Maritza M
- Research Program Mentor
PhD at University of California Irvine (UCI)
Expertise
Developmental Psychology, Child Development & Family Studies, Education & Social Policy, Quantitative & Qualitative Analyses, Social Behavioral Interventions, Survey Development, Program Evaluations, Community-Research Practice Partnerships
Bio
Throughout my academic career I have worked with parents, children, adolescents, and various stakeholders in a range of capacities and contexts. For example, facilitating parent-child interaction and attachment therapy with incarcerated mothers and their visiting children. Additionally, I have worked with community organizations and city councils to bring resources to families with low-incomes and promote healthy development efforts. I have also worked in the classroom with children ages 6 months up to high school and young adults in college. In terms of my research, I focus on 1) building transparency surrounding the intentions and actual outcomes of social and education policies affecting parents with low-incomes and their children, and 2) improving access to social services and strengthening policies (e.g., programs, resources, interventions, funding priorities) to better support parents as they strive for economic and educational upward mobility as well as healthy development. During my time off of work-related activities I enjoy traveling, eating new dishes/cuisines, taking dance classes or social dancing, reading empowering books, spending time with my dog and friends, and adrenaline filled adventures!Project ideas
Community Awareness Campaign
This campaign can address a specific risk factor and as such, clearly explain why it is a risk factor and offer quick guidance on how to combat it/overcome it, move the needle forward to decrease the risk, or where to go for support and resources. Think of empowering community members! You can be creative by creating an awareness campaign via: 1) an ad that can go on buses, freeway signs, benches, 2) Tik-Tok video or set of Instagram slides, 3) a YouTube or Facebook video, 4) an interactive webpage or PDF (with working links). In true form, campaigns are meant to be disseminated widely, be captivating so that they get your message across quickly, be easily shareable, and accessible. This is a useful exercise because social media and technology play an important role in reaching parents, children/adolescents, and other community members – especially now that COVID-19 has pushed the need for virtual communication and has increased isolation for many.
Write an Opinion Piece, a Brief Report, or Policy Brief
This type of project is intended to practice communicating scientific findings or ideas to a broader non-academic audience. This is useful when pursuing careers in journalism, policy advocacy, administration, leading programs/organizations, requesting grants, research that impacts practitioners or families, writing to legislatures, etc. It will also help you practice being concise. You can submit these short pieces to newspapers or a range of organizations that publish these pieces.
Research Project using Surveys, Interviews, Focus Groups, and/or Publicly Available Data (School, City, Company, etc)
I can guide you in developing your own research project driven by research questions of your interest. I will assist you in ensuring that your research questions are feasible, developing consent forms, creating data collection tools, and mapping out your analytic plan (quantitative, qualitative, or mixed-methods), and identifying where findings can be disseminated.
Podcast
Through a podcast you can dive deeper into social justice causes, research practices and findings, local and national policy issues, historical or generational patterns, and much more! You can interview school peers, family members, community members, or leaders across the globe (virtually).