Sruthi Swami, doctoral student at the Gevirtz School at UC Santa Barbara, has been selected to be a 2018 APA Minority Fellowship Program Psychology Summer Institute Fellow. Swami also has been selected for the 2018 Dissertation Research Grant from the Asian American Psychological Association (AAPA).
The American Psychological Association Minority Fellowship Program (APA MFP) is an innovative, comprehensive and coordinated training, mentoring and career development program that enhances psychological and behavioral outcomes of ethnic minority communities. MFP is committed to increasing the number of ethnic minority professionals in the field and advancing our understanding of the life experiences of ethnic minority communities. The Psychology Summer Institute provides educational, professional development and mentoring experiences to advanced doctoral students of psychology and psychologists who are in the early stage of their careers. Participants are guided toward developing research projects that focus on issues affecting ethnic minority communities.
AAPA Dissertation Research Grants are awarded to doctoral students to support research that contributes to the advancement of Asian American Psychology. AAPA Dissertation Research Grant Proposals are for the initiation or completion of a dissertation that has implications for the field of Asian American Psychology. Recipients present their research in a symposium at the next AAPA convention.
Sruthi Swami is a doctoral candidate in the Department of Counseling, Clinical, and School Psychology, School Psychology emphasis. Originally from the Bay Area, California, she completed her undergraduate degree in Psychology and French and Francophone Studies at Barnard College, the women’s college of Columbia University, and participated in the Great Oaks Urban Education Fellowship Program in Newark, NJ for two years following graduation. In Newark, she taught Math and ELA and worked with middle school youth experiencing various forms of community violence, trauma, and mental health issues. She also was a part of the curriculum and special education teams and worked intensely with youth who were experiencing severe behavioral and academic challenges. These experiences led her to continue on to graduate school at UCSB where she has worked on various projects related to early literacy assessment and intervention and mental health disparities with youth and their families. Her particular areas of focus are around racism and discrimination experienced by youth of color in the school system and evaluating and understanding racial and ethnic disproportionalities within school discipline policies, county mental health services, and within the juvenile justice system.