I found my passion for the mental health field at a community center where I assisted newly diagnosed autistic children and their families develop support networks and access psychological services. When working with these families I realized how inaccessible mental health care can be, due to long wait lists, financial barriers, and stigma. Many families needed services immediately and there were not enough resources in the community to meet their needs. I realized I could better serve families as a Clinical Psychologist. Across the nation, there is a growing shortage of psychologists, leading to increased wait times for children to be diagnosed with autism and receive early intervention services. With the need for psychologists continuing to grow alongside the increasing rates of children diagnosed with autism, I have dedicated my life to supporting autistic children and their families by pursuing a career as a Clinical Psychologist. With the goal of Clinical Psychologist in mind, I attended the University of South Florida (USF) and graduated summa cum laude with a Bachelor of Arts in Psychology and a minor in Applied Behavioral Analysis. While at USF, I conducted my thesis which was informed by my clinical work as a Registered Behavior Technician implementing interventions with autistic children. I studied how brief, easy-to-implement interventions can be tailored to help families engage with the services their child receives to increase care for underserved and diverse families. This allowed me to further develop an understanding of the barriers to care that many families face and the responsibility that I have to develop culturally competent and accessible interventions that take diversity into account to create more opportunities for care. Post-bachelors, I sought other opportunities to gain a more comprehensive understanding of the mental health field and how other psychological disorders are treated. I examined the prevalence and impact of social anxiety disorder stigma to develop a community public health education campaign to destigmatize and address common misconceptions about social anxiety disorder. I also assisted in developing a relationship education intervention to improve emotion regulation among military couples. This experience has increased my understanding of how to utilize relationship interventions to incorporate others (e.g., parents, siblings, and peers) into interventions in order to increase communication and overall well-being and support for autistic children and their families. As a Clinical Psychology doctoral student, I am fortunate to be able to provide therapy to children with psychological and developmental disorders while researching the impact of autism on family functioning and support. My career goals include developing family-based early interventions that increase access to care for underserved populations while improving the well-being of autistic children and their families. As a graduate student, I have administered therapeutic interventions, including leading a group intervention teaching autistic youth how to regulate their emotions, and providing therapy to autistic college students. I have also connected with my local community through volunteering with local autism clinics to provide resources at community events and respite care to autistic caregivers. A doctoral degree in Clinical Psychology allows me to develop innovative family and community-based interventions that will revolutionize how we treat autism. My path to becoming a Clinical Psychologist has been a journey of self-discovery and professional exploration as I have worked with autistic children and their families, adults with social anxiety disorder, and military members and their spouses through research and clinical interventions. As I enter my third year of graduate school, I have taken the lessons I have learned from my work with each of these communities to guide my training and pursue opportunities to become a well-rounded and culturally competent Clinical Psychologist.

I am passionate about pursuing a career as a Clinical Psychologist to provide therapy to children with psychological and developmental disorders while researching the impact of autism on family functioning and support. My journey to becoming a Clinical Psychologist began at a community center as I assisted newly diagnosed autistic children and their families develop support networks and access psychological and mental health services. While working with these families, I heard story after story about how stressed families were as wait lists were years long, their child was currently struggling, and they felt overwhelmed and hopeless. As I consoled parents and tried to find available resources, I found myself pulled towards the question I hope to build my career on: How can we support the families of children with autism to mitigate distress, increase well-being, all while ensuring that the autistic child receives the support and services they need? Through my work at the community center, I realized I could better serve families by providing the therapy that is desperately needed but increasingly difficult to obtain. Across the nation, there is a growing shortage of psychologists, leading to increased wait times for children to be diagnosed with autism and receive early intervention services. Many of the children and families I currently work with as a graduate student clinician come from low-income, rural backgrounds, and working with me is their first experience with mental health services. Rural areas are particularly impacted by the shortage of mental health providers, as 61% of areas with a mental health care provider shortage are identified as rural (Bureau of the Health Workforce, 2017). In addition to a shortage of mental health providers, rural populations face barriers to service access including high poverty rates, geographic isolation, and decreased means of transportation, all of which significantly limit the accessibility of mental health services. As a psychologist, I aim to provide therapy in low-income and rural areas to increase access to services and help bridge the gap between mental health providers and those who need mental health services. As a Clinical Child Psychology doctoral student at The University of Alabama, I provide therapeutic interventions to children and adolescents utilizing Cognitive Behavioral Therapy. I have also connected with my local community through volunteering with local autism clinics to provide resources at community events and respite care to caregivers of autistic children. This past year, I led a group therapy intervention that taught autistic youth how to regulate emotions while instructing parents on how they can help their child communicate their emotions and manage challenging behaviors. In the upcoming year, I look forward to providing Parent-Child Interaction Therapy