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BEST Lab Undergraduates Receive Summer Research Funding
Congratulations to Selen Divanlioglu, Jae Ji, Sophia LeBlanc, and Suin Lee—undergraduates in the BEST Lab—who received funding from the Harvard College Research Program to pursue independent research projects this summer! Selen, a rising senior in the lab...
BEST Lab Doctoral Student Nathan Hollinsaid Receives Psychology Mentoring Award
Congratulations to Nathan Hollinsaid—a doctoral student in the BEST Lab—who was one of the inaugural recipients of the Department of Psychology’s Student Mentoring Award. The award was established to honor graduate students and post-doctoral fellows, like...
BEST Lab Rising Juniors Awarded the Detur Book Prize
Congratulations to Emma Lenoël Quang and Suin Lee, rising juniors in BEST Lab! Emma and Suin were awarded the Detur Book Prize and presented with books of their choice embossed with the Harvard and Detur seals. The Detur Book Prize is one of the oldest...
BEST Lab Graduate Student Rachel Martino Is Officially a Doctoral Candidate
Congratulations to Rachel Martino—officially a doctoral candidate in the BEST Lab—who successfully defended her dissertation prospectus earlier this year and recently completed her clinical case presentation! The prospectus defense and clinical case...
BEST Lab Doctoral Student Alex Nikolaidis Konstas Completes First-Year Project
Congratulations to Alex Nikolaidis Konstas, a doctoral student in the BEST Lab, who recently completed his first-year project! Alex’s project—titled “Integrating Agent-Based Modeling into Stigma Research: The Promise of Complex Systems Approaches”...
BEST Lab Graduate Student Jesus De Luna Completes Second-Year Project
Congratulations to Jesus De Luna, a Stone PhD Scholar and graduate student in the BEST Lab! Jesus successfully completed his second-year project, which was titled ‘Malefactors’ Over Time: Collective Representations of the Rich and the Poor in the United...
BEST Lab Rising Senior Jae Ji Awarded a $1,500 Research Grant from Open Gate
Congratulations to Jae Ji—a rising senior and thesis student in the BEST Lab—who was awarded $1,500 in research funding from the Open Gate Foundation! The Open Gate Foundation was established in 1987 by members of the Harvard Gay and Lesbian Caucus to...
BEST Lab Undergraduate Charlotte Paley Receives Allport Prize
Congratulations to Charlotte Paley, a graduating senior in the BEST Lab! Charlotte received the Gordon W. Allport Prize for her senior honors thesis—How Weight-Based Discrimination “Gets Under the Skin”: Testing a Biopsychosocial Mediation Framework in a...
BEST Lab Jesus De Luna has been selected as a 2025 Stone PhD Scholar!
The Stone Program, funded by James M. and Cathleen D. Stone, cultivates the next generation of scholars dedicated to understanding and addressing economic inequality and social policy. It provides vital graduate training and promotes interdisciplinary...
BEST Lab Undergraduate Kayla Saucedo Receives the Gordon Allport Prize!
Congratulations to Kayla Saucedo, an undergraduate in the BEST Lab, who received the Gordon W. Allport Prize for her senior honors thesis entitled “Measuring Structural Xenophobia and Latinophobia and Testing Their Associations with Potentially Traumatic...
BEST Lab Jesus has been awarded the Murray Fund to support his research on affirming the dignity of labor!
Jesus has been awarded the Murray Fund to support his research on affirming the dignity of labor! This competitive departmental grant, available to psychology faculty and researchers, is one of several restricted funds that the Department of Psychology...
BEST Lab undergraduate Sarah Borges receives fellowship as Governor William Shirley Harvard-Cambridge Scholar!
Congratulations to undergraduate Sarah Borges who receives fellowship as Governor William Shirley Harvard-Cambridge Scholar! For over 100 years, the Harvard-Cambridge Scholarships have provided graduating seniors with the opportunity to spend a year at...
BEST Lab Doctoral Student Emily Mellen Featured in GSAS Article, Studying the Stigma of Sexual Violence
Congratulations to Emily Mellen who received a feature article on the Harvard Graduate School of Arts and Sciences Newsletter! The article highlights the research topic of her disseration, Studying the Stigma of Sexual Violence. Please see the article...
BEST Lab Undergraduate Abigail Mejia Receives the Hoopes and Allport Prizes for Her Senior Honors Thesis
Congratulations to Abigail Mejia, an undergraduate in the BEST Lab, who received both the Thomas T. Hoopes Prize and Gordon W. Allport Prize for her senior honors thesis entitled “Perceived Socioeconomic Status-based Discrimination and Mental Health Among...
Congratulations to BEST Lab Doctoral Student Emily Mellen for receiving the Rosenblum Fellowship!
