Christina B. Gee: Associate Professor of Psychology at The George Washington University

As a high school student at the Bronx High School of Science, Dr. Christina B. Gee remembers being focused primarily on math and science because they didn’t offer any psychology classes. She recalls that her interest in psychology only came after she started college at Cornell University in Ithaca, NY. In this podcast interview, Dr. Christina B. Gee shares her academic and professional journey by discussing the fortunate events that led her to become aware of, and interested in, the field of psychology. In addition to discussing how she searched for psychology graduate programs in Illinois, and why she chose the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign for her master’s and PhD in clinical/community psychology, Dr. Gee also shares the significant experiences and people that helped shape her life and the direction of her research.

Throughout our discussion, Dr. Gee offers her thoughts, experiences, and advice regarding topics important to graduate students including finding the right internship and things to consider when searching for an internship, research and lab experience and how to find these opportunities, and how to decide if you are truly interested in research before applying to PhD programs. She also offers advice to those who are not sure what psychology career path to take (e.g., academic path or practitioner path).

During her last year at Cornell, Dr. Gee realized that she wanted to attend graduate school and she also realized that she didn’t have any research experience, so she began volunteering in a developmental psychology lab. She wanted to get more experience to be competitive for graduate school so she began cold emailing many different professors in New York, mostly NYU, to see if she could volunteer or work in their labs. She recalls that most of them never returned her emails, fortunately she got lucky and one of them did reply to her email. Professor Mary O’Brien, who was in the clinical psychology program, focused on the influence of marital conflict on child adjustment. Dr. Gee states “it was just very lucky for me that I got linked up with this lab and that really shaped the direction of my research for years to come.”

Dr. Gee is now the Principal Investigator of a research laboratory at GW called the Diverse Family Relationships Lab where they work on a lot of different types of projects. The Lab “is interested in relationship process and adjustment for couples, parents, and families who are diverse in terms of race, ethnicity, culture, and socio-economic status.” Some of the research studies the group has already completed include an Asian American Help-Seeking Study and Young Parents Study. They are currently working on the Unified Parenting Project which is “a study of coparenting processes in non-cohabiting parents. This study is also piloting the Coparenting Check-up, which is a free two-session assessment of how parents work together to support each other in raising their child.”

As an Associate Professor in the Clinical/Community Psychology program in the Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences at The George Washington University, she explains why students should consider attending their program if they “really want to attend a clinical program that doesn’t just give lip service to diversity” because “diversity is really infused into all aspects of our program.”

One thing that you may not know about Dr. Christina B. Gee is that she grew up in a restaurant family. Her father worked in the restaurant industry from the time he was a teenager until his late 40’s. In fact, both her mom and dad are really great cooks. Because of this, she really loves to cook and admits “I probably spend about 50% of my free time thinking about food, planning to cook, or actually cooking.” She says, “our vacations are typically planned around finding the best foods, and it’s really a plus that our sons are foodies as well.”

Connect with Christina B. Gee: LinkedIn | Website
Connect with the Show: Twitter | Facebook | LinkedIn

Interests and Specializations

Dr. Christina B. Gee studies the influence of romantic and family relationship across stressful life transitions. She has examined interracial romantic relationships, intimate partner violence, and parent and coparenting involvement impacts on children and older children. Some of her newer research is focused on mental health help-seeking behavior in Asian and Asian American college students and emerging adults.

Education

Bachelor of Science (BS), Human Development and Family Studies; Cornell University, Ithaca, NY.
Master of Arts (MA), Clinical/Community Psychology; University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Champaign, IL.
Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), Clinical/Community Psychology; University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Champaign, IL.

