The Steve Fund is proud to announce the three most recent winners of Stephen C. Rose Legacy Scholarships: The winner of the 2016 Asian American Psychological Association (AAPA) Stephen C. Rose Scholarship is Ming-Che Tu, currently a Ph.D. candidate in the Counseling Program of the Department of Applied Psychology at New York University. The winner of the 2016 Association of Black Psychologists (ABPsi) Stephen C. Rose Scholarship is Effua Sosoo, who this fall will be a second-year doctoral student in the Clinical Psychology Program at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill. The winner of the 2016 National Latina/o Psychology Association Stephen C. Rose Scholarship is Mercedes Fernández Oromendia, M.A., a fifth year PhD candidate in counseling psychology at the University of California, Santa Barbara.
Ming-Che Tu
Ming-Che Tu’s research interest focuses primarily on Asian American mental health, specifically among immigrant population and on its mental health disparity. His dissertation topic, entitled “What Is Career Success? Asian American Psychology of Working,” extends the intersection between Asian American and vocational psychology. Under the mentorship of Dr. Sumie Okazaki and collaboration with other members of her lab at NYU, Ming has also been instrumentally involved in numerous projects studying topics that include analysis on the experiences and challenges of mental health professional working with Asian Americans and exploratory research on the experiences of Chinese young adult recent immigrants. Ming also holds leadership position in the Asian American Psychological Association and is active in a wide array of other professional organizations as well. Ming received his B.A. in psychology from Hunter College, the City University of New York, and M.A. in clinical psychology from Teachers College, Columbia University. He has published regularly in peer-reviewed journals such as the Asian American Journal of Psychology, Transcultural Psychiatry, Journal of Immigrant and Minority Health, and Community Mental Health Journal.
Effua Sosoo
Effua Sosoo received her B.A. in Psychology from Williams College. Her research interests include examining the physiological and psychological mechanisms that mediate the link between stereotype threat and academic performance among black students. She is also interested in understanding how racial discrimination combines additively and interactively with other racial stressors to impact the physical and psychological well being of Black individuals. She hopes that her program of research will ultimately equip Black students to succeed in academic settings and seeks to become one of the leading scholars in stereotype threat and racial discrimination research.
Mercedes Fernández Oromendia
Mercedes Fernández Oromendia’s research interests broadly focus on how to best support Latino/a youth and their families from a strengths-based perspective. For example, one of her recent projects examined the barriers and bridges second-generation Latina/o college students encountered during college. The goal is to understand how to bolster protective factors and address challenges faced. Results of this research will be presented at the biannual NLPA conference in September. Mercedes is also passionate about increasing the number of Spanish-speaking and culturally-sensitive practitioners in the United States. Under the guidance of her advisor Dr. Andrés Consoli, she developed a Spanish Skills for Culturally Minded Academics course to provide a space for fellow graduate students to practice vital competencies when seeing Latina/a clients. In addition, she is committed to international engagement and the dissemination of research across borders. She served a two-year term as the co-chair of APA’s international division’s student committee, presented a symposium in Argentina and is currently completing an externship in Buenos Aires.
The goal of The Stephen C. Rose Legacy Scholarships is to promote the emotional well-being and mental health of youth in ethnically diverse communities. By supporting competitive scholarships for research on the mental health challenges facing college students of color, the Fund is supporting the growth of a generation of scholars with knowledge and capacity to address the mental health needs of our target population. Find out more about the Fund’s scholarships here.
