Sarah Heidel (smheidel@gmail.com) earned her undergraduate degree in Psychology at Clemson University in 2009. During her time at Clemson, Sarah was involved in an internship with Dr. Rene Brown at Harris Psychiatric Hospital in Anderson, SC working with adults with severe, chronic mental illness. She also had the opportunity to work with Dr. Robin Kowalski on a research project evaluating the influence of several variables on when and how a bystander will intervene upon witnessing an incidence of cyberbullying. Sarah's favorite clinical experience at Clemson involved working with cognitively disabled children through a Clemson sponsored sports league. During her first year in the Clinical Counseling Program at Radford University, Sarah completed a 2-semester Applied Training in Psychological Research Course working with Dr. Mabry on a project examining executive functioning of college students with disabilities.  Sarah will be presenting this research at the 120th Annual Convention of the American Psychological Association in Orlando, Florida.  Dr. Mabry and Sarah have also submitted a manuscript of their research for publication.  Through her assistantship as a Graduate Teaching Fellow, Sarah will be teaching two sections of Introductory Psychology in the Fall and Spring semesters.  Sarah is completing her 2-semester internship at an inpatient treatment center which offers both comprehensive psychiatric treatment and chemical dependency programs for adults with severe psychological disorders.  After completing her master’s degree, Sarah hopes to get a job working with a diverse population or enter a doctoral program.

Natalie Kiddie (nkiddie@email.radford.edu) earned her undergraduate degree at George Mason in Psychology. For two years at Mason, she was a research assistant in the Military Families Lab under the lead investigator Keith D. Renshaw. In the lab she had the opportunity to run her own research study examining the impact of age on aggression in a recent cohort of combat veterans. In January 2011, she began an internship with paws4vets, an organization that provides therapy canines to injured veterans; she is continuing this internship into her graduate career. During her first year in the Clinical Counseling Program at Radford University, Natalie is completing her 2-semester Applied Training in Psychological Research Course working with Dr. Leake on a project examining the issues that student veterans experience. After graduation, she hopes to either enter a doctoral program or begin her career working with veterans in a military or Department of Defense setting.

Crystal Laudermilk (claudermilk@radford.edu) earned her undergraduate degree in Psychology, with a concentration in Human Development, at Roanoke College in 2009. During her time there, Crystal had the opportunity to work on research projects examining the effects of the waist to hip ratio on perceived attractiveness and personality ratings, as well as the effects of practice and word cohesion on retroactive interference. For the past year, she has been working as a special education teacher assistant for Alleghany High School in Covington, Virginia.  During her first year in the Clinical Counseling Program at Radford University, Crystal is completing her 2-semester Applied Training in Psychological Research Course working with Dr. Aspelmeier on a project examining social-cognitive processes in romantic relationships. After graduation, she hopes to enter a doctoral program for Clinical/School Psychology.

Vanessa Morris (morrisv28@mycu.concord.edu) earned her undergraduate degree at Concord University in Athens, West Virginia. Her major was Psychology and her minor was Biology. While she attended Concord, she worked under Dr. Jessica Alexander as a research assistant performing acoustic analyses of Korean-accented English, constructing measures of experience with foreign accents, and scoring data from transcriptions of accented speech. She was also a contributor in starting a neuroscience reading group to help undergraduates better prepare for graduate level papers. Vanessa has also worked with Dr. Rodney Klein being a teacher's assistant for his Behavioral Learning course. She managed the rat laboratory and administered tests to students in the Learning course. She also earned credit and volunteer hours by being a part of the We Can program, a mentoring program for at-risk children. .  During her first year in the Clinical Counseling Program at Radford University, Vanessa is completing her 2-semester Applied Training in Psychological Research Course working with Dr. Steele on projects examining the role students play in preventing sexual assault, as well as the role of gender in helping behavior among faculty and students.

