EWU McNair 2018 summer research interns, Rosa Espinosa-Zunigaand Marixza Torres, recently represented Eastern Washington University at the National Latina Psychological Association Conference in LaJolla, CA. This professional conference included prominent Latinx psychologists from around the country along with graduate students and a handful of undergraduates like Ms. Torres and Ms. Espinosa-Zuniga, who both presented posters showcasing their McNair research internship projects. Ms. Torres’s poster was titled Needs and Challenges of Latinx Families of Children with Autism, and presented the results of the McNair project she completed with the guidance of her McNair faculty research mentor, Dr. Christina Torres, EWU McNair Director. Ms. Espinosa-Zuniga’s poster was titled Gratitude, Spirituality and Religiosity in the Aging Population, and showcased the results of the project she conducted with her McNair research mentor, Dr. Phillip Watkins, EWU professor of psychology.
Max and Rosa are both majoring in psychology, and were encouraged to submit abstracts to the NPLA conference by Dr. Nallelly Galvan, a fellow EWU McNair Scholar psychology alumna who conducted her McNair research internship with Dr. Russell Kolts. She earned her bachelor’s degree from EWU and then continuing her education to earn a master’s degree from Indiana University in Counseling Psychology, as well as an educational specialist degree in Community Mental Health and Public Health. She then completed her PhD in Counseling Psychology from the University of Illinois, and accepted a position with the U.S. Department of Justice as a staff psychologist and served as the suicide prevention program coordinator at a medical center for female offenders. Currently within the agency, she is the coordinator of the only federal residential drug abuse program designed for monolingual Spanish speaking female offenders which she developed and implemented, and for which she was the recipient of a prestigious national award within the agency in 2014.
