Sawssan Ahmed, Ph.D., has been selected as the next Oscar Kaplan Post Doctoral Fellow. Dr. Ahmed received her undergraduate degree with honors in Psychology and Arabic studies from the University of California - Los Angeles , where she was a University of California Regents Scholar . She then completed her Master's and Doctoral degree in clinical psychology at Wayne State University with minors in community psychology and quantitative methods under the mentorship of Dr.'s Paul Toro and Rodney Clark. During graduate school she served as the student representative for the Community Psychology Division of the American Psychological Association. Her research explored the relationship between socio-cultural factors (including perceived racism, religiousness and ethnic identity) and the physical and mental health of adolescents of color with a specific interest in Arab American adolescents. After graduate school, she completed a one year fellowship at UCLA's Center for Culture, Trauma and Mental Health Disparities. Dr. Ahmed will be working with Dr. May Yeh where she will continue to study the link between socio-cultural factors and health disparities focusing not only on psychological symptoms, but also service use and help-seeking behaviors in adolescents of color.
       
      

Nirelia Idrus, Ph.D., was selected as the third Kaplan Fellow (2007-2009). After graduating with Honors as an undergraduate, Nirelia continued her education at the University of Otago, Dunedin, New Zealand, completing her Ph.D. in the Department of Anatomy and Structural Biology in the School of Medicine. During her graduate career, she served as an instructor for numerous courses within the School of Medicine. Her teaching skills have been further developed outside the University as well, where, as an accomplished violinist, she teaches music to students of all ages. Dr. Idrus spent her graduate career studying the effects of prenatal alcohol exposure on brain development, with the goal of understanding how alcohol consumption by pregnant women damages the fetal brain. Specifically, she identified critical periods of development when various brain regions are vulnerable to alcohol exposure.

During her postdoctoral fellowship, Dr. Idrus worked with her mentor, Dr. Jennifer Thomas, to continue to examine the effects of alcohol on fetal development, focusing not only on brain damage, but also behavioral alterations. Specifically, she examined the mechanisms by which alcohol disrupts brain development and how these disruptions affect behavioral development. She also examined therapeutic interventions that may reduce the severity of this brain damage.

Laura J. Proctor, Ph.D., was the second recipient of the Kaplan Fellowship (2004-2006). She received her undergraduate degree in literature from University of California-San Diego, where she participated in the UC Education Abroad Program at the Pontificia Universidad Catolica in Lima, Peru. After working as a journalist in San Francisco, Los Angeles, and Guatemala City, she directed the program development office of the Mexican Institute for Family and Policy Research in Mexico City. She Received her doctoral degree in child and family clinical psychology from the University of Southern California under the mentorship of Dr. Gayla Margolin. As the Kaplan Fellow, Laura researched maladjustment and resilience in children exposed to violence and other adversities. Her primary mentor was Professor Joseph. M. Price.

Laura is currently a research scientist at the Child and Adolescent Services Research Center (CASRC) and adjunct faculty in the Psychology Department at SDSU. She was recently awarded a K01 Career Development Award from the National Institute on Drug Abuse to study trajectories of adverse childhood experiences and adolescent substance use.