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Keum Wins Award for Multicultural Psychology Research

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Assistant Professor of Social Welfare Brian Keum has received the 2022 National Multicultural Conference and Summit Rising Star Award for his significant contributions to the field of multicultural psychology. Awarded biennially, the prestigious Rising Star Award honors the achievements of early-career psychologists in multicultural research, teaching, advocacy, policy and clinical care. As a social-justice-oriented scientist-practitioner, Keum draws from his clinical experience to conduct research that improves mental health practice and informs advocacy for diverse communities. He serves as director of the Health, Identities, Inequality and Technology Lab at UCLA Luskin, which studies health and mental health disparities among marginalized individuals and communities using intersectional, contemporary and digitally relevant approaches. His research aims to address discrimination and oppression as social determinants of these disparities. Keum has also explored the intersection of online racism and sexism on the mental health and behavioral outcomes of youth and adults of color, as well as how body image and gendered racism affect the mental health of Asian American males. Additionally, he provides therapy to a diverse community and college-based clientele. Keum will be recognized at this week’s National Multicultural Conference and Summit. The organization was founded in 1999 to address a pressing concern in the United States — the growing mental health needs of historically marginalized groups and disenfranchised individuals. — Zoe Day

Social Welfare’s Santos Honored for Latinx Research

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Assistant Professor of Social Welfare Carlos Santos has been named winner of the 2019 Early Career Award by the Society for Research on Child Development Latino Caucus. The honor is the third national early career award received by Santos, who joined the UCLA Luskin faculty this year. Santos, whose doctorate is in developmental psychology, works in an interdisciplinary framework of intersectionality, focusing on how systems of oppression overlap – from heterosexism and racism to issues affecting undocumented youth. The SRCD award recognized his work on diverse groups within the “Latinx umbrella” that are often overlooked in research in the U.S. “From his early training and beyond, he has a steadfast commitment to engage in normative research with Latinx youth and families,” according to the SRCD Latino Conference awards committee. He will receive the award at the organization’s biennial conference this March in Baltimore. Santos also has been named a Rising Star by the National Multicultural Conference & Summit (NMCS), a coalition of four divisions of the American Psychological Association. The award, to be conferred in January, recognizes the efforts of early career psychologists with an interest in multicultural research, teaching, advocacy, policy or clinical care. In 2017, Santos also was honored as an Emerging Professional by the Society for the Psychological Study of Culture, Ethnicity and Race for outstanding research contributions in the promotion of ethnic minority issues within 10 years of graduation. “I think these recognitions affirm the need for an intersectional lens in the study of psychological issues among groups that experience multiple forms of marginalization,” Santos said. — Stan Paul

 

Informed Choices Regarding Mental Health

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As part of the Mental Health and Public Child Welfare Lecture series, Laura Delano, founder and executive director of Inner Compass Initiative (ICI), visited UCLA Luskin on Nov. 16 to discuss her efforts to reclaim care from the “psychiatric-pharmaceutical industrial complex.” Through the ICI, Delano has worked to provide information and resources to facilitate more informed choices regarding all things mental health. Speaking to her experiences as an ex-psychiatric patient, Delano said, “I fully embraced the mental health system and my diagnosis when I was so hopeless for a solution to the pain. I thought maybe if I embrace this diagnosis and do everything the doctor says, I will be able to survive.” Delano suggested that the system must change the way it portrays mental illness as being in opposition to “normalcy” in order to put an end to patients feeling ostracized because of their medical diagnoses. Click below to view a Flickr album of photos from the lecture by Bryce Carrington.

 

Social Welfare Lecture