Announcements

We are proud to launch our Student Spotlight section, where we highlight students in training for psychology who are part of the DPA community. We start this series with our three student board members.

Aashni is currently an internship student at Southern Methodist University pursuing her Master of Science in Counseling. She is currently at two sites: Insight and Change (Colleyville and Dallas) and The CARE Clinic (Mesquite). At Insight and Change, most of her work is centered around interpersonal challenges, identity development, and emotional issues. Aashni reports this site has allowed her to expand on relational work, focusing on how the systems around us impact our self-identity and development.

At The CARE Clinic, she supports individuals affected by issues such as trauma, substance abuse, and violence. This clinic has allowed her to try her hand in nonprofit work, something she hopes to expand in her career.

Community work is central to Aashni’s growing counseling identity. While she works with individuals across the lifespan, she has a special interest in the systemic and relational dynamics of couples and families. She also aims to serve South Asian communities and hopes to connect with other providers to collaborate toward that goal. She is fluent in Gujarati and conversational in Hindi and Spanish.

As a graduate student in clinical psychology at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, Maya’s training focuses on supporting underrepresented, underserved, and marginalized populations, with particular emphasis on depression, suicide prevention, women’s hormonal health, and the mental health of Black youth.

At the Center for Depression Research and Clinical Care, her training experiences have strengthened her ability to provide trauma-informed, culturally responsive care.

In research, Maya leads a project examining early menarche and depression trajectories, in addition to contributing to longitudinal analyses of depression and suicidality among Black youth. Her research also addresses perinatal grief and loss, focusing on barriers to continued support for individuals experiencing these challenges.

She is deeply committed to student leadership and advocacy, with a particular focus on supporting student parents and other graduate students who are often unseen or under-resourced. She serves as a student representative for the DPA, a student senator for the Texas Psychological Association, a Campus Ambassador for APA, and the vice president of the BIPOC Collective at UT Southwestern. In these roles, Maya works to amplify the voices of underrepresented students, advance diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives, and develop programs that help students balance academic responsibilities with outside priorities so they can thrive.

Sarah Taghavi is a fourth-year clinical psychology doctoral student at UT Southwestern with a focus in pediatric health psychology. Her training at Children’s Medical Center, where she is currently in the pediatric eating disorders unit and previously in a range of specialty clinics, allowed her to work closely in a multidisciplinary environment.

Having observed high rates of comorbid developmental delays and differences, she drew on her practicum experiences at the Center for Autism Care to provide education and support for a pediatric population. There, she became certified in administering the ADOS-2 and developed a passion for working with children who are deaf and/or hard-of-hearing.

Sarah’s research focuses on addressing barriers related to the psychosocial needs of adolescents and young adults with cancer. In addition to being on the DPA board, she currently serves as the UTSW Psychotherapy Clinic Student Intern Director and as the Vice President of the Mindfulness Student Association, where she co-leads mindfulness groups for medical students and residents throughout the year.