The goal of this Fellowship is to learn about advocacy, legislative issues, and public policy as it relates to professional psychology. The Rosenblum Fellowship provides a unique opportunity to learn the processes by which public, social, and mental...
BEST Lab Graduate Student, Emily Mellen, Manuscript Accepted By Journal of Interpersonal Violence
Congratulations to Emily Mellen whose manuscript, "Sexual Violence-Related Stigma, Mental Health, and Treatment Seeking: A Multimodal Assessment in a Population-Based Study of Young Adults" was accepted by the Journal of Interpersonal Violence (Abstract...
Do Yeon Kim, Dr. Mark Hatzenbuehler's Thesis Advisee, Receives Thomas Temple Hoopes Prize and Gordon Allport Prize
Congratulations to Do Yeon Kim who received the department’s Gordon W. Allport Prize. The prize is awarded for honors theses offering research of exceptionally high quality in those scholarly areas to which the late Gordon W. Allport was himself dedicated...
BEST Lab Study Identifies Hypervigilance as a Key Mediator of the Longitudinal Relationship Between Stigma and Internalizing Psychopathology Among Sexual Minority Young Adults
Sexual minority (e.g., lesbian, gay, and bisexual) young adults’ persistent experiences of stigmatization may necessitate elevated vigilance for threat-related cues in myriad social interactions and settings. Although such hypervigilance is frequently...
Professor Hatzenbuehler receives the 2023 Gold Medal Award for Impact in Psychology from the American Psychological Foundation.
Professor Hatzenbuehler was honored to receive this award, which "recognizes the work of a psychologist or group of psychologists that is impactful, innovative, and transformational. The award can be either for a body of work in a particular field that...
Professor Hatzenbuehler was named a Favorite Professor of the Harvard Class of 2023!
Professor Hatzenbuehler was named a Favorite Professor of the Harvard Class of 2023 in recognition of his impact on the senior class's Harvard experience.
BEST Lab Publication Identifies Structural Stigma as a Key Determinant of Emotion Regulation Among Gay and Bisexual Men
To date, research into correlates and predictors of emotion regulation has focused almost exclusively on individual differences and aspects of the immediate situation. A new study published in the journal Emotion by BEST Lab doctoral student Nathan...
BEST Lab Study Finds Fewer Specialty Mental Health Providers Available for Transgender Adolescents in US States with More Transphobic Policies
Last year saw an unprecedented rise in the number of state laws/policies targeting transgender rights, with a growing number of US states passing legislation restricting transgender adolescents’ athletic participation and access to gender-affirming care...
BEST Lab research shows that higher levels of rumination, lower levels of emotional clarity, and lower levels of social support explain how experiencing interpersonal discrimination leads to increases in depressive symptoms.
Gay and bisexual men are one of the highest risk groups for depression; thus, the identification of mechanisms that contribute to this population disparity represents an important public health priority. The minority stress theory (Meyer, 2003) proposed...
Doctoral Candidate Emily Mellen Awarded Derek Bok Center's Certificate of Distinction in Teaching
Emily Mellen, a doctoral candidate of psychology in the BEST Lab, has been awarded a Certificate of Distinction in Teaching for the Spring 2022 semester by the Office of Undergraduate Education. This certificate is given to instructors who have received a...
Hunter Baldwin, Dr. Hatzenbuehler's thesis advisee, receives the Psychology Department's Gordon Allport Prize
Hunter Baldwin received a Gordon Allport Prize for his thesis, completed under Dr. Mark Hatzenbuehler's supervision. The Gordon Allport Prize is awarded each year for honors theses offering research of exceptionally high quality in those scholarly areas...
BEST Lab's lab manager Shujianing Li received a grant from the National Council of Asian Pacific Americans
Shujianing Li, the BEST Lab's lab manager, co-founded A Safe Haven for Asians and Asian Americans (ASHAAA.org), an anti-discrimination website. Recently, she led the ASHAAA team to develop an organization-oriented burnout prevention toolkit for 38 AAPI...
Research intern Do Yeon Kim is elected to Phi Beta Kappa
Do Yeon Kim, a BEST Lab undergraduate research intern, is elected to the Harvard College chapter of Phi Beta Kappa. To be successfully elected, a student needs to "possess a record of outstanding scholarly achievement, showing both depth of study and...
Mark Hatzenbuehler, lab director, makes the 2021 Clarivate Highly Cited Research List
Congratulations to Lab Director, Dr. Mark Hatzenbuehler, who was included in the 2021 Highly Cited Researchers List from Clarivate Analytics! The Highly Cited Researcher List recognizes “the true pioneers in their fields over the last decade, demonstrated...
BEST Lab research shows that mental health interventions among youth may be less effective in high-stigma communities
One question that is especially important to clinical psychologists is whether our mental health interventions are equally effective across diverse social contexts. However, it has proven difficult to answer this question because most intervention studies...