Student Leadership Development Program

The Society for Clinical Neuropsychology’s Society (SCN; Division 40 of the American Psychological Association) is excited to announce the inaugural SCN Student Leadership Development Program. The aims of this program are to 1) support the development of student leaders and advocates within neuropsychology, psychology, and society, 2) promote new opportunities for students to serve in SCN governance, and 3) to support continued service in SCN and APA leadership as students transition to being an early career psychologist and thereafter. For more information, please contact Scott Sperling (Director) or Anny Reyes (Co-Director).

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Scott Sperling, Psy.D.

Director
AnnyReyes

Anny Reyes, M.S.

Co-Director
Angelina_Witbeck

Angelina Witbeck, M.A.

SCN Committee: Awards
Witbeck is a PsyD candidate at the Illinois School of Professional Psychology. She has completed the neuropsychology concentration coursework and she is currently on her advanced adult neuropsychology externship at the University of Chicago Medical Center. Her research interests focus on the motivation to change lifestyle and health behaviors to reduce the risk of developing dementia and improve recommendation compliance with patients. She is also interested in cognitive functioning in Chiari Malformation patients as well as unique neuropsychological outcomes for vascular events. She also volunteers regularly for the Alzheimer's Association and the Concussion Legacy Foundation. She will be serving a two-year term on the Awards Committee supervised by Alicia Ford, Ph.D.
Ann Nguyen_APA Div 40 PIAC EMA Subcommittee

Ann T. Nguyen, M.A.

SCN Committee: Ethnic Minority Affairs (EMA)

Nguyen is a Clinical Psychology PhD candidate at Loma Linda University, and current Neuropsychology intern at the Cincinnati VA. Nguyen’s research and clinical interest involves broadening access to neuropsychological services via standardized norms and education, while accounting for cultural and linguistic factors for Asian Americans, particularly the Vietnamese population. As a Vietnamese American, she is dedicated to creating culturally appropriate norms and addressing perceived language and/or communication barriers. Nguyen is currently the Student Representative on the Society for Neuropsychology's Ethnic Minority Affairs Subcommittee and is the Liaison Chair on the Vietnamese Neuropsychology Network, a subgroup of the Asian Neuropsychology Association.

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Emily Morris, M.S

SCN Committee: Women in Neuropsychology (WIN)
Morris is a second-year doctoral student in clinical science at University of Michigan. Her research and clinical interests include the clinical neuropsychology of Alzheimer’s disease and related dementias (ADRDs) and addressing health disparities in psychosocial and sociocultural factors that contribute to racial and ethnic disparities in ADRDs. She is also interested in sociocultural contributors to disparities in HIV-associated neurocognitive disorder. She is currently involved in the Michigan Cognitive Aging Project, a longitudinal, population-representative study of cognitive aging among older adults in Detroit, Ypsilanti, and Ann Arbor, Michigan. Emily one of the incoming student representatives for the Women in Neuropsychology Committee.
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Jasmine S. Dixon, M.S.

SCN Committee: Women in Neuropsychology (WIN)

Dixon is a fourth-year doctoral student in clinical psychology at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. Her research interest in clinical neuropsychology include ethnic/racial disparities in cognitive aging, Alzheimer’s disease and related dementias. She is interested in the psychosocial and contextual factors (e.g., chronic stress) that affect cognitive health for racial/ethnic minority populations, with an emphasis in African American/Black populations. Within Division 40 SCN, Dixon is the current Membership Officer of the Association of Neuropsychology Students & Trainees (ANST) and one of the incoming Student Representatives for the Women in Neuropsychology (WIN) Subcommittee.

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Julia Maeitta, M.A.

SCN Committee: Publications & Communications
Julia Maietta is a 5th year student in the University of Nevada, Las Vegas (UNLV) Clinical Psychology Ph.D. program with a training specialty in neuropsychology. Julia’s current research in neuropsychological assessment and clinical management of sport concussion is supported by the UNLV Foundation Board of Trustees Doctoral Research Fellowship. In addition, Julia has been actively involved in advocacy and leadership at the national level, currently serving as the Chair for the National Academy of Neuropsychology Student & Post-Doctoral Resident Committee, the Chair of the APAGS Convention Committee, and as a student member of the Society for Clinical Neuropsychology and KnowNeuropsychology.
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Jessica Bair, B.S.

SCN Committee: Practice Advisory Committee

Bair is a doctoral candidate in the Clinical Science and Psychopathology Research Program at the University of Minnesota, currently completing her pre-doctoral internship at the VA Ann Arbor. Her research is focused on exploring the relationship between substance exposure during key neurodevelopmental periods, including adolescence, and neuropsychological and brain structural outcomes in young adulthood. Her professional interests include education and training/supervision with prior work in community outreach seeking to foster support for the brain and psychological sciences through programs such as Brain Awareness Week. She currently serves as the Webmaster for the Society for a Science of Clinical Psychology.

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Karen Powdrill, M.A., LCPC

SCN Committee: Membership
Powdrill is a 3rd year PsyD candidate of Clinical Psychology at The Chicago School of Professional Psychology at Washington, D.C. She works as a licensed clinical professional counselor and board approved supervisor in Maryland. She previously received a Master of Arts degree in Counseling Psychology from Towson University in 2015. Her clinical interests surround diversity within neuropsychology’s training to workforce pipeline, trainee supervision experiences in neuropsychology, neuropsychological assessment, and race related stress and trauma. She served as graduate student board member of Division 35, section 1 from 2019-2021.
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Kelly Durbin, M.A.