Podcast Transcript

00:00:13 Bradley
Welcome to the Master’s in Psychology podcast, where psychology students can learn from psychologists, educators, and practitioners to better understand what they do, how they got there, and hear the advice they have for those interested in getting a graduate degree in psychology. I’m your host, Brad Schumacher, and today we welcome Dr. Christina Gee to this show. Dr. Gee is an Associate Professor in the Clinical/Community Psychology program in the Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences at the George Washington University. She earned her bachelor’s degree in Human Development and Family Studies from Cornell University. And she earned her PhD in Clinical/Community Psychology from the University of Illinois. Today, we will learn more about her academic and professional journey and discuss what it’s like to be an associate professor at the George Washington University, as well as hear her advice to those interested in the field of psychology. Dr. Gee, welcome to our podcast.

00:01:09 Christina
Thanks, Brad. Thank you for having me.

00:01:11 Bradley
Well, I appreciate taking the time out of your busy schedule to talk with us. I am actually excited to learn a little bit more about your journey. Before we get started, though, I wanted to find out if you could remember the first time you became interested in psychology.

00:01:28 Christina
Uhm, that’s a great question. I went to high school at the Bronx High School of Science, and that’s a specialized public high school in New York City whereby its name you could guess that math and science were emphasized, though we didn’t have psychology classes offered, I didn’t actually know it was a field of study. So, my interest in psychology really only came after I started college.

00:01:53 Bradley
OK. And I see that I mentioned that you went to Cornell University for a bachelor’s degree in human development and family studies. When you were in college, what kind of spurred your interest? Did you go into a class, or you found a study? Tell me about that a little bit.

00:02:11 Christina
When I applied to Cornell, I had to specify a major, and so, uhm, I would like to say I, I had an epiphany that psychology was my passion, but really, in some ways it came by process of elimination. So, I applied to Cornell, because Cornell has both public colleges and private colleges. I’m not sure if everyone is aware of that, but being a New York State resident, I could apply to the public colleges and pay New York State tuition at them. So, since our family didn’t have a lot of money, I aimed towards one of those colleges and when I was comparing them, um, I thought, OK, well, human ecology, agricultural and life sciences, or industrial and labor relations. Which one of those do I think is the fit? And so, I said, well, I like humans over animals and buildings, so I’m going to go with humans. So, I went with human ecology and then looking at the majors within human ecology. One of them I just didn’t have much interest in design and environmental analysis. There was another on textiles and fashion, and one on nutritional sciences. This used to, communicology used to be at the School of Home Economics previously. And so, I thought, OK, well, human development and family studies sounds probably closest to what I’m interested in. The other one might have been human service studies, which I understood to be like social work. So, I was kind of picking between two of those, but I, you know, threw a dart and went with human development and family studies. I mean, I figured I liked children. I could imagine myself as a teacher, so I figured I would try that. And so, when I.

00:03:56 Bradley
OK.

00:03:58 Christina
Started that, then I actually found that I did have genuine interest in in it.

00:04:03 Bradley
Now, you mentioned something that I sometimes ask some of my guests. You know, I, I interview guests that are within the academic world and then those that are, have their private practice or social workers. And so, it sounded like very early on you kind of had an idea that you wanted to teach and you and you kind of found that interesting as well, so. Walk us through why didn’t you select something else? Or did that kind of just, you’ve always been interested in teaching?

00:04:31 Christina
Uhm, I actually didn’t know that I was that interested in teaching. When I thought about teaching, I actually had thought about younger children. And teaching maybe elementary, but while I was at Cornell, I was able to do both preschool student teaching as part of the major and also a TA-ship unpaid, just volunteer for a professor, uhm, in the class that I had taken previously and really enjoyed. And so, through that I realized, oh well, maybe this is a potentially viable option in the future, but it was really more just in the back of my mind. It wasn’t at that point that I thought, oh, I want to go into, uhm, college teaching? But uhm. Yeah, so I really developed my interest in psychology through the major, which I came to understand was developmental psychology mixed with some community psychology. And then also by taking electives in the College of Arts and Sciences which is one of the private colleges. So that’s where I took all of the more typical psychology classes like abnormal psychology and social psychology.

00:05:53 Bradley
And then you attended the University of Illinois, I think you went to the Urbana Champaign school, is that right?

