books on her bookshelf to support the need for research and asking questions that mattered about Black lesbian life. That same spirit guides her evaluation work today.

Coaching Change, Not Just Measuring It

Through her consulting work in program evaluation, Dr. Hall meets programs where they are to build their capacity. She offers technical assistance, coaching, and training grounded in social justice values. One such value is teaching people how to “fish,” not giving them the fish. As a result, staff get equipped with real tools, a stronger sense of ownership and confidence, and a clearer understanding of how to assess what’s working and what needs to grow. With the knowledge gained in evaluation, programs can present their findings at conferences, secure funding, and, most importantly, serve their communities more effectively.

Building a Field That Belongs to Everyone

While students take statistics and research methods courses, these courses do not include program evaluation. Dr. Hall first learned about program evaluation in a Community Psychology course in her doctoral studies. Years later, she taught Program Evaluation: A Social Justice Approach, a course for doctoral students whose studies emphasized social justice and consulting. One of her students built a dissertation around program evaluation, and Dr. Hall served on her dissertation committee, bringing community knowledge to an otherwise academic process.

Whether working with students, grassroots nonprofits, or large institutions, Dr. Hall brings the same message: good evaluation isn’t about impressing funders. It’s about honest reflection, practical growth, and gauging how well programs are doing what they set out to do with the people who matter most at the center. As such, research – in the form of program evaluation – begins to belong to everyone.

About Intersections Consulting

Intersections Consulting (IC), founded by Dr. Hall, a Black lesbian Psychologist with strong social justice values, brings over 30 years’ professional experience that bridges multiple fields and sectors – mental and physical health, social services, teaching and research, nonprofit, philanthropy, and sports/athletics. Using a systemic, developmental, and strengths-based approach grounded in sociocultural realities and experiences, IC provides consultation, training, coaching, technical assistance, and facilitation in Mental Health, Organizational Development/ Capacity Building, Program Evaluation, Program Planning and Curricula Development, Leadership Development, Youth Development, Fundraising and Philanthropy, Power and Privilege, and Sports /Athletics and Health.

About Dr. Hall

Dr. Hall has three decades’ experience in the Mental Health field in multiple settings: community mental health, nonprofit, academic, private practice, and consulting. In her work, she prioritizes disenfranchised communities: low-income, People of Color, women, LGBTQ, children/youth, and combinations therein. Dr. Hall has also taught at the graduate level; developed and provided clinical trainings for an internship program for Psychology, Counseling, and Social Work students; published a book and workbook on trauma as well as done grantmaking for family and community foundations in Youth Development, Community Health, Gay and Lesbian, Families, Education, and Hunger/Homelessness. Residing in Oakland, CA, currently Dr. Hall has a private psychotherapy practice and consulting business.

This article was developed with the support of OpenAI’s ChatGPT to assist with synthesis and drafting. Final content reflects human review, editorial oversight, and professional judgment

Field Notes - CPA Research in Action | 2025

Research Is a Team Effort

Join Us in Growing Clinician-Driven Research in California

CPA Research Committee Call to Action

California’s most pressing mental health challenges won’t be solved in journals alone. They’ll be shaped by clinicians who ask better questions, test real-world solutions, and build bridges between care and evidence.

You’re not just a provider. You’re a knowledge builder. And we need your voice.

1. Practice-Based Evidence Is System-Changing Evidence

Whether you're improving workflows, noticing trends, piloting a new tool, or listening deeply to your clients—your insight holds power. You’re already generating evidence that matters for equity, access, and mental health systems. Let’s make it visible.

2. Share Your Skills, Lift the Field

Do you know how to run a small QI project? Do qualitative interviews? Build a survey? Mentor a student through IRB? The CPA Research Committee and CPAGS are connecting mentors with students and early-career psychologists. We’re growing a community where applied research—and applied researchers—can thrive.

3. Feature Your Work in Field Notes

We’re gathering contributions now for our next issue of Psychology Field Notes. Help shape the conversation. Contribute something brief, practical, and powerful:

• Real-World Research – Highlight a practice-based study or evaluation

• Innovation Tools – Share a framework, workflow, or analytic method

• Open Calls – Post a request for collaborators, participants, or reviewers

• Mentorship & Training – Promote your upcoming workshops or programs

• Equity in Action – Tell us how your work addresses systemic barriers

• Resources & Funding – Spread the word about a grant or fellowship

Join the Movement

This is how we shift the research culture—by centering practice, inviting diverse voices, and valuing insight from every setting. If you’ve never shared your work before, now’s the time. If you’ve done it for years, bring someone with you.

Send submissions or questions to: drchangaris@gmail.com
Deadline for next issue: September 24th

Together, we’re shaping the future of psychological science—one idea, one partnership, one story at a time.

Field Notes - CPA Research in Action | 2025

Dissertation Spotlight: Beyond Bars – Race, Reentry, and Resilience

By McKayla Roberts, MA, Doctoral Candidate, The Wright Institute

Roberts, M. A. (2025). Beyond bars: The intersection of race, reentry, and resilience (Doctoral dissertation). The Wright Institute.

McKayla Roberts, MA, a doctoral candidate at The Wright Institute and co-leader of its Black Student Union, has completed a highly impactful qualitative dissertation titled Beyond Bars: The Intersection of Race, Reentry, and Resilience. Rooted in community connection and cultural humility, her research explores the lived experiences of five justice-impacted Black men, aged 16–28, as they transition back into society following incarceration.

Using Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA), Roberts delves into how systemic racism, social stigma, and limited access to trauma-informed, culturally responsive services shape the psychological and relational dimensions of reentry. Rather than viewing reentry as a purely logistical challenge, her work reframes it as a deeply emotional process—one that requires support, structure, and community rooted in dignity.

The Intersection of Race, Reentry, and Resilience is a qualitative dissertation that explores the lived experiences of justice-impacted Black men as they return to community life following incarceration. Using Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA), this study examines how systemic racism, social stigma, and limited access to culturally relevant support shape the reentry process for Black men between the ages of 16 and 28.

Semi-structured interviews with five participants revealed three central themes. System Conditioning captures the lasting effects of early carceral experiences and the use of emotional numbing as a survival strategy. Reentry as Rebuilding reflects participants’ efforts to reconstruct identity, relationships, and daily routines essential for stability. Responsibility and Growth highlights narratives of mentorship, spirituality, and the pursuit of self-defined purpose after release.

Findings underscore significant gaps in reentry services, particularly the lack of trauma-informed, culturally responsive interventions that speak to the intersectional realities of formerly incarcerated Black men. Participants’ stories illustrate the psychological toll of reentry, the persistence of structural barriers in housing and employment, and the pressing need for community-based approaches that center relational healing and dignity.

This research deepens our understanding of reentry as both a personal and collective process, shaped by historical and ongoing systems of oppression. By centering the voices of those most impacted, the study offers critical insights for clinicians, policymakers, and community leaders committed to advancing equity and breaking cycles of incarceration.

Three Themes That Emerged

Roberts identified three central themes in participants' narratives:

• System Conditioning: Early exposure to incarceration and the emotional numbing that follows often begin in adolescence. Carceral contact is not just an event but a shaping force that distorts identity and expectations of adulthood.

• Reentry as Rebuilding: Participants described the necessity of crafting new daily structures and leaning on relationships—mentors, community members, family—to reclaim a sense of self. Reentry became a process of emotional and psychological reconstruction.

• Responsibility and Growth: As participants matured, they reflected on who they wanted to become. Many expressed a drive to mentor others, share their stories, and offer guidance to youth facing similar challenges, transforming pain into purpose.

Why It Matters for Clinicians and Systems

Roberts' findings echo urgent calls across psychology, public health, and criminal justice for a shift in how reentry is understood and supported. She highlights the need for:

• Trauma-informed, culturally grounded care that validates the realities of systemic oppression while fostering emotional safety.

• Community-based interventions that prioritize relationship, healing, and belonging over surveillance and compliance.

• Peer mentorship and opportunities for returning citizens to lead and give back—affirming their identities as whole and worthy.

Her work urges practitioners, program designers, and policymakers to reimagine reentry as a relational process. It’s not only about avoiding recidivism; it’s about supporting formerly incarcerated individuals in becoming the authors of their futures.

About the Researcher

McKayla Roberts is a psychological associate and fourth-year doctoral student in Clinical Psychology. Her clinical work spans individuals, couples, and families, with a focus on culturally responsive, trauma-informed care for Black communities. Roberts integrates narrative and art-based approaches, honoring client wisdom and fostering therapeutic spaces that feel as familiar as a neighborhood barbershop—places where people let their guard down and healing begins.

Her research and clinical ethos are grounded in radical care, relational dignity, and the belief that everyone deserves to rebuild on their own terms.