Sarah Rimmer (serimmer@radford.edu) earned her undergraduate degree in 2010 at Radford University in Psychology and a minor in Biology. During her time at Radford, she was involved in an independent study with Dr. Ruth Riding-Malon studying the collaboration between spirituality and mental health in rural areas. The group was able to present their paper at the Big SURS conference and will also be published later this year. She will be continuing this work with Dr. Riding-Malon during her first year in the Clinical Psychology Program at Radford University to satisfy her 2-semester Applied Training in Psychological Research Course. After graduating, Sarah is planning to pursue a Doctorate degree in Psychology.

Savannah Simpson (savannahnashay@aol.com) earned her B.A. in Clinical Psychology with a minor in Sociology from East Tennessee State University. During her time at ETSU she volunteered for Youth Villages and mentored a thirteen year old girl, worked as a part-time pharmacy technician, and worked at Little Bucs Daycare for her scholarship requirements. She also did research with Dr. Polaha in the Research Group on Children's Behavioral Health in Rural Primary Care. In this lab, she presented a poster, Educating Rural Psychologists: An Analysis Professional Training Programs, at the Appalachian Student Research Forum. She also started working on a study that measured rural parents’ perceived stigma about seeking mental health services for children where she went to primary care doctor’s offices in rural areas and handed out surveys to parents. During her first year in the Clinical Counseling Program at Radford University, Savannah is completing her 2-semester Applied Training in Psychological Research Course working with Dr. Lips on a project examining young women’s and men’s perceptions of their possible selves in powerful roles. After graduation, she wants to work in a rural area counseling people with psychological disorders.

Keara Washington (kwashington@email.radford.edu) earned her undergraduate degree at Claflin University in Sociology. During her years at Claflin, she had the opportunity to pursue a summer internship at Howard University conducting research about healthy relationship education and interventions. She also conducted and presented research on how children cope with intimate partner homicide at three conferences and completed her senior honors thesis on children witnessing intimate partner violence and its relationship to post traumatic stress disorder. During her first year in the Clinical Counseling Program at Radford University. Keara is completing her 2-semester Applied Training in Psychological Research Course working with Dr. Elliott on a project examining childhood victimization, poly-victimization and psychological distress. After completing her master’s degree, Keara plans to progress on to a doctoral program and eventually work with child victims of domestic violence.

Emily Aquilina (eaquilina@radford.edu) earned her Bachelor of Arts in Psychology from Christopher Newport University. During her time at CNU, she was involved in research as a member of the visual cognition lab within the Psychology department. Her and her colleagues’ work focused on combat related psychological research and included experiments which examined cognitive deterioration as a function of emotional stress. They shared their findings at conferences across Virginia as well as the Association for Psychological Science’s 24^th Annual Research conference in Chicago, Illinois. During her first year in the clinical counseling program at Radford University, Emily is completing her two-semester Applied Training in Psychological Research Course working with Dr. Jeffrey Willner on a project which examines the social relationships and functioning of adults with ADHD. Specifically, they will be examining the affects of ADHD on the social adjustment of young adults attending college.

Emma Bennett (ebennett10@radford.edu) earned her Bachelor of Science degree in Psychology at Radford University in 2012 where she volunteered with work related to crisis intervention at the Women's Resource Center. She also had the opportunity to work on a research project examining the effects of stimulus novelty/familiarity on learning through the establishment of latent inhibition in rats. During her first year in the Clinical Counseling Program at Radford University, Emma is completing her 2-semester Applied Training in Psychological Research Course working with Dr. Christensen on a project examining the effects of meta-regulation on self-control concerning binge-eating in a college population. After graduation, she hopes to enter a doctoral program and pursue a career as a therapist specializing in the treatment of eating disorders and borderline personality disorder. 