00:06:02 Christina
Yeah, so, Urbana Champaign is in central Illinois, so about 2 1/2 hours South of Chicago.

00:06:09 Bradley
Did you commute or did you move? What did you do?

00:06:12 Christina
Uhm, no, uhm. I lived 10 minutes from the psychology building, which is actually one of the really great benefits of being in a very small town for Graduate School. Everything is very close.

00:06:27 Bradley
Good, good. No, that’s good to hear. Were you considering other schools at that point in time? And if so, why did you choose University of Illinois Urbana Champaign?

00:06:37 Christina
It’s a little bit difficult to remember how I made that choice since it was so long ago, but at some point, during the last year at Cornell, I realized that maybe I wanted to go to Graduate School. But then I thought, oh well, I don’t have any research experience, so I did start volunteering in a developmental psychology lab, Barbara Lust lab focused on language acquisition, so it was a really neat little study of how toddlers learn how to use prepositions like on, for, or at. And it used puppets, I believe they were Sesame Street puppets. So, it was a lot of fun, and I had a great experience doing that research and I really enjoyed it, but looking towards the future, I couldn’t really imagine doing that for the rest of my career. And so, after I graduated, I moved home to live with my parents in New York, and I wanted to get more experience to be competitive for Graduate School. So, I cold emailed numerous professors in New York, mostly at NYU, you to see if I could volunteer in their labs. Most of them never e-mail me back, but one, I got lucky, and one did. So, it was Professor Mary O’Brien who was in the clinical psych program. And she focused on the influence of marital conflict, on child adjustment. So, it was just very lucky for me that I got linked up with this lab and that really shaped the direction of my research for years to come.

00:08:14 Bradley
I was just going to say, looking at some of your research, I, I noticed that there was kind of a theme there following what you just said as well, and we’ll talk about that in a second. If you had to kind of look back, what was the most important thing to you when you were selecting that graduate psychology program?

00:08:33 Christina
Uhm, yeah, so sorry, I lost track of what the original question was. So, I started working with Dr. O’Brien on marital conflict and child adjustment and thought that this would be something I would be interested in in doing for Graduate School. So, my main focus in applying to schools was mentor fit. Uhm, so I aimed towards programs where there was a professor that primarily studied this topic. And University of Illinois Urbana Champaign was one of those places that had a really well-known faculty member, Frank Fincham, who focused on that area. So, I applied to work with Dr. Fincham, and I did find out during the application process that he was likely leaving the university, uhm, to go somewhere else. But as I learned more about the program and what it was all about and this blend of clinical community, I thought, well, I still would like to go there and it’s still a great fit for me. And also, there were the practical reasons as well. They had really great funding. They had six years of guaranteed funding for graduate students was which is pretty much unheard of. Most other schools were four or maybe five. And it was also a really highly ranked program. So those two things put together, I kind of put on the shelf my thoughts about, well, it’s in the middle of nowhere, in the Midwest, I don’t know whether it’s going to be like having grown up in New York, but I thought, well, it’s only a few years I can do this and, and off I went.

00:10:16 Bradley
Well, thank you for that summary. I know that uhm, that’s the first time that I’ve heard guaranteed funding for six years as well. You’re exactly right. Most of the time it’s 4, maybe 5, but six is, is unheard of almost nowadays. So that’s that was very fortunate and, and I know that one thing that a lot of our audience members ask is hey, if you could do anything different in terms of the process related to searching for graduate schools, what would you do differently or back then, probably the technology was different than that it is now. So that’s one thing to keep in mind, but anything that you would do different in terms of your search process related to searching for graduate schools or programs?

00:11:02 Christina
Uhm yeah, I mean I think uhm you hit the nail on the head there with just not being able to find any information at that time. You just had to go on one or two sources that were published about the reputations of graduate programs. If I were doing the application process again today, I would do a lot more research on programs. I would find out more about the faculty and the program philosophy. Uhm, I would check out all of the program websites. I would follow their social media pages. I would go to more conferences. I think I would go to presentations that were being done by the intended mentor. I would go to posters that were being presented in there, from their labs, I would talk to their current graduate students. I didn’t do any of that. I feel like I just blindly lucked into it.