This article was developed with the support of OpenAI’s ChatGPT to assist with synthesis and drafting. Final content reflects human review, editorial oversight, and professional judgment.

Field Notes - CPA Research in Action | 2025

Dissertation Spotlight: Amin Salek, PsyD

Understanding Placebo, Nocebo, and the Power of Expectation

APA citation: Salek, A., & Hartman, R. E. (2022). The placebo and nocebo phenomena – A modern outlook. International Journal of Neurobiology, 4(2), Article 147. https://doi.org/10.36266/IJN/147

When clinicians overlook the body’s expectations, we miss a core ingredient of healing. This is the core insight of Dr. Amin Salek’s compelling dissertation, recently published as a peer-reviewed article. Titled The Placebo and Nocebo Phenomena – A Modern Outlook, the work reconceptualizes placebo and nocebo not as research noise but as clinically powerful mechanisms grounded in biology, learning, and culture.

Salek is a 2024 graduate of the Integrated Health Psychology Training Program (IHPTP), a program known for preparing leaders in medical-psychological integration. His dissertation reflects that training and a broader career arc spanning medical school, neuroscience, and direct patient care. Salek’s journey from MD training to a clinical psychology doctorate shaped his focus on the mind-body interface. His work has particular relevance for those working in primary care, health psychology, and psychoneuroimmunology.

What We Expect, We Become

Salek’s review is unusually comprehensive, weaving neuroscience, psychotherapy, and cultural studies into a modern framework. It covers:

• Biological pathways of placebo and nocebo, including endogenous opioids, dopamine, and prefrontal cortex modulation

• Mechanisms of action: expectation, suggestion, conditioning, and social learning

• Clinical implications: How framing side effects, delivering diagnoses, or managing expectations can significantly alter health outcomes

• Psychotherapy parallels: Salek provocatively argues that placebo is not a confounder in psychotherapy, but perhaps its core ingredient

In one striking example, he documents how a sugar pill mislabeled as an emetic caused vomiting in 80% of participants. In another, patients receiving morphine with positive framing experienced stronger analgesia than those receiving the same drug unknowingly. These findings are more than curiosities—they point to the ethical and therapeutic importance of how we communicate with patients.

The Ethics and Equity of Suggestion

Salek also makes a strong case for understanding nocebo as a public health concern, not just a lab effect. Media reports, medical jargon, and even well-intentioned disclosures can unintentionally harm. He notes that side effect reporting can double or triple based solely on how risks are explained.

This work is especially relevant for clinicians serving historically marginalized groups. Cultural messaging, institutional mistrust, and past trauma can amplify nocebo effects, fueling health disparities even when care is otherwise evidence-based.

Toward a Mind-Body Paradigm Shift

Published in the International Journal of Neurobiology, Salek’s work represents a bridge between biological and psychological science. It calls for psychologists to reclaim their role as healers not just of the mind, but of the whole system.

By deepening our understanding of the placebo and nocebo effect, Salek’s dissertation offers a roadmap for ethical, effective, and relationally grounded care.

About the Author

Dr. Amin Salek completed his clinical internship through IHPTP at The Wright Institute, where he focused on integrated health psychology. His earlier training includes medical studies at the University of Wisconsin and clinical placements at Harbor-UCLA and the San Bernardino Indian Health Clinic. His pilot research on placebo effects in obesity and diet is currently under development.

This article was developed with the support of OpenAI’s ChatGPT to assist with synthesis and drafting. Final content reflects human review, editorial oversight, and professional judgment.

CPA Research Committee Update: APA & CPA Presence - Researchers in Action

Spotlighting CPA’s Research Committee Expanding Presence at APA and Beyond

California psychologists are helping reshape how we think about research, what it means, who it serves, and how it’s done.

This year, two research groups from the CPA Research Committee will present at APA 2025, showcasing models that bring science into real-world systems. Their sessions explore leading programs in health psychology and integrated behavioral health, offering training frameworks for medical teams and psychologists working together in settings that center whole-person care.

At the heart of these presentations is a shared commitment to community health, equity, and embodiment in research design. One Research Committee member, Dr. Michael Changaris, was recently published in Frontiers in Public Health for work that bridges theory and applied practice in integrated systems of care titled, ‘Enhancing primary care for older adults: the Safety, Efficacy, and Adherence team-based care model for reducing adverse medication outcomes.’ Another team is helping advance new research on gender diversity and community-based mental health in partnership with Division I, Health Psychology Subdivision.

A growing theme across our committee’s work is the importance of embodied inquiry a recognition that research is not abstract, but lived. The body, community, and cultural context shape both how we ask questions and how we build knowledge. This vision is taking root not only at APA but also at the upcoming CPA Convention, where committee members, including Dr. Flora Ma, Dr. Ana Zdravkovic, and Biola graduate student Kenric Tran, will present on topics including equity in access to care, research partnerships in diverse communities, and identity-affirming clinical science.

To uplift this important work, Field Notes is launching a new feature series: Researchers in Action. These spotlights will highlight the diverse contributions of CPA researchers who design studies with community partners, those pushing for ethical, inclusive methods, and those whose work lives at the edge of innovation.

We invite CPA members presenting at APA or CPA 2025 to reach out and be part of this series. Whether you’re studying systems of care, reimagining training models, or bringing voice to underserved communities, your work helps chart the path ahead.

Together, we are building a research culture rooted in care, complexity, and connection.

This article was developed with the support of OpenAI’s ChatGPT to assist with synthesis and drafting. Final content reflects human review, editorial oversight, and professional judgment.

Field Notes - CPA Research in Action | 2025

CPA Research Committee Update: CPA Conference Poster Session Success

Many Submissions a Big Year for Research Visibility

The energy around CPA’s research programming is stronger than ever. This year’s CPA Convention poster sessions broke records for both submissions and attendance, signaling the vibrancy and growth of our statewide research community. We received more than 60 posters. With a diverse range of topics, from clinical trials and social justice research to school-based interventions and psychometrics, attendees had rich opportunities to learn, question, and connect.

The CPA Research Committee has been offering workshops on poster creation and will be reviewing abstracts. Thanks to the hard work of committee members and reviewers, poster sessions were dynamic, engaging, and accessible to researchers and clinicians alike.

For students and early-career psychologists, the poster sessions offered an invaluable platform to share their work, receive mentorship, and expand their networks. For seasoned researchers, the sessions opened the door to interdisciplinary dialogue and emerging practice-based evidence.

We thank everyone who contributed and presented—and we’re already looking ahead to next year’s opportunities. Stay connected for updates about our 2025 poster session tracks and reviewer recruitment.

This article was developed with the support of OpenAI’s ChatGPT to assist with synthesis and drafting. Final content reflects human review, editorial oversight, and professional judgment.

Field Notes - CPA Research in Action | 2025

CPA Research Committee Update: Mentorship Wrap-Up & Launch of New Cohort

Celebrating Growth, Welcoming New Voices

The CPA Research Committee proudly marks the successful conclusion of our 2024 Research Mentorship Program—a year filled with connection, creativity, and career-building for psychologists across the state. Designed to foster hands-on growth for both early-career and experienced researchers, the program brought together three small mentorship groups, each supported by two dedicated mentors. While the cohorts were modest in size, the commitment and care were anything but small.

A Year of Growth and Collaboration

This year’s mentees represented a wide range of training levels, from graduate students to early-career professionals, all united by their curiosity and drive to contribute to psychological science. Their research topics were equally diverse, spanning culturally responsive interventions, implementation science, health equity, prevention research, and beyond.

Dr. Darlene Hall and Dr. Josie Valderrama joined the team this year and bring deep expertise, care, and lived experience to their roles as mentorship leads for BIPOC and LGBTQ+ BIPOC psychologists. As a mentorship pair, they offer a uniquely affirming space for mentees navigating the intersections of identity, training, and professional growth. Their approach recognizes the systemic challenges many emerging psychologists face and centers relational trust, empowerment, and cultural responsiveness. Through their guidance, the CPA Mentorship Program fosters not just connection but transformation.

Through regular mentorship meetings, professional development workshops, and structured feedback on poster and conference submissions, mentees gained practical skills, refined their research questions, and deepened their understanding of applied research settings. Mentors, in turn, found joy in supporting the next generation while reconnecting with the values that first drew them to research.

Looking Ahead: 2025 Cohort Launch

As we wrap up this rewarding cycle, we’re thrilled to announce the launch of our 2025 Research Mentorship Cohort. Applications are now open, and we’re expanding opportunities for mentorship in applied research, community partnerships, and dissemination strategies.

Our new “Mentor Spotlight” series will debut in the next issue, featuring stories from those who help make this community thrive.

Join the Community

Whether you’re a seasoned investigator or just beginning your research journey, we invite you to join this growing network of mentorship, innovation, and mutual learning. The CPA Research Committee is committed to nurturing research that reflects the needs of California’s communities and to supporting the people who make that research possible.

