Fall 2023

New Article:
In the International Journal of Mental Health Systems:

Experience of traumatic events in people with severe mental illness in a low-income country: a qualitative study.
Citation and Open Access Article can be found Here.

Summer 2023

New Article:
In the Trauma Psychology News:

Integrating familismo in evidence-based trauma therapies to increase treatment engagement among Latine youth.
Citation and Open Access Article can be found Here.

Spring 2023

New Publication:
In Cambridge Prisms: Global Mental Health:

Effective Training Practices for Non-Specialist Providers to Promote High Quality Mental Health Intervention Delivery: A Narrative Review with Four Case Studies from Kenya, Ethiopia, and the United States.
Citation and Open Access Article can be found Here.

The TRUST Lab & the UCLA Psychology Undergraduate Research Conference (PURC)

Congratulations to all seven TRUST lab RAs who presented research and work  at the 2023 UCLA PURC. All of their hard work and dedication to pursuing independent research has paid off with beautiful research Poster Presentations and informative Data Blitz talks.

New Undergraduate Volunteer Research Positions Available!. More information and application instructions can be found here. 

New Publication:
In the Journal of the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry:

Editorial: Youth Psychotherapy Interventions in Low- and Middle-Income Countries and Throughout the World: Beyond Efficacy, Towards Accessibility
Citation and Article Information can be found Here.

New Publication:
In the journal Behavior, Research, and Therapy:

A pragmatic feasibility trial of the Primary Care Intervention for PTSD: A health service delivery model to reduce health disparities for low-income and BIPOC youth.
Citation and Open Access Article can be found Here.

Congratulations Megha Nagaswami on receiving the 2023 National Science Foundation (NSF) Graduate Research Fellowship Program (GRFP) for her research on early life adversity and intimate partner conflict.

Winter 2023

Congratulations Gloria Jiyoon Kim, one of the TRUST Lab’s Senior Undergraduate Research Assistants! She has been awarded the 2022-2023 UCLA Equity, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) Student Leadership Award! Gloria was selected as 1 of 3 Undergraduate Students honored for their excellence in making significant and positive contributions to the advancement of EDI at UCLA and were selected based on their leadership, innovation, and engagement.

Congratulations to TRUST Lab Graduate Student Megha Nagaswami! She has received the 2022 Harry and Miriam Levinson Scholarship from the American Psychological Foundation (APF)/COGDOP Graduate Research Scholarship program. This fellowship will help support Megha’s research focusing on the role of systemic adversity on distress tolerance and relationship conflict in couples from minoritized backgrounds.

 

Fall 2022

Mentorship Spotlight with Dr. Lauren Ng and Yesenia Aguilar Silvan: Mentorship enhances mental health research focused on the underserved.

Psychology professor Lauren Ng and doctoral student Yesenia Aguilar Silvan help each other make a difference for others.

Identifying and addressing barriers to care for underserved populations is key to the work of both Lauren Ng, assistant professor of clinical psychology and director of the Treatment and Research for the Underserved with Stress and Trauma (TRUST) Lab, and her mentee, doctoral student Yesenia Aguilar Silvan. 

Full article Link can be found here.

UCLA Department of Psychology Faculty Spotlight: Dr. Lauren Ng! The Faculty spotlight features information on Dr. Ng’s previous work and research with the TRUST Lab. 
More information and Departmental post can be found here.

Spring 2022

Congratulations to our Undergraduate Research assistant Gloria Kim! Gloria was awarded 2022 Dean’s Prize for Excellence in Research and Creativity at the Undergrad Research & Creativity Showcase!! She presented her research Exploring Asian Americans’ Attitudes Towards Mental Health Treatment Based on Therapist-Client Racial/Ethnic Match. Gloria’s Presentation can be found at the UCLA Research Showcase website or viewed on YouTube.

Congratulations to the brilliant TRUST Lab RAs for presenting at today’s Psychology Undergraduate Research Conference (PURC) hosted by UCLA! Dessery & Gloria for their excellent research talks, and Vidhi & Kat for their amazing poster presentations!

Winter 2022

Congratulations to Gia Chodzen on being selected to receive the prestigious Dean’s Excellence Award! She was nominated by the Department for her outstanding contributions to the teaching mission as well as her commitment to promoting equity, diversity, and inclusion.

Fall 2021

Congratulations to Dr. Caroline Shanholtz! She has been awarded a Child Mental Health in Action award from the Society of Clinical Child and Adolescent Psychology (SCCAP)! Her project is PTSD Prevention for Justice Involved Youth: A Feasibility Study.

 

Introducing our new Graduate Student in the Clinical Psychology Ph.D. Program! 

Megha Nagaswami earned her B.A. in  Psychology from the University of Pennsylvania. Her research focuses on understanding experiences of interpersonal violence and its related trauma in underserved populations with an emphasis on long-term mental health outcomes of survivors. More information about Megha can be found on our Lab Members page 

Summer 2021

New Publication:
In the journal BJPsych Open:

Development of a psychological intervention for people with bipolar disorder in rural Ethiopia.  
Citation and Open Access Article can be found Here.

