2001 Diversity Fund Award Recipients

A total of 92 graduate students applied for a Diversity Fund Travel Award to attend the 2001 SPSP conference. Of these applicants, 9 received an award of up to $1,000 for conference-related expenses, and 27 received Honorable Mention (which included a $65 stipend to cover the cost of conference registration). This page contains a biographical profile of each award winner and a roster of students receiving Honorable Mention.

2001 Award Recipients

FangFang Chen is an international student from the People's Republic of China. She received her M.S. degree from Beijing University and joined the social psychology Ph.D. program at Arizona State University in 1996. She is interested in both cross-cultural psychology and quantitative research methods. Together with her mentors, Stephen West and Nancy Felipe Russo, she is examining measurement issues in individualism and collectivism research. She is also working with Stephen West on an NIH-funded project investigating determinants of well being in arthritis and AIDs patients. After graduate school, FangFang hopes to continue her research in cross-cultural psychology and teach at a research-oriented university.

Henry A. Danso was born in Ghana, West Africa. In 1994 Henry emigrated to Canada, and in 1997 he entered the social psychology Ph.D. program at the University of Western Ontario. Henry's main research interests lie in the area of relations between minority and majority group members. He and his advisor, Victoria Esses, have been investigating the role of perceived threat of competition in determining the intellectual test performance of dominant group members. They have found that White students who endorse hierarchical relations between groups are especially likely to demonstrate high intellectual test performance in the presence of a Black experimenter (Danso & Esses, JESP, 2001). Henry plans to complete his doctorate by June, 2001, with the goal of obtaining an academic appointment in Canada or the United States.

As a single mother of two young sons, Patricia Ellerson decided to return to college to pursue her education. She is currently a doctoral candidate in the Developmental and Evolutionary Psychology program at the University of California, Santa Barbara, under the guidance of Daphne Bugental. In her dissertation, "A Bio-Social Model of Partner Violence," she is attempting to apply Dr. Bugental's model of child abuse to partner abuse. Additionally, she is looking at neurohormonal patterns associated with partner violence. After graduate school, Trish hopes to secure an academic position at a major research university.

Azenett A. Garza was born in Mexico and immigrated to the United States in 1984. She is currently sixth-year graduate student in the Applied Social Psychology Ph.D. program at the University of Texas at El Paso. Azenett and her advisor, Michael Zárate, are studying the effects of group distinctiveness and cultural pluralism models on prejudice reduction. When Azenett graduates next year, she hopes to obtain an academic research position.

Edina Jambor was born in Hungary, and she came to the United States as a student in 1997. Edina is currently a first-year student in the interdisciplinary social psychology Ph.D. program at the University of Nevada, Reno. Her research interests focus on the deaf community, primarily intergroup relations between the deaf and the hearing. After graduate school, she would like to be an advocate for the deaf, since as a later-deafened adult, her dream is to facilitate understanding between the deaf and the hearing world.

Hollie Jones was born in Baltimore, Maryland. She is currently a third year student in the social-personality doctoral program at the City University of New York. Under the tutelage of her advisor and mentor, Deborah Coates, Hollie is examining the relationship between racial identity, gender identity, and discriminatory experience among women of African descent. She is also studying factors that contribute to the academic success of ethnic minority students. After completing graduate school, Hollie hopes to teach psychology and continue doing research at a university or college.

Brittne M. Nelson is a native of Colorado Springs, Colorado. She is a second-year graduate student in social psychology at Howard University. With her advisor, Lloyd Sloan, she has studied gender roles and stereotypes among African American college students, and she plans to study the influence of overt racial identification on minority attitudes for her thesis. After receiving her Ph.D., Brittne plans to be involved in the academic world through teaching psychology, mentoring students, and researching minority communities from a feminist, emic perspective.

Sunyoung Oh was born in South Korea and moved to Chicago in the summer of 2000. Currently, she is a first year student in the social and personality psychology doctoral program at the UIC. Together with her advisor, Daniel Cervone, Sunyoung is studying personal goals, self-referent cognition, and personal change processes. She wants to become a research psychologist, working as a university faculty member, to improve people's satisfaction with life through self-growth.

Yesilernis Peña was born in the Dominican Republic and emigrated to the United States when she was a teenager. She is currently a third-year student in social psychology Ph.D. program at the University of California, Los Angeles. In collaboration with her advisor, James Sidanius, Yesi is studying race relations in Latin America and the United States, focusing on people of African and European descent. Upon graduation, Yesi hopes to become a professor at a research university.

Honorable Mention

Jodene Baccus, McGill University
Marja Brown, UNC--Greensboro
Belinda Campos, University of California--Berkeley
Mauricio Carvallo, SUNY--Buffalo
Clara Michelle Cheng, Ohio State University
Yoon Choi, Harvard University
Anjenette Clinton, Wayne State University
Desiree Despues, California State University--Northridge
Collette Ecclesto, University of California--Santa Barbara
Armando Estrada, University of Texas at El Paso
Julie Garcia, University of Michigan
Amber Garcia, Purdue University
Sadeka Harris, SUNY--Stony Brook
Etsuko Hoshino-Browne, University of Waterloo
Jacqueline King, Towson University
Chreyl Lesane, University of Michigan
Janetta Lun, University of Virginia
Penny McNatt, University of Florida
Ludwin Molina, California State University--Northridge
Nhu-Ngoc Ong, California State University--Fullerton
Alecia Santuzzi, Tulane University
Antoinette Semeyana, University of Western Ontario
Michelle Shiota, University of California--Berkeley
Anna Song, University of California--Davis
Shawn Thompson, SUNY--Stony Brook
Michele Tugade, University of Michigan
Jeannetta Williams, University of Texas at Austin