Isabel López, a doctoral student in the Department of Counseling, Clinical, and School Psychology at the Gevirtz School, has been selected as the recipient of the 2020 Louis H. Towbes Fellowship.
The late Mr. Michael Towbes, local businessman, philanthropist, and former chair of The UCSB Foundation, established this fellowship in his father’s name in 1986 as a means of recognizing an academically exceptional first-year graduate student at the University of California, Santa Barbara.
“Isabel is a bilingual (English/Spanish), first-year doctoral student who is actively engaged in multiple projects while making use of her impeccable bilingual abilities as a scientist-practitioner in training,” her advisor Dr. Andrés Consoli wrote in his recommendation letter. “Specifically, she delivered four peer-reviewed papers (two as first author) at two national conferences and had a fifth peer-reviewed paper accepted though not delivered due the pandemic. Isabel has finished an empirical manuscript with me addressing alternative cultural paradigms in Latinx Psychology that is under review. Moreover, she is in the middle of analyzing the data for her predissertation project, something that typically doesn’t happen until the end of students’ second year! Finally, she joined a research team to analyze a large, bilingual data set on access and utilization of mental health services by Latinxs receiving care in the public sector. Her contributions in that manuscript has already earned her second authorship out of seven! I am most impressed with her abilities to balance multiple responsibilities while delivering high quality work in all.”
Isabel López is a doctoral student in Counseling Psychology working under Dr. Andrés Consoli. She received her Bachelor’s degree in Psychology-Honors and her Master’s degree in Clinical Psychology from California State University, Northridge. She was named a Chancellor’s Doctoral Incentive Program (CDIP) Scholar, an award granted by the California State University (CSU) system to doctoral students aspiring to become faculty members at the CSU. She is also a recipient of the Eugene Cota-Robles Fellowship. Isabel’s research interests center on examining and addressing barriers to mental health care, particularly among the Latinx population. She has studied how factors such as acculturation, mental health literacy, and barriers to care influence help-seeing attitudes and behaviors among ethnic minorities. She hopes to expand upon this line of research, while also addressing the level of culturally sensitive care provided to Latinx and other ethnic minority families.