New York Life Graduate Fellows, 2008-2009

Karin Belser
Born in Newark, New Jersey, Karin Belser received a bachelor’s degree in psychology and a master’s in counseling from the College of New Jersey. During her studies, she volunteered at Anchor House, in Trenton, where she assisted homeless and runaway youth. She later interned at Triad House, a residential community home for abused and neglected teens. Her increasing interest in public service led her to participate in a community-based research project focusing on the mental health of urban youth. During this past year, Karin was a counselor trainee at Westminster Choir College of Rider University, in Princeton, New Jersey, where she provided individual and group counseling services to students. She also mentored an incoming counseling student as a way to “give back.” Karin’s goal is to become a clinical psychologist and clinician so that, through mentoring relationships, research, and practice, she can continue providing services to ethnic minorities.

Adina Boyce
Adina Boyce, whose bachelor's degree is in civil engineering, is a first-year graduate student in CCNY's transportation-engineering program. For the past three years, Adina has been actively involved in research initiatives at CCNY and other leading institutions, including the University of California-Berkeley. She has presented at international and regional conferences and has received awards for her work. Adina’s research interests focus on transportation planning, operations and infrastructure, pavement design, and clean-fuel technology. In support of her master’s thesis, Adina will be conducting research this summer in Brazil on the impacts of biofuel usage on the transportation infrastructure. She plans to conduct a case study in East Harlem to model specific impacts of alternative fuel usage on improving air quality, and she hopes the findings may provide an avenue for lowering the high incidence of asthma for the local Black community.

Gillian Scott
Gillian Scott is a third-year doctoral student in the clinical psychology department. After earning a bachelor’s degree in psychology from Cornell University, she became a research analyst/project coordinator for the Research Triangle Institute, analyzing the effectiveness of a jail diversion program for mentally ill, chemically addicted criminal offenders. Since enrolling in her doctoral program, Gillian has also worked at Columbia University educating economically disadvantaged parents of mentally ill children about helpful services and techniques. Subsequently, she began working as a mental health clinician at HELP USA, a homeless shelter in the South Bronx. Her academic and professional interests include researching the means of mitigating stigma towards mental illness and seeking mental health-care treatment within African- and Caribbean-American communities. Additionally, she is interested in researching the perpetuation of negative stereotypes of minority groups in the media and its effect on ethnic minorities and their academic achievement. Gillian’s goal is to provide mental-health services to underserved populations, continue related research, and influence policy related to the access of mental-health care and education.

Cidna Valentin
Cidna Valentin is pursuing a Ph.D. in clinical psychology at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York.  Originally from West Philadelphia, Cidna Valentin completed her undergraduate studies in psychology at Hampton University in Virginia. She moved to New York to pursue a master’s degree in clinical psychology at Columbia University, Teachers College. Cigna has a strong interest in psychology-related HIV research. She has held various positions at the New York State Office of Mental Health, the HIV Center for Clinical and Behavioral Studies at the New York State Psychiatric Institute, and the Mailman School of Public Health at Columbia University. At the latter, she investigated the integration of mental-health services and HIV/AIDS prevention and intervention. Her academic and professional research interests include maternal HIV and mother-child attachment, the impact of trauma and chronic stress on women of color living with HIV/AIDS, and facets of sexual-risk behavior among women of color.  As a Powell Fellow, Cidna hopes to enhance her understanding of health policy as it relates to access to health care and broaden her perspective on psychotherapeutic interventions for families of color. 

Easter Z. Wood
Easter Z. Wood, a Harlem native, received her bachelor’s degree from CCNY in Spring 2008. She began pursuing her master's degree in history in Fall 2008, with a focus on the African diaspora in the Americas. Previously, in 2006, Easter earned an associate’s degree in psychology from Bronx Community College, where she was a class valedictorian. Easter is greatly concerned with social justice and progress in the United States and around the world; she has studied abroad at the University of Legon in Accra, Ghana, interned at the Salzburg Global Seminar in Salzburg, Austria, and during the summer of 2008, studied in both Nigeria and Egypt. Easter is managing editor of The Paper at City College and a founding member of the Gulf Coast Relief Society, through which she has traveled to help rebuild the city of New Orleans. Her concerns include education and environmental policy. She has worked as a student representative with Campus Progress, a national organization, to encourage students to advocate for improved education policies. Easter also hopes someday to better inform communities of color of how “green living” can improve their lives and health.