Krista Borling (klborling@radford.edu) earned her undergraduate degree in Sociology at Christopher Newport University in 2012. She had the opportunity to complete two internships with The Turning Point shelter and Avenues to Recovery in Roanoke, Virginia. She has also had the opportunity to work on a research project examining the relationships between death anxiety and paranormal beliefs. The findings were presented at an MPA conference in Chicago, Illinois in May 2012. She has also worked with the city of Newport News in conjunction with Christopher Newport University to assist in creating an assessment for a prospective gang prevention program. She is currently working with Dr. Elliott at Radford University on studying the effects of poly-victimization. After graduation, Krista hopes to pursue a doctoral program with the goal of working in the field of forensic psychopathology.

Stephen Casazza (scasazza@radford.edu) earned his Bachelor of Science degree from Old Dominion University in December of 2010.  During his senior year at ODU he completed his Clinical Practicum at the Mediation Center of Hampton Roads, instructing Conflict Resolution and Anger Management classes.  During this time he also assisted doctoral candidate Ross May on two research projects, the first investigating hindsight bias under varying conditions, and the second investigating perceived stress levels in various academic majors.  After graduating Stephen worked with Dr. May to have the findings from the perceived stress study published and presented at several conferences. During his first year in Radford’s Clinical Counseling program, Stephen will be completing his 2 semester Applied Training in Psychological Research Course assisting Dr. Pamela Jackson and Experimental Psychology graduate student Mike Curry on a research project investigating health and behavioral effects of rats whose mothers were exposed to marijuana-type drugs during the perinatal period. After completing his Master’s degree, Stephen has aspirations of entering a doctoral program and eventually to provide counseling and therapy to late adolescents and adults.

Bryce Lewis (blewis1@radford.edu) earned his first undergraduate degree at the Virginia Military Institute in physics and his second undergraduate degree at Radford University in psychology.  During his time at Radford, he assisted in research, investigating the interaction between environmental enrichment and chronic cannabinoid exposure in adolescent rats.  He also participated in a second research project, looking at how well counseling psychology programs train their students to deal with the religious and spiritual beliefs of their clients.  During his first year in the Clinical Counseling Program at Radford University, Bryce is completing his 2-semester Applied Training in Psychological Research Course working with Dr. Aspelmeier on a project examining attachment theory and self-regulation.  After graduation, he hopes to move on to a doctoral program.

Sharika Prioty (sprioty@radford.edu) earned her undergraduate degree at Meredith College in Psychology in May 2012. During her time at Meredith College she researched stigma towards individuals with mental illness in the United States compared to an Asian country, Bangladesh, and presented her findings at the Carolina Psychology Conference. She completed an internship in the emergency unit of Wake Med where she shadowed behavioral health counselors. She also had the opportunity to work with Partners Against Trafficking Humans where she met with different focus groups to research best affirmative messages for teenagers to counteract negative ones from society. During her first year in the Clinical Counseling Program at Radford University, Sharika is completing her 2-semester Applied Training in Psychological Research Course working with Dr. Riding-Malon. She is working with a research team that includes undergraduates, master's level students as well as PsyD students. Together, they are looking at Philippi Trust and their spiritual based counseling programs. Upon analyzing interviews with the staff and other members, they hope to address the effectiveness of such programs. After graduation she would like to enroll in a PhD program further her studies.

Ashley Soto (westhaven18@live.com) received her undergraduate degree at Christopher Newport University in Psychology, with a minor in Childhood Studies, in 2012. During her undergraduate career, she participated in research projects, examining the counterfactual production of 4^th, 5^th, and 6^th graders and the relation between the theory of mind abilities, language skills, and the ability to infer affect and personality traits of 3-, 4-, and 5- year olds. During her first year in the Clinical Counseling Program at Radford University, Ashley is completing her 2-semester Applied Training in Psychological Research Course working with Dr. Cohn to further her theoretical understanding. This research centers around the effect of rural areas on individuals suffering from HIV, with a special focus on social stigma. After graduation, she hopes to enter a doctoral program and eventually work with children and their families to improve their communication styles and relationships.