Speaker 1: 0:13

Absolutely, because one super tangible thing is that, because I had that funding monthly and also being in Columbia, missouri, be it a very to me small town because I come from a big city, but to them I don't think we consider it a small town.

Speaker 1: 0:30

But being in a small town that is not very diverse, like one of the widest places that I've lived. It was important for me to have moments to be able to just escape and go visit my family when I was really missing them. So, having that stipend and also living in a place that was lower cost of living, I was able to manage paying my rent and still be able to save money to leave during times when I really felt like, okay, I need to get away.

Speaker 2: 1:03

Welcome back to the Covert Sisters podcast, where we give voice to the stories, struggles and successes of black women with doctoral degrees. I'm your host, dr Yamacola. Our guest today is Dr Robina O'Wonga, who received a PhD in counseling psychology from the University of Missouri Columbia. A Maryland native with roots in Kenya, dr O'Wonga shares her journey as the first in her family to achieve a doctoral degree and discusses her research on the long term effects of childhood trauma. From her unique upbringing to her advocacy as a black psychologist and executive leadership consultant, dr O'Wonga's story is one of perseverance and empowerment. Join us as we uncover the profound connections between adverse childhood experiences, ethnic identity and psychological well-being. Let's dive into this inspiring conversation.

Speaker 2: 1:54

Welcome to the Covert Sisters podcast, dr Robina O'Wonga. It's so exciting to have you back in. Connected with Covert Sisters. We had you as a panelist for our Black History Month workshop, talking about how you navigated being the first in your family to get a doctoral degree. So congratulations on that. In and of itself, of course, love for you to introduce yourself. Tell us a little bit about who you are, where you're from and where you currently live now.

Speaker 1: 2:21

Yeah, thank you. I'm excited to be here, glad that I found Covert Sisters while I was in grad school and, even though it was towards the end of it, it was really helpful connecting with a community of other black women scholars. So I'm Robina O'Wonga. I am, I guess, like I have, a border crossing upbringing. I consider myself a Marri Kenyan in that I was born in Baltimore, I grew up in Kenya, east Africa, for like the first six formative years of my childhood and then I came back to the states where I grew up, in Prince George's County, maryland, where we found the birth to it as PG. And I'd also like to know is that Maryland is occupies like ancestral lands of the Patuxent, piscataway, susquehannock, and I know a few others that I'm probably forgetting Indigenous nations. So yeah, I grew up around here, I went to University of Maryland for undergrad and I studied psychology in French and I did some international studies as well. And I went to France to study abroad in Nice for like half a year and that was a great experience.

Speaker 2: 3:35

I'm really jealous because I like when one regret about college was that I didn't do study abroad I know this is not a podcast about college life at all but like if I could do it again. I'm like I wish I had studied abroad and like lived a romantic life in France. I took French in high school. So I'm like, oh, I wish I had done. That's what I should have done, instead of I don't know what I was doing in college.

Speaker 1: 3:56

Yeah, that was one thing that I was, like really adamant about wanting to do.

Speaker 2: 4:00

So, yeah, good for you, good for you and also, of course, shared identities with you know, being you called border crossing. I like I haven't heard that term before, but I like that term, having a foot in two different places, and obviously I'm like, not obviously, but Kenya has a huge part of my life since my husband's Kenyan. We've lived there for a while trying to get ourselves back there.

Speaker 2: 4:24

So long story short, you're my sister, my Kenyan sister and excited to be in community with you today, so can you talk to us about what your doctoral degree is in and what you studied.

Speaker 1: 4:37

Yeah, of course, and I will say the phrase border crossing. I got that from Dr Ty Douglas, who is one of my mentors while I was at Mizzou, and he uses that a lot in his research because he calls himself a border crossing brother. So but yeah, I got my doctorate in counseling psychology and I went to Mizzou University of Missouri. That's the flagship university for the institution.

Speaker 2: 5:01

Yeah, and what did you research? What was your dissertation on?

Speaker 1: 5:09

Oh gosh, like I feel like I did. That was only last year and I already kind of am like past that. But yeah, I actually did a topic that was pretty close to my heart so I'll share like the main question and what I explored and then like my reasoning behind it. So I was, and still am, curious about the impact of people's experiences during their childhood on their development across the lifespan. So I was specifically looking at adverse childhood experiences, or ACEs, which are categorized as abuse, neglect, household dysfunction. And that was after I saw this TED Talk by Dr Nadine Burke Harris. She's a former surgeon general for the state of California and she heard TED Talk was on how childhood trauma affects health across the lifespan.

