2002 SPSP Diversity Fund Award Recipients

A total of 95 graduate students applied for a Diversity Fund Travel Award to attend the 2002 SPSP conference. Of these applicants, 6 received an award of up to $1,000 for conference-related expenses, and 6 received Honorable Mention (which includes a $90 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.

2002 Award Recipients

Jamie Loran Franco was born in Los Angeles, California. She received her Bachelor's degree in psychology at Ohio State University. Jamie, a first-generation college student, is currently in her first-year as a social psychology student in the Ph.D. program at University of California, Santa Cruz. Together with her advisor, Faye Crosby, Jamie is studying how one's place in society (e.g., status, ethnicity) affects responses to perceived (in)justices. After graduate school, Jamie plans to teach and conduct research at a the university level.

Janetta Lun was born in Hong Kong and came to the United States in 1996. She is currently a second year student in the Social Psychology Ph.D. program at the University of Virginia. She and her doctoral advisor, Stacey Sinclair, are studying how stereotypes affect the self-concept of stereotyped targets. After completing graduate school, she hopes to continue doing research and teach at a research university.

Born in London, England, Danielle Menzies-Toman was raised in Jamaica before going on to McGill University to complete an honours B.A. in psychology. She is currently a first-year student in the social-personality psychology M.A.-Ph.D. program at McGill University under the supervision of John E. Lydon. Most generally, she is interested in social cognitive processes guiding close relationships. More specifically, she is studying a feedback loop whereby engaging in a relationship maintenance response bolsters the cognitive accessibility of the relationship commitment motive. In addition to her research training, Danielle hopes to become certified in marital and family therapy. Her long-term goals are to carry out experimental research pertaining to relationship science, and to bring the knowledge gained to the practice of marital therapy and to university teaching.

Lisa Molix was born in Kansas City, Missouri. This former Ronald E. McNair scholar is currently a second year graduate student in social psychology at the University of Missouri-Columbia. With her advisor, Ann Bettencourt, Lisa is studying intergroup bias in cooperative settings, and moderators and mediators of positive well-being in rural and ethnic minority populations. For her thesis project, Lisa is studying the influence of coping mechanisms on the relation between perceived discrimination and subsequent well-being among stigmatized group members. After graduate school, Lisa hopes to teach and conduct her research at a college or university.

Luis M. Rivera was born in the South Bronx in New York City, where he was raised single-handedly by his mother, a native of Puerto Rico. After teaching mathematics for six years in the South Bronx, Greenwich, CT, and San Diego, CA, in 2000 he joined the Ph.D. program in personality and social psychology at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. Under the guidance of Paula Pietromonaco, he is interested in studying how attachment relationships influence the development and maintenance of close relationships, and how and to what degree attachment figures function in one's daily living. He is also interested in intimacy, appreciation and resentment, and health psychology. After receiving his Ph.D., he will pursue a professorship in social psychology at a major research university.

Benjamin Saunders was born in Detroit, Michigan. Currently, he is a first year student in the social and personality psychology doctoral program at the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC). Together with his advisor, Bryant Marks, Benjamin is studying racial stereotypes and prejudice, racial identity, and self-esteem contingencies, concentrating on the impact of racial stereotypes on the intellectual performance of African American college students. After receiving his Ph.D., Benjamin would like to teach and mentor students as a professor at a major research university.

Honorable Mention

Belinda Campos, University of California--Berkeley
Roxana Gonzalez, Carnegie Mellon University
Mary Hulitt, University of Southern California
Chu Kim-Prieto, University of Illinois--Urbana/Champaign
Maryann Menotti, State University of New York, Buffalo
Garcia Viki, University of Kent at Canterbury