SCN Committee: Scientific Advisory

Durbin is a PhD candidate in the Clinical Science program at the University of Southern California. She is currently completing her predoctoral internship in Adult Neuropsychology at UCLA. Durbin's research broadly focuses on understanding how healthy aging and neurodegeneration affect memory and emotional processing. Her current research projects examine the role of orexin and the locus coeruleus in Alzheimer's disease. Durbin was the recipient of the NRSA F31 Individual Predoctoral Fellowship and the APA Dissertation Research Award. She currently serves on the Leadership Team for the Alzheimer's Disease and Related Dementias Special Interest Group in APA Division 20.

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Mariam Hussain, M.S.

SCN Committee: Program
Mariam is an NIH/NIDA-funded T32 NRSA Fellow, and a fifth-year doctoral student in the SDSU/UCSD Joint Doctoral Program (JDP) in Clinical Psychology. Her research focuses on the neuropsychological and everyday functioning consequences of addiction in HIV and neuroAIDS, identifying factors that may exacerbate or mitigate negative outcomes and elucidating the mechanisms that underlie these relationships. She is particularly interested in studying the influence of social relationships and frontal system behaviors in drug use and HIV. Mariam is a member of the JDP Diversity Training Subcommittee and International Neuropsychology Society’s Cultural Special Interest Group, and participated in the 2019 National Academy of Neuropsychology Women in Leadership Sponsorship Program. During the duration of the SCN Student Leadership Development Program, Mariam will be working with the SCN Program Committee and mentored by Laura Grande, PhD.
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Martina Azar, M.S.

SCN Committee: Early Career Neuropsychologist Committee

Azar is a 5th year doctoral candidate within the clinical psychology PhD program at Drexel University. She is currently a predoctoral intern at VA Boston Healthcare System. Her research and clinical interests span the span across clinical neuropsychology, rehabilitation, and diversity. Broadly, her research focuses the relationship between markers of neurodegenerative disease and functional outcomes across sociodemographically diverse groups. She is involved in various ongoing research projects at Drexel University and Columbia University Medical Center. Martina is the current student representative of the SCN Early Career Neuropsychologist Committee.

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Melissa Levy, M.A., LPCC

SCN Committee: Student Publication & Communication
Levy is a 4th year doctoral candidate within the clinical psychology PsyD program at the University of Denver. Her research interests focus broadly on neuropsychological assessment with forensic populations, rehabilitation after traumatic brain injury with forensic populations, and issues of validity in cognitive testing. Advocacy for increased mental health services for graduate students and integration of mental health within academia are both professional passions for Levy. She currently serves as the Trainee Representative for the Colorado Neuropsychological Society and as a student member on the Society for Clinical Neuropsychology Student Publications and Communications Committee.
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Palak G. Singh, M.S.

SCN Committee: Practice Advisory Committee

Palak Singh in a 4th year doctoral candidate in the Clinical Psychology program at the Rosalind Franklin University of Medicine and Science. She completed her M.S. degree in Neuroscience and Education at Teachers College, Columbia University. Her research interests are in examining the impact of trauma and stress from a neuropsychological perspective, in addition to resiliency factors contributing to positive psychosocial outcomes. She is currently on the Diversity Committee for the Rosalind Franklin University Psychology Department and served as a student team leader for the IOPC COVID-19 360 Degree Advocacy Team.

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Ross Divers, M.S.

SCN Committee: SCN PIA’s Ethics
Divers is a 2nd year doctoral candidate in LSU’s clinical psychology program. His research focuses on everyday functional deficits in both mild cognitive impairment and dementia. Specifically, he focuses on identifying modifiable risk factors that are associated with this decline. As part of this research, he also examines the ecological validity of novel assessment paradigms that make use of virtual reality. He is currently a student member on SCN PIA’s Ethics subcommittee.
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Sarah Prieto, B.S./B.A.

SCN Committee: Scientific Advisory Committee

Originally from New York, Prieto moved to Columbus to join the clinical psychology program at The Ohio State University in 2018. She graduated from SUNY Geneseo with a degree in Psychology and Early Childhood/Childhood Education in 2015. Following graduation, she worked on research studies examining the effects of mindfulness training on measures of stress and markers of inflammation in older adults. She is interested in a career targeting understanding the effects of chronic stress on metrics of cognitive and physical health.

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Tasha Rhoads, M.S.

SCN Committee: Ethnic Minority Affairs (EMA)
Rhoads is a 5th year clinical psychology doctoral candidate at Rosalind Franklin University in North Chicago, specializing in neuropsychology, and a student representative of the SCN Ethnic Minority Affairs Subcommittee. Her research spans assessment of performance validity, neurosurgical populations (e.g., presurgical candidacy evaluations, chronic pain intervention), and severe mental illness (e.g., psychosis). She is interested in psychometric cross-validation of briefer measures of performance validity and identification of psychological or cognitive factors that may predict surgical outcome and success. Her long-term goals include expansion of normative samples for ethnically/racially diverse individuals and health disparities research in the context of neuropsychological assessment.
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