Graduate Student Mental-Health Research Awardees

Congratulations to all of the graduate students that have been awarded grants by STIMHR. Below are the 2006 and 2008 recipients lists. STIMHR is a National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH)-funded grant intended to increase mental-health research at UTSA. The program strives to stimulate and enrich the capacity of both faculty and students to conduct research focusing on mental-health issues with an emphasis on South Texas. In addition to providing research awards such as these, other services integral to STIMHR include faculty research awards, a newly opened data lab, access to external sources of funding, and the alignment of invaluable community entities, all of which are aimed at bolstering the number of faculty and student research activities concerning crucial issues related to mental health. More information is available on the STIMHR Web Site.

Considering UTSA is in the midst of an exciting transition from an institution dedicated to quality undergraduate education to one that also promotes superior research and scholarship, increased attention to pivotal mental-health issues that are relevant to South Texas will help UTSA achieve top-tier status as a research institution in Texas. The graduate awardees’ research aspirations exemplify STIMHR’s goals of addressing key mental-health issues and helping to advance mental-health research at UTSA by contributing practical knowledge and original findings to the mental-health arena.

Six graduate students representing six academic disciplines at UTSA have been chosen as the recipients of the first annual 2006 South Texas Initiative for Mental-Health Research (STIMHR) Graduate Student Awards.

Roberto M. Aguilar        Ph.D. program in Biology

Josephine Vasquez       M.S. program in Psychology

Valarie F. Broderick      M.A. program in Communication

Scott W. Peters             Ph.D. program in Counseling

Sarah J. Farris              M.A. program in Bicultural-
Bilingual Studies

Carmen Guzman-Martinez   Ph.D. program in Culture,
Literacy, and Language

From Left: Roberto M. Aguilar; Valarie F. Broderick; Carmen Guzman-Martinez; Scott W. Peters; Josephine Vasquez; Sarah J. Farris; and STIMHR Director Dr. Raymond T. GarzaRoberto M. Aguilar (Ph.D. program in Biology)

Four graduate students enrolled in the Master's program for Psychology from UTSA  were chosen as the recipients of the 2008 South Texas Initiative for Mental-Health Research (STIMHR) Graduate Student Awards.

Ana G. Gonzalez        M.S. program in Psychology

Gregorio Lozano        M.S. program in Psychology

Kimberly Smith          M.S. program in Psychology

Julie Bland                 M.S. program in Psychology

The research awards of $1,000 each recognize graduate students who have been involved in or will be pursuing mental-health research. The awards were based on both the pragmatic value of their proposed research plans and their commitments to focus on significant mental-health issues in the context of South Texas.

For example, the 2005 recipients explored a diversity of research topics including growth hormones and neuronal cells implicated in mental diseases such as Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s; enhancing client-counselor communication at the Battered Women’s Shelter; the role of optimism in coping with depression, anger, and impending mortality among the elderly; disparities in mental-health care among minority groups; and the relationships among culture, environmental factors, and mental-health perceptions in the Hispanic community.