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Urveesha N

- Research Program Mentor

PhD candidate at University of Kentucky

Expertise

Psychology (Clinical, Child), Social Sciences, Literature, Humanities

Bio

Hi! I'm Urveesha and I am a first-year Clinical Psychology PhD student at the University of Kentucky. I graduated from Teachers College, Columbia University with my MA in Clinical Psychology in 2020. Before this, I received my BA in English Literature at the University of Delhi with Psychology as my minor. I realized during my undergraduate degree that Psychology was the field for me! Since then I have been fortunate enough to get a plethora of research experience in the field of clinical and child psychology. My current interests include studying ADHD and mood disorders in kids and adolescents and am currently working as a Research Coordinator in a lab studying attention and behavior. My degree also exposed me to several other areas of interest such as global mental health, public health, and sexual risk behavior research. Aside from all things psych, I also keep going back to my literature roots. I loved learning about Victorian, European, Post-colonial, and Fantasy literature during my undergraduate degree and have authored a paper analyzing the Appeal of Fantasy in the Harry Potter books through a psychological lens. In my free time, you can find me cooking, reading lots of books, listening to podcasts, and learning to play the ukulele!

Project ideas

Project ideas are meant to help inspire student thinking about their own project. Students are in the driver seat of their research and are free to use any or none of the ideas shared by their mentors.

Mental Illness in Media

There is a huge contrast in the reality of mental illness and how it is portrayed in media. In both entertainment and media, mental illness is usually portrayed as overwhelmingly dramatic, is exaggerated, inaccurate, and often times emphasizes dangerousness, unpredictability, modeling negative reactions to those with psychiatric disorders. This contributes to the stigma surrounding mental illness. This project can include comparing different portrayals of a certain psychiatric disorder in movies or tv shows. It can take the form of a research paper, case study, or even a podcast. Through this, the student will learn about various psychological disorders in-depth.

There's So Much We Can Analyze

Is there's a book or even a genre that you want to analyze outside of school? Whether a childhood favorite novel or even one you haven't had the chance to read? Or a TV series or movie based on one of your favorite books or vice versa? We can definitely do that here! This can involve comparing two mediums, or exploring the work in chronological order, analyzing the narrative and themes. For example, you can compare the Percy Jackson books and the movies! Or even compare two different books in the same genre, explore two different authors who wrote during the same time, how their backgrounds and experiences might have influenced their writing. It's up to you!

Curiosity does NOT kill the cat

Are you curious about a certain area or topic in psychology? Can be anything ranging from something as broad as why certain individuals behave a certain way or as specific as to why certain individuals might thrive in adversity while others don't. Or you can focus on something we're experiencing right now - COVID-19 and how that's impacting people? Is staying at home because of lockdowns leading to more conflict between children (who have been diagnosed with depression) and their parents or has the relationship improved? Why or why not? And, how? It can be anything you want to find the answers to! We can work on synthesizing a research idea in a topic you're interested in, design a study to test your hypothesis, collect relevant data and analyze. Through this, you will learn how to read a research paper critically and reviewing scientific literature, relevant theories, statistical procedures, exploring variables and which statistical test to use to measure them appropriately, perform data analysis, and lastly drawing meaningful conclusions from your results.

Coding skills

SPSS, R

Languages I know

Hindi

Teaching experience

I used to teach kids English as a teacher volunteer with The Wordsworth Project in India. I have also tutored adolescents at the Day Treatment Program at the New York State Psychiatric Institute while working as a research assistant.

Credentials

Work experience

Penn State College of Medicine (2020 - Current)
Research Coordinator
New York State Psychiatric Institute (2019 - Current)
Research Assistant
Teachers College, Columbia University (2018 - Current)
Research Assistant
Montefiore Medical Group (2018 - 2020)
Psychology Assistant

Education

University of Delhi
BA Bachelor of Arts (2018)
English Literature
Columbia University
MA Master of Arts
Clinical Psychology
University of Kentucky
PhD Doctor of Philosophy candidate

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