so my name is Ahmed not than last year goodnight will grant your land I go by Pamela and I moved here from Las Vegas to pursue my PhD in counseling psychology five years ago and how to describe myself I think it's always hard to find all the right words but if I were to pick a few I would say that I am a Chicana Mexican Americans advocate activist healer musician dog mom I love food food just reminds me of home whenever I get homesick and make recipes that remind me of my family I love trying new restaurants and cooking Sunday brunch is key in my life and I love movies all types of movies going in movie theaters changing and hiking and writing poetry and going to the gym as a graduate student I'm still working on finding the balance between the pursuit of my mind in future and the pursuit of my heart and soul spending time with my dog and friends and connecting to the Latino community helps need to replenish as an undergraduate I did a lot of things just to get into grad school and now that I'm in grad school I'm working on and the mission before balancing my heart and my mind making sure that not only am I working on my cognitive pursuits things that interest me but also the things that make me feel in peace

and during middle school and high school I actually really wasn't very academically inclined I took a lot of ATV and honors classes that nothing super stock in terms of something that felt like a potential career I did however really love music and so I started playing the viola and the buy land and eventually took up bass and became top six in my state and has figured I'll just stay within a symphony I'll probably perform into private lessons and as time got closer to apply to college I really wasn't sure if college was the set for me that everyone else is kind of doing it and even I got a lot of messaging from teachers and counselors that it may not be here for me I decided to kind of go for it and oooh despite everyone's like surprise I chose to go with psychology on a when you picked it because I thought it was interesting it took an AP class and it's in my sophomore year I found a job as an eighty eight tutor applied behavior analysis tutor for children with autism in that one on one interaction with this three year olds who would be really really low frustration tolerance would be upset very easily and working with his family on you know the concerns they had for him just changed my life that I could have the privilege of being a part of someone's and healing journey so I found out that there's a thing called grad school in not move my mind's found out about a masters thought that was interesting nestles started to notice that there's minority ties populations who don't typically make it to a masters or PhD or don't have access to those resources people without level right on it was something I owed myself to pursue PhD mostly because I have visions of what the future can be like were marginalized populations that go beyond what I currently see and having a PhD allows me to create that possibility to have more hold on the reins for those things and if you have visions he strongly believe you should go for them so many current should John Kerry Stephanie's my PhD and although math if you're not quite done in working on a second masters in reply dear analysis so that I can become a board certified behavior analysts really fancy words first sensually meeting I'm specializing in behavioural therapy for children in the reason why is that it makes me excessive I want to say accessible and as we keep going in terms of like my clinical work in the research just keep finding that that there's so much room to make a difference to have ripple effects in ways that I can't foresee here I understand in that super exciting so yeah I think I think that that covers the

next question is a little tricky for me in terms of one of my passions because if I had to take three words to describe myself it would be ink passionate would be the very first time in the second beat carrying in the third one would be on dedicated interesting very passionate caring dedicated camping on like super determines aren't really go for the things that matter to me and in terms of passions social justice I agree advocacy is really really important to me and making sure that we're working on things from a systems level meaning like schools hospitals business societally though they all matter we exist within these microbes macro systems that inform the way that we live our lives this is important to me that I do whatever I can to create ripple effects within a system that needs to change in ways that we can't necessarily projects with the hope that it would be to benefit every healing is another in passion of mine there's so many pieces of us that we hold Eugenides learn in those pieces of who we are and it's heartbreaking when I see in young people on I'm talking about like twenty in under like those ones and super super passion about but it breaks my heart to see young people be deterred from their dreams their visions and you have to feel like they have to hide pieces of themselves and so being a part of the healing someone's journey to finding a way to be holistically themselves unapologetically themselves something I'm really passionate about along that vein training professionals in like interacts with use copulation wanna make sure that they have that in mind when they're interacting with so right now I am do a lot of training on culturally sensitive approaches in working with youth population so I've done it form you want after school programs teachers other therapists it's something I really really lives training getting people to think about these things and bring this knowledge that we have to a subset of people who probably wouldn't have access to that or get the opportunity to think about things in the way another are what will lastly I'll put that men touring is really important to me and this idea of lifting as we climb what's the point of me reaching the top of the slaughter if I don't turn down a road for others to join me to me it feels very selfish just when I was really interested in being a Sam tore to participate and give back to the community in whatever way I can and if it's simply to be there and say you can do this is important and we need you in whatever way that you're hoping to contribute and that's definitely something that I want to be a part of thank you so much for watching recordings