This article was developed with the support of OpenAI’s ChatGPT to assist with synthesis and drafting. Final content reflects human review, editorial oversight, and professional judgment.

Field Notes - CPA Research in Action | 2025

Building Trust, Being Change: Culturally Responsive Research Partnerships in Action

Redesigning research through trust, reciprocity, and cultural relevance.

Palmer, C. (2025, March 25). Everyone benefits from culturally responsive community-based research partnerships. American Psychological Association. https://www.apa.org/research-practice/conduct-research/culturally-responsive-partnerships

When researchers partner with communities—not just to study them but to co-create solutions—everyone benefits. This is the promise of culturally responsive community-based research partnerships (CBRPs), a model that’s gaining traction for its ability to close equity gaps, deepen trust, and generate more meaningful health outcomes.

A compelling case comes from Dr. Isha Metzger, whose work reshaped trauma-focused cognitive behavioral therapy (TF-CBT) to better serve Black youth. Although TF-CBT is a gold-standard treatment, it was never originally adapted for the racialized experiences of Black children—a population at elevated risk of trauma exposure. By building long-term relationships in Charleston, South Carolina, and integrating racial socialization into the intervention, Metzger developed TF-CBT+RS. The result: a community-informed treatment that speaks directly to the cultural realities of the youth and families it serves.

Why CBRPs Matter

Culturally responsive CBRPs aren’t just good practice—they are ethical imperatives.
These approaches address health disparities and social injustices by centering the lived wisdom of communities most impacted by them. Rather than extracting data, researchers work alongside community members to define the problems, shape the methods, and co-create interventions.

“The goal is to stay engaged with the community for the long-term,” says Metzger. “We build trust by showing up, listening, and giving back.”

Key Features of Culturally Responsive CBRPs

1. Shared Power
CBRPs flip the traditional top-down model. Community members co-design the research and contribute to data collection and interpretation, ensuring findings reflect real-world needs.

2. Cultural Alignment
Researchers adapt to community norms, values, and historical contexts, increasing relevance and building trust. For Metzger, this meant beginning her work by asking, “How can I be of service to you?”

3. Practical Reciprocity
CBRPs emphasize giving back. This could include free counseling, facilitating healing circles, or offering strength-based assessments. The exchange of knowledge and support flows both ways.

4. More Accurate—and More Impactful—Findings
Because the research questions and interventions emerge from within the community, findings often reflect complex, intersectional realities better than traditional designs. As Metzger notes, the data may be “less generalizable,” but it’s more likely to produce lasting, localized impact.

For Psychologists in Practice

CBRPs offer a powerful model for clinician-researchers in California and beyond:

• In health systems: Partner with local clinics or schools to co-develop trauma-informed or culturally specific programs.

• In training programs: Teach graduate students how to engage in reflective readiness before entering communities.

• In equity work: Use CBRP principles to elevate community priorities in research, not just institutional goals.

Get Involved

Metzger will be sharing her approach in an upcoming APA Science Training webinar, Building Bridges: Best Practices for Culturally Responsive Community-Based Research Partnerships (April 3). The session will explore practical skills for designing and sustaining CBRPs across diverse settings.

Register here

“CBRPs benefit everyone,” Metzger says. “When research is rooted in trust and reciprocity, we build knowledge that matters—and relationships that last.”

Influential Papers on Community Partner Research

Racine, N., Madigan, S., Cardinal, S., Hartwick, C., Leslie, M., Motz, M., & Pepler, D. (2022). Community-based research: Perspectives of psychology researchers and community partners. Canadian Psychology/Psychologie canadienne, 63(4), 523.

Rodriguez Espinosa, P., & Verney, S. P. (2021). The underutilization of community‐based participatory research in psychology: A systematic review. American journal of community psychology, 67(3-4), 312-326.

Wandersman, A. (2003). Community science: Bridging the gap between science and practice with community‐centered models. American Journal of Community Psychology, 31(3–4), 227–242. https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1023954503247

Wallerstein, N., & Duran, B. (2010). Community-based participatory research contributions to intervention research: The intersection of science and practice to improve health equity. American Journal of Public Health, 100(S1), S40–S46. https://doi.org/10.2105/AJPH.2009.184036

This article was developed with the support of OpenAI’s ChatGPT to assist with synthesis and drafting. Final content reflects human review, editorial oversight, and professional judgment.

Field Notes - CPA Research in Action | 2025

Culturally Responsive Research: Skills and Tools to Transform Practice

Skills to Build Relational, Reflexive, and Justice-Oriented Inquiry

APA 7 citation: Gilbert, C., & Pasque, P. A. (2023). Defining culturally responsive research: Learnings and tensions in minoritized researcher perspectives. Journal of Diversity in Higher Education, 18(4), 453–467. https://doi.org/10.1037/dhe0000522

Psychological research shapes clinical care, public policy, and community wellbeing—but only when it reflects the realities of those most impacted. Too often, research reinforces dominant narratives or sidelines culturally grounded wisdom. Culturally responsive research (CRR) offers a shift: not just in who is studied, but in how knowledge is produced, whose voices are centered, and what outcomes we prioritize.

This article draws on a powerful study by Chelsea Gilbert and Penny Pasque, who explored how minoritized researchers define and practice CRR. Their findings offer practical insights for psychologists in all roles—clinician, student, supervisor, evaluator—who want to engage in more equitable, humanizing research.

What Is Culturally Responsive Research?

Culturally responsive research (CRR) challenges traditional research models that assume neutrality or objectivity. Instead, it centers relationship, reflexivity, and relevance. CRR is grounded in traditions of cultural humility, participatory inquiry, and resistance to deficit thinking.

Culturally responsive research is a values-based approach that centers human dignity, community partnership, and systems awareness. It calls on researchers to critically examine how knowledge is produced, whose voices are prioritized, and how research outcomes are used. CRR is not simply about including diverse participants—it’s about transforming the research process itself.

This approach draws from traditions like critical race theory, Indigenous methodologies, and feminist inquiry. It emphasizes reflexivity, co-creation, and the use of methods that reflect the cultural and structural realities of the populations involved.

CRR involves:

• Centering lived experience and cultural context in every phase of research

• Examining the researcher’s role and positionality in shaping interpretation

• Challenging dominant paradigms rooted in whiteness, coloniality, or individualism

• Committing to justice-oriented outcomes, not just publication

Five Tensions That Shape Culturally Responsive Research

Doing CRR requires more than intention—it demands ongoing negotiation of tensions, especially in institutional spaces shaped by hierarchy, whiteness, and the legacy of extractive research. Gilbert and Pasque identified five recurring tensions in how minoritized researchers defined and practiced CRR. Each reveals both a challenge and an opportunity for deeper practice.

These tensions can show up in the researcher's mindset, methods, language, or theoretical commitments. Understanding them can help us refine our work—not by resolving the tensions, but by engaging them thoughtfully.

1. Researcher Self-Efficacy

Researchers often wrestle with how to “do CRR right”—especially those trained in rigid methodological traditions. Some participants in the study expressed doubt or anxiety, seeking step-by-step guidance. Others recognized CRR as inherently fluid, shaped by community context and ongoing reflexivity.

This tension invites psychologists to develop comfort with uncertainty and emphasize process over perfection. CRR is not something to master—it’s something to practice.

✅ Key Practices:

• Embrace ambiguity as a strength, not a flaw

• Use reflective journaling or consultation to deepen your process

• Normalize learning in relationship, not in isolation

2. Relationships With Communities

A key distinction emerged between researchers who aimed to “empower” participants and those who approached them as collaborators or coconspirators. Empowerment frames can unintentionally reinforce hierarchies. CRR, by contrast, seeks relational accountability and shared authorship.

This shift changes not just how we collect data, but how we ask questions, interpret findings, and share outcomes. CRR makes relationship—not just rigor—the foundation of ethical inquiry.

✅ Key Practices:

• Form community advisory boards or co-leadership groups

• Co-create research agendas and questions

• Share findings back with participants in useful formats

3. Attitudes Toward Participants

The way researchers talk about participants reflects—and shapes—how communities are seen. Deficit language (“at-risk,” “low-functioning”) can perpetuate stigma and obscure strength. In contrast, CRR emphasizes cultural assets, resilience, and community-defined wellness.

Shifting to a strengths-based lens does not mean ignoring challenges—it means framing them within broader systems of resilience, resistance, and structural inequality. This reframing can transform both research impact and intervention design.

✅ Key Practices:

• Use frameworks like Yosso’s Community Cultural Wealth to reframe data

• Replace "deficit" descriptors with language of capacity, resource, and resistance

• Ask: Who benefits from the way I describe this group?

4. Epistemological Anchors

CRR calls into question the default belief systems embedded in traditional research. Some researchers default to positivist assumptions about objectivity, validity, and generalizability. Others draw on decolonial, feminist, or Indigenous ways of knowing.

