BIOGRAPHY

I am a fifth-year doctoral candidate earning a Ph.D. in Counseling, Clinical, and School Psychology, and a proud first-generation college student. I am also obtaining an interdisciplinary emphasis in Quantitative Methods in the Social Sciences.

I am passionate about researching effective prevention and intervention programs for ethnic minority youth experiencing suicidality, especially gang-involved or justice-involved youth. I value the involvement of stakeholders in the research process, as well as interdisciplinary work. As a result, I collaborate with youth themselves, community programs, juvenile detention centers, schools, and academics, with the goal of systems-level changes that will work to eliminate the school-to-prison pipeline and the mass incarceration of people of color.

As I work with more youth in juvenile detention settings, I have become aware of a unique need for trauma-informed and LGBTQ-affirmative mental health care, as these youth, especially if they are youth of color, are disproportionately incarcerated.

As an alumna of the NIH MARC U-STAR program at CSU Dominguez Hills, I am passionate about working with underrepresented students at the college level. After obtaining my doctorate, I hope to become hired at a university serving predominantly non-traditional students. I plan to have a laboratory on campus, and utilize connections with off-campus mental health agencies that I am building while in my doctoral program, to allow both undergraduate and graduate students to take an active and independent role in research relevant to their communities.

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Outside of academia, I practice hot power Vinyasa yoga, run with my dog, cycle with my partner, and enjoy trying any activity where I feel at home in my body. I hope to become a registered yoga teacher to offer free, trauma-informed yoga classes in correctional facilities and underserved communities, and am currently saving money to accomplish this goal.

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I am available for professional collaborations, invited talks, and interviews. Please contact me at kwhaling@ucsb.edu.