00:12:04 Bradley
Well, I, I think you’re not the only one. It, it really depends on where you were and then the technology available. And one of my guests said, yeah, and I would call, I’d talk to the person and say, hey, I’m really interested in your research, are you accepting you know anybody right now to work with you? And if not, how soon would you? And are you planning on leaving? To your point, you know you found out that that person was leaving, but hey, all these other things were advantages. And I’m going to probably continue staying here and, and go here. So that outweighed that one person leaving, I noticed in your background, in your history, you completed your clinical internship at the Charles Student Consortium Medical University of South Carolina. Tell us how you found that opportunity and did you have any other internship opportunities?

00:12:53 Christina
Uhm, there was really just one big internship book at the time. It was about that fat, and everyone shared it because we could only afford one copy in the program. So, you took a look at it. You made copies of certain pages. There were no websites for programs back then. I found out about the MUSC program because it was one of the more research-oriented internships where you got one day per week to dedicate to doing your research. And MUSC was a very research-oriented program, so they wanted students to pursue academic careers and really urged us to apply to these types of internships. So, I had, I knew someone from my grad school cohort who went on internship a year before I did, and she really liked it. And someone the year before had gone to it. So, there was kind of a history of students from our program going there and word pro, word of mouth was really important at that time because we just didn’t know that much about programs, and there also is a lot of variability in internships, and what’s on paper is not always what happens in practice. So, there are a lot of internships where you work closer to 40 hours a week and others where you’re working closer to 70 hours a week. And then some. As I was saying, where you have time to pursue your own research or if you’re still working on your dissertation, they’ll give you time to do that. Others won’t allow that.

00:14:28 Bradley
Well, that’s a good summary ’cause a good variety of internships, and you have to take that into account if you’re still working on your, uhm, doctorate and you still want to finish up your dissertation. You have to defend all of that. Keep that in mind. I’m sharing my screen because you’ve been with a faculty member of Department of Psychological Brain Sciences at, can I just say GWU, George Washington, the George Washington University?

00:14:54 Christina
Yeah, or GW is fine either way.

00:14:57 Bradley
GW is fine, good…since I think 2001. So, tell us how you found this opportunity and why did you go with GW?

00:15:08 Christina
Uhm, I think the theme of this interview will be that I don’t know, I just got lucky. I applied for whatever was being offered at the time. I mean, faculty positions are notoriously few and far between, and after spending six years in central Illinois and then a year in Charleston, I felt ready to get back to a city, get back to the East Coast and be closer to family. And so, there are only so many places that I would consider at that point. Uhm, although actually I did, uhm, I did apply pretty broadly. Uhm, given that there weren’t that many choices and I did want a job. So, I did apply to both postdocs and faculty positions during my internship year, and I was actually really surprised to get any interviews and offers, so. Uhm, so I really was fortunate to get an offer from GW. They were having quite a few retirements, they had an aging faculty, and they were the clinical program was able to hire for two positions that year, and I was even more lucky to find out after I accepted the position that a friend from Graduate School, Dr. Mimi Le, who was a year ahead of me, was also taking a job there at the same time and so and I had family living in the area, so it just seemed like a perfect opportunity to, uhm, move to a new city, but have some people that I already knew and some of the, the comforts of, of knowing somebody or having someone to explore this new city with.

00:17:03 Bradley
You have a lab, the Diverse Family Relationships Lab, that studies the influence of romantic and family relationships across all different kind of stressful transitions, and I think you mentioned even within some cultural contexts, as well. Tell us more about the lab while I’m sharing the screen here, and I’ll let you talk a little bit more about what you guys do in the lab and how it’s evolved throughout the years.