This tension invites psychologists to reflect on the cultural assumptions within their research training and consider expanding their methodological toolbox. CRR encourages a plurality of truths—grounded in context, relationship, and purpose.

✅ Key Practices:

• Learn about non-Western research paradigms, including community storytelling and ritual-based methods

• Integrate participant interpretation and lived experience as valid data

• Explore your own epistemological biases and defaults

5. Views of Truth and Method

Some researchers still seek a “correct” way to conduct CRR—one that can be measured, validated, or replicated. Others embrace it as a dynamic, relational, and context-specific process. This difference reflects broader tensions about what counts as knowledge and how we define rigor.

Rather than aiming for replicability, CRR emphasizes trust, transparency, and community usefulness. It’s not about doing it "right," but doing it accountably.

✅ Key Practices:

• Use situational methods that change based on setting and participant need

• Emphasize transparency, reciprocity, and trust over rigid standardization

• Value community relevance and actionability as markers of quality

Core Competencies for Culturally Responsive Researchers

To meaningfully engage in CRR, psychologists need a blend of technical skills and relational capacities. It’s not just about what tools you use—it’s about how you show up to the work, what values you bring, and how you respond to power, complexity, and uncertainty.

These five core areas highlight the competencies that support ethical, equity-focused inquiry. They apply whether you're evaluating services, designing a dissertation, leading a study, or mentoring future researchers.

1. Relational Design

CRR research begins with relationship—not just consent forms. Building trust with participants, collaborators, and communities takes time, transparency, and shared purpose.

🔑 Skills to build:

• Deep listening and cultural humility

• Co-designing research aims with community members

• Practicing dialogical consent, not one-time forms

2. Measurement Equity

Many psychological measures were not designed with cultural inclusivity in mind. CRR challenges us to ask not only “Is this measure valid?” but also “Is it meaningful, respectful, and useful in this context?”

🔑 Skills to build:

• Evaluate tools for cultural assumptions or bias

• Pilot adapted measures using community feedback

• Supplement traditional scales with qualitative or narrative measures

3. Critical Reflexivity

CRR is not just outward-facing. It requires researchers to look inward—to examine how their own identities, biases, and institutional roles shape the research process.

🔑 Skills to build:

• Write and update positionality statements

• Build team-based reflexivity routines

• Use guided reflection prompts throughout a project

4. Narrative and Story-Based Methods

Stories are central to many cultural traditions—and can be powerful tools for healing and meaning-making. CRR elevates methods that capture complexity, emotion, and context.

🔑 Skills to build:

• Facilitate story circles, photovoice, or counter-narratives

• Analyze stories as data using critical or thematic techniques

• Honor participant voice through collaborative interpretation

5. Liberatory Dissemination

The final phase of research—dissemination—is often where power is most concentrated. CRR insists that findings must return to the communities who shaped them, in formats that support change, visibility, and healing.

🔑 Skills to build:

• Translate findings into accessible formats (zines, videos, community reports)

• Share results in community spaces before academic conferences

• Invite participants to be co-authors or co-presenters

Tools and Resources for Culturally Responsive Practice

Doing CRR is easier with the right scaffolding. Below are tools, frameworks, and training resources that psychologists can integrate into their research planning, implementation, and mentorship.

Reflection & Readiness

Before any data is collected, culturally responsive research begins with reflection. Researchers must take time to examine their own positionality, power, assumptions, and preparedness to enter into communities with care and humility. This stage isn’t about self-doubt—it’s about self-awareness. Reflection and readiness tools help align the project’s goals with culturally responsive values, assess the equity implications of your design, and clarify your role in the research relationship. These practices lay the foundation for trust, ethical rigor, and meaningful collaboration throughout the study.

• CRR Self-Assessment Checklists – Help evaluate whether your research design reflects core equity principles and community relevance.

• Positionality Mapping Tools – Support honest exploration of how your identities, training, and institutional affiliations shape the research process.

• Reflexivity Journal Prompts – Encourage ongoing self-inquiry around privilege, cultural distance, and intentions before and during the study.

Data Collection & Analysis Strategies

Use these participatory and equity-oriented practices to enhance rigor and relevance. Collecting and analyzing data through a culturally responsive lens requires more than traditional surveys or standardized interviews. It means choosing methods that reflect the realities, values, and voices of the communities involved. CRR prioritizes participatory approaches—those that actively involve participants in shaping how data is gathered, interpreted, and used. These strategies not only increase cultural relevance and trust but also enhance the depth and validity of findings by capturing context, power, and meaning that conventional methods may miss. Importantly, CRR analysis makes space for stories, relationships, and lived systems of knowledge, not just de-identified variables.

• Community Advisory Boards: Ensure shared ownership

• Photovoice, story circles, or mapping: Elicit rich, participant-led data

• Situational Analysis: Make power, context, and complexity visible

Conceptual Frameworks to Ground Your Work

These models support alignment between your research values and design choices. Culturally responsive research is strengthened by clear conceptual grounding models that help bridge values, design, and methodology. These frameworks provide the why behind the how of CRR. They guide researchers in making decisions that are consistent with justice, community partnership, and cultural humility.

• Multicultural Orientation (MCO) for research relationships

• Critical Race Methodology (Solórzano & Yosso, 2002)

• Decolonizing Methodologies (Smith, 2015)

• Community Cultural Wealth (Yosso, 2005)

Training and Capacity Building

Free or low-cost training options for you or your team.

• APAMethods Webinar Series

• Research for Organizing Toolkit – AORTA

How Psychologists Can Apply CRR in Their Roles

CRR can be integrated across roles and settings—not just by researchers in academia. Whether you’re designing a quality improvement project, mentoring students, or advocating for systems change, culturally responsive practices can help you build trust, expand impact, and model accountability.

For Clinicians

• Redesign intake or evaluation tools with client and community input

• Track outcomes that reflect culturally defined indicators of wellness

For Graduate Students

• Co-develop dissertation questions with field placement partners

• Include reflexive and relational components in your methodology section

For Supervisors and Faculty

• Teach CRR as part of research ethics and methods courses

• Mentor students on epistemic humility and research positionality

For Policy and Systems Psychologists

• Use CRR to inform equity audits, needs assessments, and policy briefs

• Translate findings into multi-stakeholder formats to drive action

Final Word: CRR Is Research as Relationship

Culturally responsive research is not just about inclusive samples. It’s about how we show up to work. It challenges us to align inquiry with care, collaboration, and community-defined change. In a time of urgent social need and eroded trust in systems, CRR offers psychologists a way forward: rooted in dignity, equity, and shared meaning-making.

Let’s not just do better research. Let’s do research that matters, because it listens, evolves, and transforms.

This article was developed with the support of OpenAI’s ChatGPT to assist with synthesis and drafting. Final content reflects human review, editorial oversight, and professional judgment.

Field Notes - CPA Research in Action | 2025

From Silos to Synergy: A Clinician’s Guide to Building Collaborative Research Teams

How to Build Effective, Collaborative Research Teams

Based on The Science and Practice of Team Science (2025)
National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. (2025). The science and practice of team science: A guide for diverse disciplines and domains. National Academies Press. https://doi.org/10.17226/29043

In clinical settings, psychologists often wear many hats: provider, supervisor, systems-thinker—and increasingly, researcher. But today’s research questions, especially those grounded in real-world care and equity, are too complex to answer alone. That’s where team science comes in.

Published in 2025, The Science and Practice of Team Science by the National Academies offers a much-needed guide for clinicians and researchers seeking to build collaborative, interdisciplinary teams that generate meaningful, actionable knowledge. It’s not just a toolkit for scientists; it’s a roadmap for bridging practice, policy, and research in ways that amplify impact and inclusion.

Why Team Science Now?

Interdisciplinary collaboration isn’t just a buzzword—it’s a necessity. The challenges we face in healthcare, public systems, and communities require expertise from multiple sectors. For psychologists working in diverse care and research environments, understanding how to form and lead effective teams is becoming an essential skill.

Health equity, integrated behavioral health, trauma-informed systems, and implementation strategies cannot be tackled by a single discipline. Clinician-led research, especially from diverse or underserved communities, often benefits from collaboration across clinical, academic, and community boundaries.

Yet many psychologists receive little training in how to work effectively in cross-disciplinary teams. The 2025 report addresses this gap head-on, outlining the science behind team-based discovery and offering strategies to overcome common barriers.

Five Pillars of Successful Team Science

Team science isn’t just about putting smart people in a room—it’s about structuring collaboration in ways that promote trust, clarity, and creativity. The report identifies five core competencies that help teams thrive across settings and disciplines. These pillars are especially relevant for psychologists leading quality improvement projects, implementation efforts, or training teams.

