Introducing New Graduate Student Naomi Alvarado

August 12, 2024 - Shelly DeJong

Meet Naomi Alvarado, an incoming graduate student in the Clinical Science research area. 

Name: Naomi Alvarado (she/her) 

Hometown: Ypsilanti Michigan 

Education: I graduated this year from the University of Michigan Dearborn majoring in Psychology. 

 

Tell us about your background/experience. 

At UM Dearborn, I graduated from the Psychology Honors program and completed my senior thesis on Factors Related to Parents’ Attendance and Frequency of Practice in a Parent-Mediated Intervention for Autistic Children. Additionally, I have experience working at Dr. Brooke Ingersoll's Autism Lab for the past three years as an undergraduate. During last summer, I completed an internship at the University of Pennsylvania with Dr. David Mandell with research surrounding implementation science and naturalistic autism interventions. I also love working with children and have worked at a daycare for the past two and a half years. 

 

Why grad school?

Primarily, what draws me to grad school is the fact that I see myself as a lifelong learner. I am constantly wanting to learn more about Psychology and I feel that the combination of research and clinical work found in the clinical science program at Michigan State is perfect for me. Additionally, I love research and particularly completing my senior honors thesis showed me that I see myself doing this work for my future. 

 

What do you hope to research while you're here?  

I will be working with Dr. Amy Drahota, and under her mentorship I want to explore implementation science as it relates to community settings, as well as looking at factors related to parent and child engagement in autism interventions. Particularly, I want to focus on the gaps that are evident when implementing clinical interventions into practice. 

 

What do you love about Clinical Science? 

What I love about clinical science is the combination of clinical work with patients and the focus on research. Additionally, within the subset of implementation science, I am interested in the ways clinicians are thinking about how to implement their evidence-based practices in community settings rather than solely looking at research within the context of a control setting. 

 

In your free time, what do you like to do?  

In my free time, I love to play tennis with my friends, read, and crochet. I have recently been interested in gardening.