New York Life Graduate Scholars: Alumni 2007-2008

Rhea Benjamin
Rhea Benjamin was born and raised in the East Harlem section of New York City. She graduated cum laude with a bachelor’s of arts degree in psychology from Hampton University. After completing her master’s degree in psychology at the City College of New York, she went on to work as a mental health counselor for several social service agencies in Harlem. In her work, Ms. Benjamin saw the tremendous impact she could have on the lives of young people, and this realization inspired her to pursue further studies. Currently, she is a doctoral candidate in the clinical psychology program at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York. Ms. Benjamin’s research interests center on the resiliency of African-American men in the face of psychological and social adversity. Upon the completion of her doctoral studies, she intends to work in the public sector as a psychologist, using clinical research to improve mental-health policy as it relates to services provided to people of color in underserved communities.

DeShaunta Johnson
DeShaunta Johnson is a fifth-year doctoral candidate in clinical psychology at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York. She is also a program director at Housing Works, a social service agency that serves mentally ill, homeless substance users with HIV. Ms. Johnson additionally works as a researcher at the Center for Time, Work and the Family, an Ackerman Institute initiative that provides support to homeless survivors of domestic violence who are transitioning from temporary shelters back to work. Her academic and professional interests include using psychological, sociological and public-policy perspectives to examine the multiple impacts of homelessness, mental illness and HIV on individuals in marginalized communities of color. At City College and through her work for the Ackerman Institute and Housing Works, she is learning to develop community-based, client-directed initiatives and to shape related public policy. Ms. Johnson plans to continue participating in the research and development of appropriate mental-health models for the homeless, mentally ill and HIV-afflicted population and to produce useful scholarly contributions that will help make mental-health services for this cohort more effective and accessible.

Kahlila Robinson
Kahilla Robinson is a second-year doctoral candidate in clinical psychology at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York. She holds a bachelor’s of science degree from Cornell University, where she studied hotel administration. In addition to her graduate school commitments, Ms. Robinson works as a mental health consultant at a Headstart program in the Bronx and is co-chair of the Association for Ethnic Minority Issues, her graduate program’s ethnic minority advocacy group. Ms. Robinson’s professional interests relate to issues of class and ethnicity. Her proposed research focuses on the integration of social class and identity formation and the subsequent impact of social class on one’s ability to achieve in the academic and professional worlds. A native New Yorker, Ms. Robinson plans to work as a clinician for underserved populations in New York City and to pursue related research.

Kanene Holder
Kanene Holder is a 2001 Howard University alumna who holds a bachelor’s of science degree in speech pathology. Selected in 2001 to moderate an undergraduate conference on communication disorders and simultaneously debuting as an actress with a starring role in a performance to honor Spike Lee, Ms. Holder found herself at a crossroads. Initially she mediated her interests in education, childhood development and performance by achieving a coveted position as a 2001 New York City Teaching Fellow. After two years of teaching, she began performing full time as an actress. She wrote and produced a grant-award-winning one-woman show and appeared in multiple independent films and commercials.
    Ms. Holder is currently pursuing a graduate degree in childhood education at City College. Her research focuses on fostering a symbiotic relationship between community and school to validate neighborhood culture as well as to infuse the curriculum with culturally relevant pedagogy. She also teaches elementary social studies and science at the Harlem Children’s Zone. There, she collaborated with researchers from Cornell University to develop a multi-media curriculum on the significance of rice during the slave trade. Ms. Holder hopes to propose and implement education-related policy solutions to the ills of the Black community. Her focus is critical thinking and engagement in social justice through analysis, dialogue and performance. She recently achieved the cover of the Village Voice arts section for her production, “Committing that Black on Black Crime Called Blackface,” which made its theatrical debut at La Mama this past winter.

Monique Sulle Bowen
Monique Sulle Bowen is a doctoral candidate in clinical psychology at the City University of New York.  She has been a training therapist at the Psychological Center at City College since 2003, focusing primarily on clinical interventions with children and families. Ms. Sulle Bowen began a year-long clinical fellowship this fall at the Student Advocacy and Support Services Center at CUNY’s Medgar Evers College in Brooklyn. During her academic and clinical training at City College, she has served as an adjunct lecturer and counselor with the college’s SEEK program (a higher education opportunity program) and has worked for two years as the clinical coordinator of the Family Studies Program at the NYU Child Study Center. Ms. Sulle Bowen also has conducted community-based interventions with homeless families as part of the Fresh Start for Families program, sponsored by the Center for Time, Work and the Family at the Ackerman Institute (in conjunction with HELP, USA, a provider of housing and related services for the homeless). Ms. Sulle Bowen’s doctoral dissertation considers the impacts of therapist self-disclosure with psychotherapy patients and the ways it aids in the exploration of therapeutic communication between client and therapist. During 2003-2004, she served as co-chair of the graduate student Association on Ethnic Minority Issues.