Drawing from decades of research, the report identifies five key capabilities that support high-functioning scientific teams:

• Shared Mental Models: Teams work best when members have a clear, collective understanding of goals, processes, and each other’s roles.

• Psychological Safety: Members must feel safe to voice ideas, dissent, or uncertainty without fear of dismissal or retribution.

• Inclusive and Adaptive Leadership: Effective leaders support shared decision-making, adapt to team needs, and create space for equity and accountability.

• Conflict Engagement and Resolution: Disagreement is inevitable—and necessary. Productive teams learn to name and navigate conflict directly.

• Boundary Spanning: Team members must be able to communicate across disciplinary, organizational, and cultural boundaries.

For clinicians accustomed to hierarchical systems, these principles can transform supervision, collaborative care, and research partnerships alike.

What Gets in the Way?

Even the best-intentioned teams can falter without attention to structural and cultural dynamics. Barriers like unclear incentives, siloed training, or unspoken hierarchies often go unaddressed. Understanding what can go wrong is the first step toward designing teams that work.

The report also names structural and cultural obstacles that can block effective collaboration:

• Incentive Misalignment: Academic promotion systems often reward solo-authored publications, not shared credit or co-produced community research.

• Power and Identity Dynamics: Differences in training, professional status, or lived experience can create barriers to equitable participation.

• Lack of Training: Few graduate programs or health systems teach the skills required for interdisciplinary, equity-grounded research.

Addressing these challenges takes more than goodwill, it takes intentional design, role clarity, and sustained support.

Real-World Relevance: From IBH to Equity Innovation

Team science becomes especially powerful when applied to the daily work of psychologists in community and health systems. Whether designing a trauma-informed training, leading an implementation project, or partnering with peer researchers, the team-based approach can elevate both process and outcomes. The report’s frameworks offer practical guidance for clinical teams seeking to create change across systems.

For psychologists in integrated behavioral health (IBH), primary care, schools, or public health, this guide offers a blueprint for designing teams that reflect the complexity of the systems they serve. For example:

• A community health psychologist working with undocumented youth may benefit from a team including a legal advocate, social worker, peer mentor, and implementation researcher.

• A VA psychologist launching a trauma-informed leadership initiative might partner with organizational change experts and frontline staff to co-develop metrics and feedback loops.

• A clinical training director might use the team science framework to support intern research projects that bring together site supervisors, data analysts, and cultural consultants.

In each case, the science of teamwork becomes a foundation for sustainable, inclusive innovation.

Tips for Getting Started

You don’t need a grant or a full research center to apply team science principles. Small teams—whether in supervision, clinical improvement, or community engagement—can benefit from thoughtful collaboration. These tips can help you lay the groundwork for teams that succeed.

• Start with Values and Goals: Why are we doing this work together? What matters most to each member?

• Make Roles Explicit: Clarify expectations, timelines, and points of decision-making authority early and often.

• Use Team Agreements: Co-create norms for meetings, communication, feedback, and resolving conflict.

• Prioritize Equity: Ensure power-sharing, accessibility, and community voice are embedded throughout the process.

• Build Reflection In: Use regular check-ins or debriefs to assess team functioning and course-correct when needed.

A Tool for the Times

Psychologists are increasingly being called to co-lead systemic change—whether in trauma care, health equity, or community engagement. Team science offers a framework not just for better projects, but for healthier collaboration and shared leadership. The tools in this report are both timely and timeless.

As clinician-scholars take on more leadership in implementation, evaluation, and community-partnered research, The Science and Practice of Team Science arrives at just the right moment. It offers evidence-informed scaffolding for those seeking to do collaborative work that’s not only rigorous, but just, relational, and rooted in practice.

For California psychologists especially—who often juggle diverse roles across care, advocacy, and training, this guide can help transform scattered efforts into cohesive, system-changing teams.

This article was developed with the support of OpenAI’s ChatGPT to assist with synthesis and drafting. Final content reflects human review, editorial oversight, and professional judgment.

Field Notes - CPA Research in Action | 2025

Training: Online Learning Tools for Clinician-Researchers

How OBSSR’s free trainings expand access to research methods for psychologists in practice

Office of Behavioral and Social Sciences Research. (n.d.). Online Training Resources. National Institutes of Health. https://obssr.od.nih.gov/research-resources/training

Too often, the barriers to contributing to research—especially from within busy health and community settings—are time, access, and training. The Office of Behavioral and Social Sciences Research (OBSSR) has stepped in to help bridge that gap. By offering high-quality, free online training in areas like clinical trial design, data analytics, and emerging research methods, OBSSR makes it easier for psychologists to contribute meaningfully to applied science, whether from clinics, classrooms, or community organizations.

These trainings are ideal for clinicians, supervisors, early-career psychologists, and students who want to grow their research skills without taking time away from direct service. The following resources offer practical, flexible ways to build competency in good clinical practice, data science, and modern methodologies, with an eye toward impact, ethics, and equity.

1. Building Research Integrity and Access: Good Clinical Practice for Social and Behavioral Research

Clinical trials in behavioral health settings are becoming more common, but many practitioners haven’t received formal training in the standards that govern them. OBSSR’s Good Clinical Practice (GCP) course offers a user-friendly, self-paced introduction to the ethical and procedural foundations of clinical research.

Updated in 2024 to reflect new regulatory guidance and accessibility best practices, the course now includes:

• A new module on stakeholder and community engagement

• Improved training on reporting requirements and compliance

• Tools that support IRB navigation, participant protection, and data integrity

Whether you’re launching a pilot, contributing to a funded study, or training interns in research ethics, this course supports clinical psychologists in maintaining the rigor, transparency, and protections essential to participant-centered research.

Access:

• NIH-funded researchers: Society of Behavioral Medicine

• Educators & institutions: Download for LMS

2. Demystifying Data Science: The TADA-BSSR Webinar Series

Behavioral health professionals increasingly encounter complex datasets—whether through quality improvement projects, EHR dashboards, or multi-site evaluations. But how do we ensure that this data is analyzed in ways that are valid, equitable, and actionable?

The Training in Advanced Data Analytics for Behavioral and Social Sciences Research (TADA-BSSR) webinar series introduces applied researchers to cutting-edge tools and common pitfalls in behavioral data analysis. The sessions emphasize practical strategies for:

• Avoiding selection bias and analytic missteps

• Translating theory into computational process models

• Strengthening analytic rigor using validity frameworks

Impact: These trainings are especially valuable for psychologists leading community-based research or developing interventions informed by real-world data. By grounding big data analytics in behavioral science frameworks, the series enhances both the credibility and relevance of applied findings.

Highlights include:

• Translating Domain Knowledge into Mechanistic Models
  Just-in-Time Adaptive Interventions and behavior modeling (Hekler et al., 2021)

• Selection Bias and Inference in COVID-19 Research
  Unpacking threats to population-level conclusions (Bergstrom, 2021)

• Strengthening Validity in Drug Harm Research
  Practical use of Cook & Campbell’s framework (Cooper & Waller, 2021)

3. Learning Modern Methods: OBSSR Methodology Seminars

As psychology evolves alongside technology, so do the tools available for data collection and analysis. OBSSR’s methodology seminar series provides clinicians and researchers with foundational introductions to emerging techniques, such as predictive modeling, text mining, and nontraditional survey methods.

These sessions are particularly impactful for:

• Clinicians gathering practice-based or digital health data

• Supervisors helping students learn applied methodology

• Public psychologists studying health behavior in complex systems

Featured Seminars:

• Text Mining for Social Science (2019): An introduction to extracting patterns and trends from large text datasets—especially useful for analyzing digital health narratives, case notes, or online support group content.

• Predictive Modeling for Health Research (2018): A practical overview of using machine learning to forecast behavioral outcomes and identify risk profiles.

• Emerging Survey Methods (2017): Explore SMS-based surveys, sensor data, and recruitment through social media, essential for reaching underrepresented populations and studying real-world behavior in context.

Impact: These trainings help psychologists move beyond traditional survey designs and expand their capacity to study the behaviors, systems, and communities they serve, without losing sight of methodological rigor.

Training Access, Equity, and the Future of Clinician Research

By making high-quality training tools freely available online, OBSSR is removing one of the biggest barriers to participation in research: access. These resources enable psychologists to:

• Meet NIH training requirements

• Engage in IRB-reviewed practice-based research

• Translate insights from care settings into scientific contributions

• Train and supervise future clinician-researchers

Whether you’re supporting community-engaged science or strengthening your own skills, these offerings create a pipeline of access—from practice to publication, and from real-world questions to rigorous answers.

🡒 Explore all training resources here:
https://obssr.od.nih.gov/research-resources/training

This article was developed with the support of OpenAI’s ChatGPT to assist with synthesis and drafting. Final content reflects human review, editorial oversight, and professional judgment.