Speaker 1: 6:00

So from my dissertation I was specifically interested in the relationship among ACEs, ethnic identity and psychological sense of community or our sense of belonging to like a specific entity, and how that all connects to our mental health.

Speaker 1: 6:16

So like satisfaction with life, positive mood for black emerging adults in the US. And then the reason that I really wanted to embark on that is because through, like the studies I was reading, I, you know, found out and you know, obviously knew through lived experiences that it's a thing. But the research was also showing that exposure to traumatic incidents is pretty common, especially like in the US. So like two thirds of people experience a traumatic event during their lifetime, and the CDC also had a study where they were. They showed that 60% of US residents reported at least one adverse childhood experience and about 10% of the population reported four or more. And then I knew, like through looking at more data, that black people were at a way higher risk than other racial ethnic groups for experiencing ACEs, which I'm sure you know as, like a historian of race and medicine that in a society where systemic oppression and structural racism is prevalent and pervasive, that black people are at a disproportionately higher rate to be impacted by trauma and, from my case, specifically, adverse childhood experiences.

Speaker 2: 7:33

Yeah, absolutely. So what point? Growing up did you become interested in psychology? And then can you talk us through the decision to specialize in counseling psychology, maybe versus clinical or developmental psychology or all the other versions of psychology? We'd love to kind of know, like, what brought you to this? I understand the research, but what brought you to the field in general?

Speaker 1: 7:56

Yeah, I would say like the first maybe formative memory or around the time where I had that first formative memory of like this is a space that I want to go into was high school, and initially I was actually really interested in forensic psychology. You know, those shows that we see about like criminal minds, law and order, how do people think and how does their thinking impact their behavior, mood, all those things. So that was my initial interest in it and I was like, well, I want to be like the agent and kind of look into that stuff. And then it got a little bit deeper for me where so around the time I was in middle school, Kenya had gone through a lot of civil unrest with the elections that had gone on during that time, and I had family who ended up traveling to different areas outside of Kenya to seek asylum, and some family came here to the US. At that time, obviously I knew it was like a huge thing, but I hadn't, you know, I didn't really have the mental capacity to actually conceptualize what was going on.

Speaker 1: 9:03

So when I got to high school and I was thinking more about that and I got to take a psychology class in high school, I was like, oh, this is really interesting. And that kind of sparked my interest of like, okay, how is this trauma that people experience at such young ages Like? What does that do to us growing up? How does that impact the way that people are within their families? I also at the time was like it had family members who had like mental illnesses which I didn't really know about at the time.

Speaker 1: 9:33

But I was like, okay, there's something going on here and I just wanted to know more about it. So I ended up in, you know, experiencing all that and then taking the psychology class in high school I was like I think this is what I wanna measure in because it's interesting to me and I wanna continue to learn more about this and what I can do to contribute to helping. So at first I actually at the beginning of high school, I was like I wanna be a lawyer because I wanna advocate for people in immigrant communities in that specific way. But then I realized that as a lawyer I wouldn't be able to do some of the healing help work that I really wanted to do to have a better impact.

Speaker 2: 10:17

So yeah, yeah, Thank you so much for sharing that you know, as someone who also comes from a country that is plagued with political trauma. I think, that it's so important to for people to just kind of think about the different ways in which not only things that they experience, but things that their families experiencing even your extended families experiencing can still very much inform how you move through the world and form and shape what your interests are, but also ways in which you need to heal. Yeah, yeah, I'm just going to complete that.

Speaker 1: 10:58

For interaction, there's a lot to be said of like our countries were both, you know, formerly British colonies. So there's a lot of like the vestiges of that. You know, trauma that comes up for how the countries are present day.

Speaker 2: 11:13

Right, right, and like not being able to under, like not understanding all of that history when you're a child. Yeah, like think, as we continue to grow older and it becomes, like, more present and we are still seeing the ramifications of that. It is incredibly traumatizing, even though, like we ourselves, we're not necessarily under colonial rule, but like we can, you still see the impact, you still see the residues of colonization on us. So it's like it is really. It is troublesome. Yeah, 100% yeah. So let's talk about your doctoral program. Why did you go to Mizzou? Why was that the right program for you? How did you end up there?

