Genetti Gradaute Mentoring Award winners Corinna Klein and Valerie Meier
Corinna Klein from the Department of Counseling, Clinical, and School Psychology and Valerie Meier from the Department of Education were both chosen for two of the three 2021 Carol Genetti Mentoring Awards. The Carol Genetti Graduate Mentoring Award is available to students in the Humanities and Fine Arts and Social Sciences Divisions of the College of Letters and Science and the Gevirtz Graduate School of Education. These students are recognized for their excellence in and contributions to undergraduate research supervision and for encouraging others to become involved in these research efforts. Each of the winning students receives a $1000 award.
Corinna Klein is a doctoral student with an emphasis in Clinical Psychology under the supervision of Dr. Miya Barnett. She received her BA from UCSB in 2012. Prior to completing her BA, she worked in a residential treatment center for women with chemical dependency and histories of trauma exposure. She completed a Master's degree in Social Work at UCLA in 2017. During her Master's, Corinna specialized in school social work, providing mental health services to culturally and socioeconomically diverse students in public, non-public, and continuation schools in the Los Angeles area. Following her time at UCLA, she worked as a medical social worker in an acute care hospital. Her work within various treatment settings exposed her to the unequal provision of community mental health services and to the many barriers clients face in pursuit of effective treatment. he hopes to work towards decreasing disparities in access to effective mental health treatment. Her research interests include the implementation and dissemination of mental health services and clinician attitudes towards evidence-based treatments.
“Working with the undergraduate research assistants in the PADRES lab has been one of the most rewarding parts of graduate school,” Klein said about her mentoring experiences. “I am in constant awe of the students who come in, impassioned about the work we do and dedicated to increasing equity in access to effective mental health services. I feel incredibly fortunate to witness their growth as scholars, and it has been a great privilege to offer them guidance and to support their evolution as students, researchers, and future professionals. I am deeply gratified to consider a world in which the students I have worked with go on to shape the course of research and to inform the direction of scientific inquiry.”
Valerie Meier is an Education doctoral student working with Dr. Jin Sook Lee. She holds a BA and BFA from Tufts University, an MA in Composition from San Francisco State University, and an MA in Second Language Studies from the University of Hawaiʻi at Manoa. In addition to having taught a wide range of reading and writing classes at US universities, she has also taught English in Japan and Laos. Her research interests broadly include academic literacies, second language acquisition, and language-in-education policies; her current focus is on better understanding how teachers can capitalize on their students’ bilingual resources in order to promote the acquisition of academic literacies in one or more languages.
“I’ve coded interview and classroom observation data with research interns as part of NSF-funded projects examining preservice math and science teacher learning; supported undergraduate facilitators as they engaged 4th and 5th graders from Harding Elementary in reading and writing about our maritime community; and taught alongside undergraduates through SKILLS, a program that introduces high school students to concepts and research methods from sociocultural linguistics,” Meier said about her mentoring experiences. “Throughout, I have been inspired by the energy, creativity, and idealism of UCSB undergraduates, and have relished the opportunity to learn from folks with such rich lived experiences, skills, and perspectives. Collaborating and building mentoring relationships with undergraduates has been a highlight of my graduate education.”