and therapy to autistic college students and children from the local community. Through my clinical work, I have developed a passion for therapy and aim to specialize in parent-mediated early interventions for autistic children and their families. A doctoral degree in Clinical Psychology allows me to gain the necessary clinical skills and experience to develop innovative family and community-based interventions to revolutionize how we provide therapy to autistic children and their families. I attended the University of South Florida and graduated summa cum laude with a Bachelor of Arts in Psychology and a minor in Applied Behavioral Analysis. While at the University of South Florida, I conducted my thesis which was informed by my clinical work as a Registered Behavior Technician implementing interventions with autistic children. As a Registered Behavior Technician, I provided therapy to autistic children to help them develop adaptive living skills and manage challenging behaviors. A vital aspect of my job was to teach parents how to work with their children at home to increase their child's ability to perform the skills and decrease challenging behaviors across different environments. Parents were often overwhelmed with how to implement the interventions at home as their children struggled to focus and engage with the tasks. As I problem-solved with parents on how they can work with their children outside of the clinic, I was inspired to conduct my thesis on how to tailor brief, easy-to-implement interventions to help families engage with the services their child receives. I further explored these interests by examining how parent training can increase access to care for underserved and diverse populations. While collaborating on a study examining culturally adapted pyramidal parent training (e.g., a therapist trains a family member who then trains other family members to implement an intervention), I observed the differences between families receiving pyramidal training in the study and the families I worked with as a Registered Behavior Technician in a clinic. Families within the study had a low socioeconomic status, compared to the middle-class families I worked with at the clinic. Many families within the study were unable to receive or afford additional therapy hours, and pyramidal training provided caregivers with training to implement interventions themselves. This study allowed me to understand the barriers to care that many families face. By collaborating with service providers and parents, I can identify and develop interventions that can be implemented efficiently and address multiple areas of interest at once (e.g., increasing communication skills and improving relationships through parent training). To increase access to care for underserved populations, I aim to expand interventions (e.g., parent training and telehealth) that take diversity (e.g., families' socioeconomic status, location, and culture) into account to create more opportunities for care. I was further inspired to pursue a career as a Clinical Psychologist as I sought opportunities to study the impact of other mental health disorders and struggles, including social anxiety disorder and suicide. As one of the first research assistants in Dr. Fallon Goodman’s Emotion and Resilience lab, I co-developed the lab's foundational structures and a series of research projects on social anxiety disorder, loneliness, and well-being from the ground up. As the lead study coordinator, I examined the prevalence and impact of social anxiety disorder stigma to develop a community public health education campaign to destigmatize and address common misconceptions (e.g., prevalence and symptomatology) about social anxiety disorder. Examining the impact of stigma relates to my drive to increase community and stakeholder autism education and engagement to dispel stigmas and encourage service providers’ collaboration with family members. Additionally, my experience with parent-mediated interventions and studying factors that influence well-being, inspired me to consider how parents’ romantic relationships can impact the family’s well-being. I pursued the opportunity to become further involved in relationship research as a full-time lead study coordinator in the Suicide CPR Initiative Lab on the Better Together Project. While assisting in developing a primary prevention relationship education intervention targeting interpersonal emotion regulation among military couples to decrease suicide risk, I have considered how this intervention can apply to families with autism. My understanding of how to utilize relationship interventions (e.g., parent training and education) to incorporate others (e.g., parents, siblings, and peers) into interventions can help increase communication and overall well-being and support for families with autism. My career goals include directing a research lab as a professor at a research-oriented university, developing early interventions that increase access to care and support children with autism and their families. To address deficits in social communication skills for children with autism, I am interested in developing and examining interventions that incorporate typically developing peers and siblings to generalize social skills for autistic children across people and settings. As I have worked closely with children with autism and their siblings, I look forward to examining outcomes and risk factors for family members of a child with autism. I have observed firsthand how siblings can feel unsupported, and parents face increased levels of stress, which strains a family's well-being. My current research builds upon these interests by examining how a parent's support network impacts their stress and relationship satisfaction. It is necessary to first understand how a parent's support system is maintained and impacts their stress to develop an intervention that improves their well-being. My path to becoming a Clinical Psychology doctoral student has been a journey of self-discovery and professional exploration as I have worked with autistic children and their families, adults with social anxiety disorder, and military members and their spouses through research and clinical interventions. The lessons I have learned from my work with these communities have guided my training and efforts to become a well-rounded and culturally competent Clinical Psychologist. With the need for psychologists continuing to grow alongside the increasing rates of children diagnosed with autism, I am passionate about supporting and providing therapy to autistic children and their families. I aspire to help autistic children and their families (particularly in low-income and rural areas) by providing clinical services and researching how to increase support, decrease stress, and improve family functioning through intervention development and advocacy work.