00:17:32 Christina
Our lab does a lot of different types of projects. When I first started at GW, we were doing the Young Parents study, which was focused on adolescent mothers. And then we moved on to the Unified Parenting Project, which focused more broadly on low-income parents. When we were doing those projects, our undergrads had the chance to go out in the community and do a lot of research and recruit and screen participants and interview them. Uhm, more recently, during COVID, we’ve kind of transitioned to launching some online studies looking at psychological adjustment of undergraduates after returning to campus. From COVID virtual learning, we’ve been looking at the impact of COVID on coparenting relationships as well, and our undergraduates have worked with us to program surveys and Qualtrics and help us analyze data, and now we’re looking at writing up some of that data and submitting that for presentations at conferences. So uhm. Yeah, so there’s a variety of things that we’re doing. We also have some other data that we’re working with that focuses on help seeking in college populations and also international student populations.

00:18:54 Bradley
I noticed that you had, uhm, some funded research, NIMH-funded research, the Young Parents Study, which focused on African American Latina adolescents, mothers’ relationships and their children’s, I think, biological fathers during transition to parenthood. I see that you extended this research as you mentioned to low-income parents with older children as well. What were some of the biggest takeaways from this line of research, if you can kind of give us a high-level take away that you learned from this research thus far?

00:19:30 Christina
Probably the biggest takeaways are things that would not be surprising to you or your listeners, that relationships are just really complex. But when we’re talking about coparenting relationships, it’s really important to be able to separate your relationship with your partner from your relationship as coparents. So even if you’re having the stress in your relationship with each other, being able to really manage your relationship as coparents and be respectful and make decisions together and work together for the benefit of your children. Uhm, this was particularly difficult for our adolescent mothers and the fathers that we interviewed in the young parents’ study just by the nature of their level of maturity, their experience in relationships. And also, the, the fact that many were not romantically involved, after a couple of years, it was very difficult for them to maintain that positive coparenting relationship. And it was also made more complicated by other members in the family system, so when you’re a young parent and you may be living with your own mother or maybe your grandmother, some of those family members are taking care of your children, so you have another coparent in the mix there and that makes it even more difficult.

00:20:56 Bradley
I am sharing your professional bio again, and the reason I am is in the third paragraph you talk about the Unified Parenting project. And for our listeners, I’ll include all these websites as well. And so, here’s a little bit more about that project as well. But I wanted to highlight a couple things. You’ve extended this to what you’re calling the Coparenting Check-up, tell us a little bit about that and how is that a little different from the Unified Parenting project? Or am I just interpreting that a little differently?

00:21:29 Christina
Uhm, the Coparenting Check-up, uhm, was done with a subset of the Unified Parenting Project participants, and that research comes out of my previous experience with brief relationship interventions that I started doing under the mentorship of James Cordova at University of Illinois when I was there, he’s currently at Clark University continuing that work. And so, the marriage checkup was based on a therapeutic assessment framework. So, what we know from research is that sometimes just giving clients feedback on what they’re doing and having them be observers of their own experience can lead to change, even if you’re not actually doing therapy with them. And so, we thought this type of brief intervention would work really well for our low-income couples who are really busy. They may not have the chance to sit down. And take a good look at their relationship and it’s also just two sessions and not framed as therapy. So, it has the potential of, of being less stigmatizing than traditional mental health treatment. So, it’s kind of similar to going to a regular dental checkup and the dentist telling you that you need to brush more. So, granted, not everyone loves going to the dentist, but they know it’s important to do to maintain the health of their teeth. So, these kinds of checkups are important to maintain the health of your relationship.

00:22:52 Bradley
Very good summary.

00:22:53 Christina
So, we, yeah. So, we had couples come into the lab, they did an assessment of their coparenting relationship. They did a couple of interactions for us where they discussed coparenting challenges, and we would have them come back into the lab after we reviewed all of this data we collected. We would share that information back with them, give them some feedback about how they could improve their relationship, highlight some of the strengths that they already have. Uhm, try to increase some understanding that they had of each other and why each one behaves the way they do as a parent based on their background, uhm, so, so all of that was part of the, the Coparenting Check-up. And then.