Field Notes - CPA Research in Action | 2025

Training for Complexity: NIH–JHU Mixed Methods Program Equips Health Researchers for Real-World Impact

Tools for Translating Research Into Practice

NIH–JHU Training Program
Creswell, J. W., Klassen, A. C., Plano Clark, V. L., & Smith, K. C. (2011). Best practices for mixed methods research in the health sciences. Office of Behavioral and Social Sciences Research (OBSSR), National Institutes of Health.

Tools for Translating Research Into Practice

For clinician-researchers and psychologists working in complex health systems, simple data rarely tells the whole story. Linear designs may measure outcomes, but they often miss the voices of patients, providers, and communities. Mixed-methods research, which integrates both qualitative and quantitative approaches, offers a path toward greater relevance, equity, and impact.

That’s the focus of the NIH–JHU Mixed Methods Research Training Program, a leading resource designed to equip health researchers with the skills to design, implement, and publish rigorous mixed methods studies. Paired with NIH’s field-shaping guide to Best Practices for Mixed Methods in the Health Sciences, the program helps scholars answer complex questions that matter, questions grounded in context, culture, and care.

Why Mixed Methods?

Mixed methods research intentionally combines quantitative tools (e.g., surveys, clinical measures, trials) with qualitative approaches (e.g., interviews, focus groups, ethnography) to examine both outcomes and meaning, scale and story, or system and self.

This approach is especially effective when:

• Single-method designs fall short, e.g., when symptom checklists don’t explain why patients aren’t adhering to treatment.

• Research questions require both breadth and depth, such as understanding the impact of a new care model while also capturing how it’s experienced differently across cultures.

• Stakeholder perspectives vary, and it’s important to bridge between clinical data and patient voice.

NIH-funded teams have used mixed methods to improve cancer pain care, design culturally responsive instruments, and adapt interventions across language and literacy levels. The report cites examples from mental health, cardiology, pharmacy, family medicine, and community nutrition.

Core Features of the NIH–JHU Program

1. Training and Capacity Building
This is not just a primer; it’s a robust learning experience for researchers at all levels. The NIH–JHU program offers coursework, mentorship, and applied design workshops to help investigators build mixed methods capacity from proposal to publication.

2. Emphasis on Team Science
Mixed methods research is inherently collaborative. The program teaches how to build multidisciplinary, interdisciplinary, and transdisciplinary teams—bringing together statistical analysts, ethnographers, clinical experts, and theorists to co-design studies and interpret results.

3. Integration Guidance
Many studies collect both qualitative and quantitative data, but integration is often weak. The program provides concrete frameworks for merging, connecting, or embedding data streams, along with diagrams, checklists, and grant templates.

4. Grant Application Support
The “Best Practices” guide outlines how to craft NIH grant applications (R01, R03, R21, K-series, T-series, and center grants) that incorporate mixed methods. It includes:

• How to write mixed methods aims

• Budget planning for integration

• Tips for writing about rigor, innovation, and feasibility

• Sample tables to clarify sequencing, timing, and sample size

5. Review Criteria and Checklists
For both applicants and reviewers, the program provides tools to assess the quality of mixed methods proposals. These include NIH-style scoring rubrics, common pitfalls, and integration-focused review tips that align with current funding expectations.

Use Case: When “What Works” Needs a “Why”

A standout example from the NIH report describes researchers examining depression care for older adults. Physicians and patients often disagreed on who was depressed. Quantitative ratings alone didn’t explain the gap. But semi-structured interviews revealed key themes: stigma, communication breakdowns, and differences in emotional vocabulary.

This mixed methods design—embedding interviews within a randomized trial—helped inform more responsive screening and training protocols, improving care for underserved elders.

California Relevance

California’s diverse populations, public health challenges, and integrated care innovations create a perfect testbed for mixed methods research. Clinicians working in FQHCs, public systems, and cultural communities often encounter questions that can’t be answered through checkboxes alone.

This program helps California-based psychologist-researchers:

• Validate culturally responsive interventions

• Adapt evidence-based treatments for multilingual settings

• Investigate disparities in real-world care delivery

• Design training programs grounded in both data and human experience

Ready to Dive In?

Whether you're a student preparing your first dissertation, a clinical supervisor evaluating quality improvement efforts, or a senior faculty member developing a grant, the NIH–JHU Mixed Methods Program offers structure and support to bring your research to the next level.

Start here:
🔗 https://obssr.od.nih.gov/research-resources/mixed-methods-research

Field Notes - CPA Research in Action | 2025

Free, Friendly, and Fully Capable: How JASP Is Helping Psychologists Share What Matters

An open-source statistical software designed for students, clinician-researchers, and practice-based innovators

JASP Team. (n.d.). JASP (Version 0.18.3) [Computer software]. https://jasp-stats.org/download/

CPA Research Committee – Psychology Field Notes
Download JASP

Too many promising insights in psychology never make it into peer-reviewed journals or quality improvement reports—not because the research isn’t sound, but because the statistical tools feel out of reach. High-cost software like SPSS or SAS can be a barrier for students, early-career psychologists, and clinicians working in under-resourced settings. That’s where JASP comes in.

JASP (Jeffreys’s Amazing Statistics Program) is a free, open-source software that offers a powerful, intuitive alternative to proprietary platforms. Developed at the University of Amsterdam, JASP provides both classical (frequentist) and Bayesian analyses, with APA-style output tables and dynamic visualizations—all accessible through a user-friendly interface. No coding required.

But JASP isn’t just another statistics app. It’s a practice-friendly tool that makes it easier for psychologists to generate, validate, and share knowledge grounded in real-world care.

Why JASP?

Accessible. Intuitive. Built for Psychology.

Unlike some statistical packages that assume programming experience or steep licensing fees, JASP is free and designed with teaching and applied research in mind. It uses a familiar spreadsheet-like layout with simple drop-down menus, real-time outputs, and clear visualizations. Behind the scenes, it runs on the powerful R engine—but users don’t need to write a single line of code.

JASP supports a wide range of analyses:

• Descriptive statistics

• t-tests, ANOVAs, correlations

• Linear and logistic regression

• Bayesian hypothesis testing

• Reliability and factor analysis

• Meta-analysis, network models, and SEM (via modules)

It also integrates seamlessly with the Open Science Framework (OSF), supporting transparent workflows and reproducible research. And yes, it automatically formats your results to align with APA 7 style.

Who Can Benefit?

Students and Dissertation Writers

For students in research methods or statistics courses, JASP simplifies the learning curve. With visual outputs, labeled plots, and guided analysis modules, it helps students focus on interpretation—not syntax.

Dissertation writers can use JASP for everything from power analysis to publication-ready tables. Bayesian options also allow for reporting results with nuance, particularly when studying small samples or null effects.

Video: JASP Tutorial – Descriptive Stats for Beginners (YouTube)

Clinician-Researchers

Clinicians conducting quality improvement or program evaluation projects often face two barriers: lack of access to analytic tools and limited time. JASP’s speed and ease of use help solve both. Whether assessing the impact of a new intervention, analyzing pre-post changes in outcomes, or exploring patient feedback, JASP provides a no-cost solution for generating meaningful results.

One example: A clinician evaluating a new group-based CBT program used JASP to conduct paired t-tests and visualize pre/post symptom scores across several sessions. With APA-style output and built-in graphs, they were able to include results in a grant report and inform their clinical team without additional formatting.

Video: Quick Intro to JASP Statistical Software (YouTube)

Psychologists in Applied and Underserved Settings

Public sector psychologists, primary care providers, and community mental health teams often collect valuable data—but face limited support for analysis. JASP can be used to evaluate access initiatives, telehealth programs, or trauma-informed care efforts. It’s also a great way to involve supervisees or early-career staff in practice-based research.

Example: A team at a community clinic used JASP to explore racial and ethnic disparities in appointment no-show rates. They used logistic regression and produced clear graphs for a staff presentation and quality review meeting.

Because JASP supports both exploratory and confirmatory analyses, it empowers psychologists to bring data into conversations about equity, funding, and service improvements.

Video: Learn Statistics with JASP – ANOVA Module (YouTube)

Bonus: Reproducibility and Teaching Tools

JASP was designed with scientific transparency in mind. Every change to your dataset or analysis is automatically reflected in your output. That means it’s not just easier to update results—it’s easier to teach the logic of open science.

Many professors now use JASP in undergraduate and graduate courses. The software includes a dedicated “Learn Stats” module, and its tutorials are available in multiple languages.

Getting Started

Ready to try it out?

• Download JASP: jasp-stats.org/download

• JASP Workshops: jasp-stats.org/learning

• Join the Community: JASP is actively maintained with contributions from researchers worldwide.