Yesenia Aguilar Silvan, TRUST Lab Graduate Student and 2021 Ford Fellow, has been featured in The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. More information on her research can be found on our Lab Members page and the full article linked here. 

Introducing our new Postdoctoral Scholar Dr. Caroline Shanholtz! 

Dr. Shanholtz earned her Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology from the University of Arizona. Her program of research involves developing, evaluating, and implementing evidence-based interventions targeting stress and trauma for youth and families involved in the legal system. More information about Dr. Shanholtz can be found on our Lab Members page 

New Publication:
In the journal Pilot and Feasibility Studies:

A culturally adapted brief intervention for post-traumatic stress disorder in people with severe mental illness in Botswana: protocol for a randomised feasibility trial.

Citation and Open Access Article can be found Here.

Prospective PhD Student Information Sessions: September 9th and 14th!  The TRUST Lab will be hosting two information sessions for prospective students interested in the UCLA Clinical Psychology graduate program. Topics include common questions in applying, determining program and mentor fit with research, interviewing, graduate student life, mentoring style, and attendee submitted questions. For more information and registration details please see our FAQ page for PhD Students here

Dr. Lauren Ng: September 9th, 1:00pm PT.

Graduate Student Panel: September 14th, 3:00pm PT.

New Publication:
In the journal Psychotherapy:

Psychotherapy in a resource-constrained setting: Understanding context for adapting and integrating a brief psychological intervention into primary care.

Citation and Advance Online copy can be found Here.

March 2021

Dr. Lauren Ng and Dr. Archana Basu have written a new article for the ISTSS StressPoints newsletter. The article cover Justice, Equity, Diversity and Inclusion and Trauma Informed Care.

The International Society for Traumatic Stress Studies link can be found here: Justice, Equity, Diversity and Inclusion (JEDI) Principles Operationalized through the Trauma-Informed ‎Care (TIC) Framework

Graduate Student Yesenia Aguilar Silvan has been awarded the prestigious Ford Foundation Predoctoral Fellowship administered by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine on behalf of the Ford Foundation!

Yesenia’s current research focuses on identifying and addressing mutable factors that contribute to documented healthcare disparities in care access, continuity, quality, and outcomes for vulnerable populations.

Dr. Lauren Ng has been selected as an Affiliated Faculty of the UCLA Center for Community Engagement!

The Center seeks to create and strengthen visibility and connection among community-engaged scholars at UCLA whose research and/or teaching is embedded in the principles of reciprocal community engagement.  More information about the Center can be found here.

New Publication:
In the Journal of Attention Disorders:

Social Determinants of Health and ADHD Symptoms in Preschool-Age Children (Article Link)

 

January & February 2021

Dr. Ng joined over 30 experts from different domains in psychology research, practice, and popular public figures and to discuss the causes and cutting-edge treatments for many serious disorders, the stigma surrounding mental illness in our culture, systemic inequality in mental health treatment, and the mental health challenges of today in a new #talkmentalillness Mental Health Experts series on YouTube:

Dr. Lauren Ng on Mental Health of Underserved Populations: Video Link

The rest of the #talkmentalillness series can be found here.

New Publications:
In the International Journal of Mental Health and Addiction:

Predicting the Contribution of Age at First Substance Use and Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder to Later Addiction Severity in a Clinical Sample from Sub-Saharan Africa: Implications for Prevention and Treatment (Article Link)

And in Social Science and Medicine:

Why doesn’t God say “enough”? Experiences of living with bipolar disorder in rural Ethiopia (Article Link)

Citations and more information here

Past News and Announcements

November & December 2020

New publication in The Journal of Behavioral Health Services & Research:

Implementation of Integrated Behavioral Health Care in a Large Medical Center: Benefits, Challenges, and Recommendations (Article Link)

August 2020

New paper published from Graduate student Rddhi Moodilar in Psychiatry:

A Pragmatic Approach to Psychometric Comparisons between the DSM-IV and DSM-5 Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) Checklists in Acutely Injured Trauma Patients
(Article Link)

Panel Presentation:
Dr. Lauren Ng participated in panel discussion presented by Stanford Office of Medical Student Wellness: “One Step at a Time: Understanding Racial Trauma and the Recovery Process” Tuesday August 18th, 2020.

June & July 2020

Dr. Lauren Ng and the TRUST Lab have received UCLA Center for the Study of Women Faculty Research Grant for the 2020-2021 academic year for our project, “Health service disparities among youth who have experienced sexual violence: The role of intersectional identities.” More information here.

New RAs join the lab!
We welcome three new undergraduate Research Assistants to the TRUST lab Seerat Chawla, Nicole Belton-Mercado, and Gena Huynh. More information and bios here.

April & May 2020

Graduate student Gia Chodzen has joined the TRUST Lab! More information on our Lab Members page here.

New publication in PLOS Medicine:

National and regional prevalence of posttraumatic stress disorder in sub-Saharan Africa: A systematic review and meta-analysis. PLOS Medicine (Article link)

We welcome two new first Year PhD students to UCLA and the TRUST Lab, Rddhi Moodliar and Yesenia Aguilar Silvan!
More information on our Lab Members page here.