00:23:38 Bradley
Well, oh, I’m sorry. Go ahead.

00:23:39 Christina
Oh, sorry, uhm so. I’ll let you ask your question, it’ll probably be.

00:23:48 Bradley
I, I was, I was just highlighting while you were talking some of your research that was focused on coparenting and a lot of it even from 4-5-6 years ago you’ve been interested in coparenting and, and more recently you know the, the Unified Parenting Project and then the Coparenting Check-up are kind of reflected in some of your research as well. But I did notice that some of your newer research you have on your bio here is focusing a little bit more on the mental health help seeking behavior in Asian and Asian American College students and emerging adults, the support group that they have available, and the social strain for those college students, with particular focus on first-generation college students. And before we started this podcast recording, you and I were talking a little bit more about scholarships and, and the availability of scholarships for certain groups of individuals. And I know that our website focuses on certain groups of individuals and making sure that we make that information and those resources available and we’re thinking of extending that to Asian Americans as well. So, I guess my question is, first of all, I wanted to point that out and I thank you for focusing on this a little bit because some people in the Asian American groups don’t know where to go, where to start, what to do. That sort of stuff. And so that kind of falls under your social support especially for first generation college students. When I was a teacher, first generation students really didn’t know where to go, what to do, what resources were available. So, I guess I’m bringing this up and if you’d like to add anything on, on some of these newer lines of research, especially the Asian and Asian American lines of research, I’d welcome that.

00:25:37 Christina
Sure. Yeah. I mean, I think that those issues hit home for me just as a first-generation college student myself and I think reflected in some of my answers to your questions on how did you end up doing XY or Z? And a lot of it was, I don’t know because no one really told me. I just took a guess and it sort of worked out, but we don’t really want everyone to start from that same place. We want to give them a little bit of a leg up, so I think providing those supports is really important. But some of the work that we’ve been doing with emerging adult populations and Asian American help-seeking has really highlighted also that there’s a lack of information out there on mental health treatment and also there’s a lot of stigma towards mental health treatment within Asian cultures and so a lot of our work has focused on, been focused on what are the barriers and facilitators of seeking professional help. And also, informal support.

00:26:49 Bradley
What advice would you give someone trying to break into the field of psychology?

00:26:55 Christina
Uhm, let’s see. I think things that we’ve already been talking about, gathering lots of information, talking to different faculty about career paths. If you’re interested in academia, asking about what their daily life is like. It’s really great in so many ways. But because it’s flexible and you’re independent, but it’s certainly not for everyone. Do informational interviews with practicing clinicians who are working in settings where you might want to work in, and most people are pretty generous with their time and would be willing to give you 15 or 20 minutes to talk about their experiences. Uhm, I would use your summers wisely to work in research labs or volunteer and clinical settings with your population of interest. You might think that you’re interested in children, but once you actually start working with them, you might realize that you’re not. Uhm, and also think a lot about if you’re really, truly interested in research before applying to a PhD program. We have a lot of applicants that think that they should say that they love research, and then they get into the program and they kind of discover that they don’t love it, or they liked it but didn’t love it, and you really have to love it in order to get through a PhD program without suffering immense, uhm, mental anguish.

00:28:26 Bradley
That’s putting it lightly and, and being very kind, yes, that it could be very stressful, especially if you’re in a program that you do not enjoy or an area that you do not enjoy, or if you don’t like doing research, then it, it is just going to be very challenging for you if you don’t figure that out. So, I will do one more share here and for audience members who are interested, let’s say in clinical or community psychology, tell us why they should attend GW and consider the Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences.