Final Thoughts

For psychologists across roles and stages—from students and interns to seasoned clinicians and faculty—JASP offers a refreshing path forward. It removes cost barriers, builds analytic confidence, and helps translate data into impact. Whether you’re evaluating a new service, completing a dissertation, or mentoring the next generation of researcher-practitioners, JASP supports a shared goal: making psychological science matter.

This article was developed with the support of OpenAI’s ChatGPT to assist with synthesis and drafting. Final content reflects human review, editorial oversight, and professional judgment.

Field Notes - CPA Research in Action | 2025

Kudos App – A New Tool to Amplify Your Research Impact

From Practice to Public: A Tool for Making Psychology Matter

Kudos. (n.d.). Kudos: Maximize the reach and impact of your research. https://www.growkudos.com/

Too much good research in psychology never makes it beyond academic walls. Dissertations get shelved, practice-based studies go unread, and valuable insights never reach the clinicians, policymakers, or communities they could help most. That’s where Kudos comes in.

Kudos is a free platform that helps researchers—especially students, early-career psychologists, and clinician-scholars—translate their work into plain language, enrich it with meaningful context, and share it widely with measurable results.

This tool is especially useful for bridging the gap between psychological science and public impact. From dissertation findings to community mental health research, Kudos offers a low-barrier way to increase visibility, drive engagement, and support knowledge sharing in the public interest.

Link: https://www.growkudos.com/

Key Features of Kudos

Kudos is designed to make research communication easy—even if you're new to outreach. With just a few steps, you can turn your article or dissertation into an engaging, accessible resource. These features help you explain why your work matters, connect with new audiences, and track how your research is making a difference.

• Plain Language Summaries: Craft clear, concise summaries that explain your research’s value to non-specialist readers—clinicians, patients, funders, and decision-makers.

• Smart Sharing Tools: Generate shareable links with built-in tracking. See who’s reading, sharing, and clicking—whether via email, LinkedIn, X (Twitter), or institutional websites.

• Impact Metrics: Access real-time data on views, citations, and altmetrics. Useful for CVs, grant applications, or demonstrating policy relevance.

• Enriched Content: Link out to blogs, videos, open datasets, or tools that help make your research usable and engaging.

Real-World Use Cases

Whether you're a graduate student finishing your dissertation, a clinician sharing outcomes from a quality improvement project, or a faculty member supporting student publishing, Kudos offers flexible tools that fit your role. Here’s how psychologists at different career stages are using Kudos to extend their reach and impact.

• For Graduate Students: Turn your dissertation into a living resource. Create a summary page with links to data, tools, and real-world implications—and share it with supervisors, hiring committees, or community partners.

• For Clinician-Researchers: Translate practice-based studies into accessible insights. Want your research on trauma-informed care to reach public health leaders? Kudos helps you make it readable and track how it spreads.

• For Psychology Faculty: Use Kudos to teach scientific communication. It’s a great platform for mentoring students in how to share work across disciplinary and public lines.

Closing the Gap Between Science and Society

There’s a growing need to increase psychological literacy in public health, education, and policy settings. Yet, even impactful studies can go unseen without the right tools for translation and dissemination.

Kudos addresses that gap—not by replacing traditional publication, but by extending its reach. It helps researchers step beyond the journal article and into the broader conversation about health, equity, and systems change.

For psychologists aiming to grow their influence in real-world settings, Kudos offers more than visibility. It offers a way to be heard.

Ready to share your work?
Visit info.growkudos.com and sign up—it’s free for APA authors and integrates with most journal platforms.

Field Notes - CPA Research in Action | 2025

Start with Ethics, End with Impact: From Practice to Publication

Ethics Training as a Path to Research, Reflection, and Shared Wisdom

CITI Program. (n.d.). Human subjects research (HSR). About CITI Program. Retrieved July 15, 2025, from https://about.citiprogram.org/series/human-subjects-research-hsr/

Too often, the deep knowledge held by seasoned clinicians is never written down, never studied, and never shared beyond the therapy room. Insightful adaptations, community-responsive methods, and trauma-healing wisdom may vanish when a trusted elder retires or passes away. This loss isn’t inevitable—but preserving practice-based knowledge requires tools many clinicians were never taught: research literacy, ethics training, and publication pathways.

One key entry point? Human subjects ethics training. Link to online training.

Why Ethics Training Matters

Psychologists working with real-world communities must navigate multiple layers of responsibility. Human subjects research ethics—rooted in respect for persons, beneficence, and justice—provide the backbone for ethical inquiry. Whether you’re surveying patients, piloting a clinical tool, or gathering feedback from marginalized youth, this training ensures that our work does no harm and centers participant dignity.

The current ethical frameworks in psychology emerged in response to serious historical abuses. From the Nuremberg Code (1947) and the Declaration of Helsinki (1964) to the Belmont Report (1979), research ethics have evolved to protect those most at risk: people under duress, excluded from opportunity, or targeted by unjust systems. For clinician-researchers, these same guidelines can become powerful tools for conducting justice-centered research that amplifies the voices of those we serve.

How Clinicians Can Get Started

The CITI Program (Collaborative Institutional Training Initiative) offers online training modules in human subjects research, tailored to both biomedical and social-behavioral research. Most universities, health systems, and IRBs (Institutional Review Boards) accept CITI certification as a prerequisite for research approval.

Key modules include:

• Informed consent practices

• Working with vulnerable populations

• Data privacy and confidentiality

• Culturally responsive and inclusive research ethics

For psychologists, this training isn’t just a bureaucratic step. It’s a grounding process—a moment to reflect on power, responsibility, and care as research becomes part of your clinical identity.

Clinicians as Researchers: Pathways to Publication

Once equipped with research ethics training, clinicians can begin transforming lived practice into publishable knowledge. Here are a few pathways:

• Case Reports and Clinical Innovations: Share how you adapted a model for your community clinic, or how a patient’s journey challenged textbook assumptions.

• Program Evaluation Studies: Measure the impact of an intervention in your setting. Even pre-post data can offer valuable insight.

• Practice-Based Research Networks (PBRNs): Join or form a collective of clinicians studying questions grounded in care delivery.

• Qualitative Studies: Capture the voices of patients, staff, or students through interviews or focus groups.

• Reflections and Opinion Pieces: Write about what ethical dilemmas, cultural encounters, or systems challenges have taught you.

Don’t let the perfect be the enemy of the published. Many psychology journals—and growing open-access platforms—welcome submissions that bridge clinical insight with empirical rigor.

Ethics Training as a Portal to Deeper Practice

For psychologists, research ethics training isn't only about IRB approval. It's about aligning our inquiry with the values that brought us into this field: empathy, integrity, equity, and service. By learning to frame our work within ethical guidelines, we deepen our understanding of trust, risk, and relational responsibility.

And by publishing from our practice, we ensure that our clinical libraries don’t disappear when we retire. We become stewards of shared knowledge—passing on not just technique, but the living, breathing wisdom of applied psychology.

Want to get started?

• CITI Program Training Overview

• APA Ethical Principles of Psychologists and Code of Conduct (2017)

Let us not allow our mentors’ wisdom—or our own—to fade unrecorded. Ethics training is more than a requirement. It’s a step toward safeguarding the libraries we hold within us.

This article was developed with the support of OpenAI’s ChatGPT to assist with synthesis and drafting. Final content reflects human review, editorial oversight, and professional judgment.

Field Notes - CPA Research in Action | 2025

APA Training for Members: Reclaiming Assessment and Research

How Indigenous Methodologies Are Redefining Validity and Voice in Psychology

American Psychological Association. (2024, November). Indigenous Methodologies and Assessment [Webinar]. Science Training Sessions. https://www.apa.org/events/indigenous-methods-assessment (APA Member Exclusive)

Redefining Psychological Science

Psychology is being called to evolve—not just in its tools, but in its foundations. In the APA’s 2024 science training, Indigenous Methodologies and Assessment, Indigenous scholars and practitioners offer a transformative vision: a psychological science that centers community-defined knowledge, relational accountability, and cultural sovereignty.

Rooted in APA’s formal apology to First Peoples and Peoples of Color, this 90-minute webinar explores how Indigenous ways of knowing can reshape research, assessment, and practice. Rather than adding cultural “sensitivity” to existing models, presenters emphasize something more fundamental: a shift in epistemology, ethics, and voice. Indigenous methodologies are not supplemental—they are essential to building a fuller, more just science.

Why Indigenous Methodologies Matter in Psychological Science

For over a century, mainstream psychology has relied on assumptions about objectivity, measurement, and universality—often without questioning whose norms those assumptions reflect. For Indigenous Peoples on Turtle Island and beyond, psychological research and assessment have often meant harm: extractive studies, deficit-based models, and tools developed without consent or cultural context.

Indigenous methodologies offer an alternative. These approaches are grounded in:

• Relational accountability – Knowledge is generated through respectful, reciprocal relationships with people, land, and spirit.

