Pursues Trauma-Informed Care Career

  Ayanna Payne, a fourth-year clinical psychology PhD student, was awarded a Diversity Research Award by the American Psychology-Law Society (AP-LS).

In 2015, about a year before Lorna Chiu started graduate school, she learned about the tragic suicide cluster at Gunn High School in Palo Alto. Many of the suicides involved Asian-American teens. Lorna was distraught by the fact that this was happening to youth in the Bay Area where she grew up, and she wanted to help.

Megan Frank was attending high school in Berkeley, CA when she learned that her grandmother, who was raising her, had Alzheimer’s (AD). With limited knowledge of the disease, Megan began to research its causes and treatments and in so doing learned about other neurodegenerative diseases like frontotemporal dementia and atypical Parkinson’s disease which sparked her interest in an academic career in neuropsychology.

As COVID-19 takes its toll on the mental health of seniors living in isolation in retirement communities, a team of Palo Alto University psychology students are providing essential mental health services to older adults residing in independent living facilities in Daly City, Portola Valley, and Palo Alto. In doing so, the team of budding psychologists have learned to sharpen their digital mental health skills and gain valuable clinical experience while overcoming the language barriers and technology challenges of communicating with the residents.