00:29:03 Christina
We have a great program. Uhm, for students that really want to attend a clinical program that doesn’t just give lip service to diversity, we have a focus on diversity that’s, uhm, diversity is really infused into all aspects of our program. All of our clinical faculty are doing work on diverse populations, and their work really has implications for development of interventions that can promote equity and reduce health and mental health disparities. Our faculty are also really diverse. Over half of us are women of color or sexual minorities, our students are equally diverse, coming from all of different kinds of backgrounds and all of that. Diversity really brings a lot to the educational experience. We all learn a lot from each other. We’re challenged in all kinds of different ways from these interactions. Uhm, we really do strive to have an inclusive environment where students feel very supported in reaching their professional goals. And we’re also in DC, which is a great location for accessing diverse populations for both clinical work and research. Uhm, we’re also really close to places like NIH, Association for Psychological Science, and APA as well, and so, uhm, and if you have extra time in your busy Graduate School life, I think that you would never be bored with the Smithsonian museums and all the other things that there are to do in DC.

00:30:41 Bradley
Well, that was a good sale. That was a good sell. I, I loved hearing all about that. At the end of most of our podcasts, we ask some fun questions. And so, one question that I usually ask is tell us something unique about yourself.

00:30:55 Christina
Uhm, well, I grew up in a restaurant family. My dad worked in the restaurant industry from the time he was a very young teenager until his late 40s when he transitioned to working in a convenience store because it was less work. So being in a 24-hour convenience store was a step down. He is a really great cook. My mom is a really great cook too. And because of this I really love to cook, and I love to experiment with ingredients and new recipes. I probably spend about 50% of my free time thinking about food, planning to cook, or actually cooking so. Our vacations are typically planned around finding the best foods, and it’s really a plus that our sons are foodies as well. But it’s also a negative because we’re not ever able to just order off the kid’s menu. I think their worst nightmare is cheese pizza and buttered noodles, so uhm…

00:32:03 Bradley
Right, right. No, that’s interesting. That’s a, I love food. And what’s the old saying? The way to a man’s heart is through his stomach is what I heard the long ago. But I, I think that’s true for me, so. What is your favorite term, principle, or theory and why?

00:32:22 Christina
I think that it would have to be Bronfenbrenner’s Ecological Systems Theory, just going back to my Cornell days and having the opportunity to meet him because he was still on faculty at the time and teaching. It’s a classic. It’s been a critical reminder in my research to my clinical work as a supervisor just thinking about all the different interpersonal, system level and cultural factors that interact to influence human development.

00:32:56 Bradley
We will definitely highlight that on the on the podcast and provide some links for that. Do you have any other advice for those interested in the field of psychology?

00:33:06 Christina
Uhm, other advice? Not anything off the top of my head.

00:33:14 Bradley
OK. And then.

00:33:15 Christina
I mean, I think it’s the great field, I think for, we will never solve all the, the mysteries of why people behave the way they do, so it’s, it’s not, you’ll never be bored, I think.

00:33:30 Bradley
Well, that’s true, that’s true. And, and you can always extend and come up with your own research as well, extend current and then come up with your own. A fun question at the end here is if you had the time and money to complete one project or go on one trip, what would you do?

00:33:58 Christina
I think I will probably cheat on this question and say an around the world trip and so uhm yeah so, I think it would not have a particular end date so that you could go anywhere and spend as much time as you wanted without having to feel rushed. Uhm, usually I plan my trip so that you really have a chance to explore the, the, uhm, the ins and outs of a place and not just the few top touristy highlights. Uhm, I would basically eat my way around the world trying everything.

00:34:38 Bradley
That sounds like a good endeavor. That’s a good goal and, and no time constraints. I like that aspect of it. So, is there anything else that you would like to discuss or bring up on this podcast?

00:34:49 Christina
Uhm, I don’t think so. I think that’s a pretty good summary of me and my thoughts on psychology. Thank you so much for the questions and, uhm, for inviting me.

00:35:05 Bradley
I appreciate your time and willingness to share your thoughts and your journey with us, Christina. I appreciate your honesty about being able to go on that long trip without having any, any time constraints as well, so thanks again.

00:35:20 Christina
Thank you.