Ethnic Minority Mental Health Research Lab
EMH Overview
The Ethnic Minority Mental Health (EMH) Research Lab is focused around understanding and improving mental health services for ethnic minority individuals with suicidal behaviors and mood disorders. Ethnic minority individuals are often underserved and have low rates of service utilization.
Our lab is dedicated to understanding the barriers to service use and developing culturally congruent outreach and treatment options for these communities. The work in this lab is often community-based. Main projects study cultural competency issues in general, special subpopulations of Asian Americans, and ethnic minority issues as a whole.
Openings: 3 openings to join the lab every year. You will be expected to start your work in the research lab starting the previous Spring or Summer quarter.
Individual Papers and Presentations
All EMH lab members are engaged in their own independent project(s) as a “pre-dissertation” training experience during their 2nd and 3rd years. Students are generally involved in 1-2 projects collaboratively with Dr. Chu and their lab colleagues. The goal of this pre-dissertation project is to a) develop research and statistics competency prior to the dissertation project, b) make a poster or paper presentation at a professional conference, and/or c) submit a paper for professional publication. Current students have presented at the American Psychological Association, American Association of Suicidology, Asian American Psychological Association, Association for Psychological Science, and other conferences.
EMH students then focus their 3rd and 4th years on their dissertations. Professional development and advising are integrated into lab meetings, addressing such topics as planning your graduate career, crafting cover letters for practicum applications, choosing practicum sites, etc.
How to Apply
Students interested in joining the lab are asked to submit the following items to Dr. Chu (via email) by 5pm on the PAU uniform research lab application date. Please combine all documents into one file.
- Curriculum Vitae
- One or two page cover letter discussing past research experience, how and why the student became interested in ethnic minority mental health, and specific research and clinical interests in ethnic minority mental health. If you are applying for the Multicultural Suicide Research Center (MSRC), please indicate this interest in your cover letter.
- A writing sample such as your research proposal written in PAU’s Research Methods course.
- Your unofficial PAU transcript.
Notification: Students accepted into Ethnic Minority Mental Health Research Lab will be notified by email by the PAU uniform notification date.