Sruthi Swami, a doctoral student in the School Psychology emphasis at UC Santa Barbara, has been appointed as Assistant Professor at California State University, Fresno for the next academic year. Her teaching experience, accomplishments in curriculum development, and prowess in the field of school psychology research have led her to secure this faculty position before her commencement in June.
Swami received her B.A. at Barnard College, Columbia University in New York City where she majored in Psychology and French and Francophone Studies. At UCSB she has worked on projects within Dr. Matthew Quirk’s lab, focusing on engagement in high school students and literacy-related motivation. She also has conducted research under Dr. Jill Sharkey for the R.E.D. Grant that focuses on racial and ethnic disproportionalities in school discipline and mental health systems. As a student in the Department of Counseling, Clinical, and School Psychology (CCSP), she is required to complete an off-site internship in her final year of the doctoral program. She is currently interning in the Dallas Independent School District in Texas. For her dissertation, she is studying the effects of school-based racism on the wellbeing of Asian American high school students.
Securing this faculty position is not only an outstanding accomplishment, but also contributes to the 2020 Doctoral Scholars Initiative, which was implemented in 2006. The goal of this initiative was to prepare at least twenty school psychology doctoral students, of whom 50% were from historically marginalized groups, to obtain teaching positions and advance science and research by the year 2020. The 2020 year has just begun, and the initiative’s goal has been greatly surpassed. Sruthi Swami is the 28th UCSB school psychology Ph.D. student who has made important contributions to research and been appointed a faculty position after her commencement.
“I am delighted that Sruthi has accepted the tenure-track position at CSU Fresno and that she will be joining our esteemed CSU colleagues in training the next generation of school psychologists,” Dr. Shakrey says. “We faculty are proud of all that Sruthi has accomplished in honing her research, teaching, and service skills and look forward to working with her to help advance the training of diverse school psychologists to meet the needs of school children across the state of California and beyond.”