• Contextual and communal relevance – Research is embedded in lived experience, language, and place.

• Data sovereignty – Indigenous communities define the terms of data ownership, use, and dissemination.

• Cultural definitions of wellness – Validity is not measured against external norms, but rooted in community-defined outcomes like belonging, balance, and ceremony.

From suicide prevention to neuropsychological testing, the presenters shared real-world examples where Indigenous frameworks not only improved relevance and outcomes—but challenged the very premises of Western science.

Redefining Scientific Process: Centering Indigenous Voices

What counts as valid evidence in psychological science is deeply shaped by colonial history. Dominant models often marginalize or invalidate knowledge that is relational, spiritual, or narrative. But Indigenous methodologies show that these ways of knowing are rigorous, tested over generations, and deeply empirical—just not always in the language of psychometrics.

Redefining validity means:

• Valuing story and ceremony alongside statistics.

• Recognizing that research conducted without community partnership may cause harm, no matter how well-designed.

• Accepting that truth can be plural, place-based, and collective.

Centering Indigenous voice in psychological science requires more than inviting participation. It means shifting power, recognizing epistemic injustice, and honoring sovereignty—not only over land, but over knowledge and interpretation.

Moving Forward, Centering Indiginous Science Practices

This APA training is a powerful starting point for psychologists ready to engage with Indigenous knowledge systems—ethically, humbly, and in partnership. It offers:

• Concrete tools for decolonizing research and assessment practices.

• Reflections on historical harm and paths toward repair.

• Examples of how Indigenous-led science can enrich the field as a whole.

As the presenters made clear, this is not about “including” Indigenous knowledge in psychology—it’s about transforming psychology itself.

“When we reclaim assessment, we reclaim voice. And when we center Indigenous methodologies, we build a science that is not only more inclusive—but more true.”

Featured Resources for Further Development

Supporting the Next Generation of Indigenous Psychologists: An Illustrative Case Example

Fetter, A. K., Wiglesworth, A., Rey, L. F., Young, A. R., Azarani, M., & Gone, J. P. (2024). The Counseling Psychologist, 52(7), 1174–1202.

This article offers a powerful, first-person account of a student-led, Indigenous Research Group (IRG) that provided culturally grounded mentorship, collaborative scholarship, and professional development for Indigenous psychology graduate students. Co-authored by trainees and their mentor, Dr. Joseph Gone, the paper charts a path toward Indigenous academic belonging, resistance to marginalization, and the creation of relational, values-aligned research spaces. With ten actionable recommendations for faculty mentorship, it invites psychology programs to move beyond recruitment to transformation—supporting Indigenous futurity not just in word, but in structure and practice.

Why it matters: This case study models how faculty can mentor Indigenous students in ways that respect sovereignty, support healing, and create space for Indigenous-led science in psychology.

Beyond Decolonization: Anticolonial Methodologies for Indigenous Futurity in Psychological Research

Fish, J., & Gone, J. P. (2024). In Decolonial Psychology: Toward Anticolonial Theories, Research, Training, and Practice (APA). https://doi.org/10.1037/0000376-006

This seminal chapter challenges the field of psychology to move beyond rhetorical commitments to decolonization and toward action-based, anticolonial methodologies that center Indigenous resistance and knowledge sovereignty. Fish and Gone argue that much of what is called “decolonial research” in psychology fails to produce meaningful change for Indigenous communities. Instead, they propose anticolonial approaches grounded in community-defined priorities, refusal of extractive research norms, and the revitalization of Indigenous Knowledges (IKs). Drawing from community-based examples—including the White Mountain Apache Tribe’s resilience curriculum—the authors show how Indigenous-led research can resist psycolonization, produce culturally grounded outcomes, and restore pathways toward Indigenous futurity. A vital read for psychologists committed to equity, sovereignty, and healing.

References

Sundararajan, L. (2015). Indigenous psychology: Grounding science in culture, why and how?. Journal for the Theory of Social Behaviour, 45(1), 64-81.

Fish, J., & Gone, J. P. (2024). Beyond decolonization: Anticolonial methodologies for indigenous futurity in psychological research.

This article was developed with the support of OpenAI’s ChatGPT to assist with synthesis and drafting. Final content reflects human review, editorial oversight, and professional judgment.

Field Notes - CPA Research in Action | 2025

APA Inclusive Neuroscience Training: Shifting Methods Toward Population Health

A training to reframe generalizability, inclusion, and equity in brain science

American Psychological Association. (2025, July 17). Rethinking measurement and generalizability in neuroscience: Insights for population health [Webinar]. APA Science Training Sessions. https://www.apa.org/education-career/training/science-training-rethinking-measurement-neuroscience

As neuroscience becomes increasingly central to public health and psychological research, new questions are reshaping how the field defines rigor and relevance. Whose data are we collecting? Whose experiences shape our models of brain development, mental health, and recovery? These questions are not just philosophical—they’re methodological. The APA Inclusive Neuroscience Training: Shifting Methods Toward Population Health offers tools to embed equity into the core of neuroscience methods, moving beyond narrow sampling and toward translational science that informs real-world care.

This webinar invites psychologists, neuroscientists, and population health researchers to examine how current practices in neuroimaging and neuropsychology can unintentionally reinforce disparities—and how we can do better.

Training details

Title: APA Inclusive Neuroscience Training: Shifting Methods Toward Population Health
Date: July 17, 2025
Time: 12:00 p.m. – 1:30 p.m. Eastern (9:00 a.m. – 10:30 a.m. Pacific)
Format: Live webinar
CE Credit: This session does not offer continuing education credit
Presenter: Dr. Termara Parker, PhD
Series: APA Science Training Sessions

Register: www.apa.org/neuroscience-methods-training

From exclusion to equity in brain research

Despite widespread calls for diversity in research, many neuroscience studies still rely on “WEIRD” populations—Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich, and Democratic. This limits the generalizability of findings and raises ethical concerns about whose experiences are represented in clinical and policy decisions.

Dr. Termara Parker, who will lead the training, has argued that structural racism in neuroimaging is not only about who is excluded, but also how measures, settings, and norms are constructed. In a 2022 Lancet Psychiatry perspective, she and co-author J.A. Ricard detail how dominant methodologies reinforce narrow frames of health, risk, and development—often misrepresenting or pathologizing historically marginalized communities (Parker & Ricard, 2022).

Similarly, in neurology, scholars have highlighted the dangers of race-based assumptions and misapplied norms in diagnosis and treatment. Robbins and colleagues (2022) underscore the real consequences: Black patients continue to face significant neurodiagnostic disparities in care, often shaped by flawed assumptions about race, biology, and brain health.

This training responds directly to these challenges by equipping participants with practical strategies to realign neuroscience with equity, justice, and health system impact.

What this training offers

Attendees will explore concrete ways to integrate inclusive, representative methods across the research pipeline. Topics include:

• Improving generalizability through broader sampling and demographic reporting

• Reframing risk and resilience by incorporating structural determinants into data interpretation

• Building community-based partnerships that shape study design and dissemination

• Centering transparency in neuroimaging and behavioral methods (e.g., EEG, fNIRS, fMRI)

• Challenging deficit-based models in developmental neuroscience

These strategies draw from community-based participatory research (CBPR) and equity science frameworks that are increasingly recognized as essential for ethical, impactful neuroscience. For example, Webb et al. (2022) describe how developmental researchers have partnered with community advisors to co-design recruitment, consent, and data-sharing processes. Their work illustrates how scientific quality and inclusion go hand in hand when trust, collaboration, and local relevance are prioritized.

Who should attend

This training is ideal for:

• Psychologists and neuropsychologists conducting research or community-based assessment

• Neuroscientists seeking to expand the relevance of their methods and findings

• Public health professionals working at the intersection of brain science and equity

• Graduate students and early-career researchers building inclusive practices from the ground up

Why this work matters now

Calls for diversity in neuroscience are not new—but they’re increasingly urgent. As brain science continues to influence mental health policy, education, and health equity initiatives, it must move beyond intention and into methodological change. This training offers a practical, research-grounded path forward.

References

Parker, T. C., & Ricard, J. A. (2022). Structural racism in neuroimaging: perspectives and solutions. The Lancet Psychiatry, 9(5), e22.

Robbins, N. M., Charleston IV, L., Saadi, A., Thayer, Z., Codrington III, W. U., Landry, A., ... & Hamilton, R. (2022). Black patients matter in neurology: race, racism, and race-based neurodisparities. Neurology, 99(3), 106-114.

Webb, S. J., et al. (2022). Equity, diversity, and inclusion in developmental neuroscience: Practical lessons from community-based research. Frontiers in Integrative Neuroscience, 16, 1007249.

This article was developed with the support of OpenAI’s ChatGPT to assist with synthesis and drafting. Final content reflects human review, editorial oversight, and professional judgment.