Speaker 1: 11:58

Yeah, oh yeah, you did ask me why I chose Calving Ritz clinical. So when I was in undergrad, my semester that I studied abroad was the last semester of my junior year and while I was abroad, I remember, like you know, getting emails from like advisors being like, oh you know, sign up for your next classes. And during that time a lot of my peers were solidifying internships during the summer for their respective fields and stuff. And you know, I was abroad, so I wasn't, I wasn't really thinking about that at the time until that started coming out. So then I remember having a friend who I used to do I used to work as a community assistant, which is like the people who sit at the front desk and work with the RA to give you the keys and make any emergency phone calls for students, and one of my coworkers at the time had mentioned that they were working on some research project and I was like, oh, that's interesting, sounds like a lot of work, like, tell me more about that. And they were part of the McNair program, and so they told me about the McNair program and then I ended up being, you know, like slightly interested at the time, but I didn't really have any true like research interests. I hadn't had much research experience but whenever I was thinking back to what I could do for the summer, I remember I remember them saying like it's a summer program, so I ended up reaching out to the program and applying.

Speaker 1: 13:32

I ended up getting accepted and so that, I think, was like a really pivotal moment for me because that gave me a chance to have a summer research experience within the credibility of like a McNair program that was reputable. And then, when it came time to apply to programs, the program director, dr Rhea Roper-Ned she's a black woman proud of Howard University alum she pushed all of us to apply to a certain number of doctoral programs and so I ended up applying and the program actually paid for like a whatever number she was telling us to apply for. They paid for those application fees, so that was very helpful at the time. So I ended up going to one of the professors in the psychology department I never had a class with her, dr Karen O'Brien. I saw that she had a paper on the outside of her door where she was like this is for office hours. So I put my name down for an office hour. I went to the office hour and I'm sure she was like who are you?

Speaker 2: 14:39

Like I know, I have a lot of students.

Speaker 1: 14:40

But she seemed like the type of professor who knows, like, who her students are by name and stuff.

Speaker 1: 14:45

So I just told her I'm like, when I was doing some research for you know, mcnair, I saw that you work with you've studied like women who experienced domestic violence and I'm interested in, you know something that has to do with like trauma and how that impacts people and so can I talk to you about like my interest in doctoral programs and stuff. And so she literally like took a yellow post-it note and wrote like maybe six or seven programs on there with program directors and faculty that she knew like she could vouch for and was like reach out to these programs and you know, like that's a good starting point for you. And before she even did that, she actually asked me like what are your interests? Like why are you thinking about going into psychology? And based on what I described like giving her the whole background of like what I'm interested in, you know, trauma I had done like a paper on that child soldiers in Sierra Leone and how that was impacting them she was like counseling psychology seems like a better fit for you because those programs typically have more of a social justice, multicultural emphasis than clinical psychology programs.

Speaker 1: 15:58

So that was kind of the key thing that pushed me towards counseling versus clinical. And so then I applied to those programs and University of Missouri being one of them is where her former advisor was the program director at and at the time she was not accepting students, dr Lisa Flores. But she emailed me back and let me know that there are these other professors who have adjacent research interests to yours and they could still mentor you through the program. So I applied to like nine programs. I got interviews at three and when I went to do like that program specifically, it just felt like a really warm program. The way that she was leading it at the time. It just felt like a good fit for me and also other like things that let me to feel like I divinely, that was like the divine order for me to be at that place.

Speaker 2: 16:59

Right, right. But also like shout out to you for being like. You know I wanna do this. I need to figure out who's doing it. So I'm gonna sign up for this random person's office hours and get some FaceTime with them, because I think that sometimes we can kind of get in our head and be like, well, I don't wanna bother someone. They don't know me. But you never know who is willing or able to connect you and to help you if you don't ask.

Speaker 2: 17:23

So I think, that is a really great. I'm so excited that you shared that testimony, really, and the testament to your perseverance and your determination that you, once you figured out what you wanted to do, you figured out a way to find the resources that you needed to get there. So shout outs to you for that. I hope other people kind of take that with them and are inspired to not be shy about reaching out to folks, networking, talking to people, because you honestly never know who knows who who can refer you to wear, et cetera. So shout outs to you for that.

Speaker 1: 17:58

Yeah, and I will. I'll talk to you about your time.

Speaker 2: 18:00

Oh, go ahead.

Speaker 1: 18:01

I will say that that was a really key piece because I almost didn't reach out to those people and even like getting into the McNear program was a huge confidence boost for me because I literally failed my very first psychology class. I had to get like I think at the time Maryland had like freshman forgiveness or something like that where I had to retake my psychology class and I had to retake another course. That was like probability, which were two major courses that were needed for me to actually continue on in the major. Otherwise, if I didn't pass them, I would have had to select another major. And I remember when I was like asking about programs, there was a professor, like pretty prominent in the field actually, who ended up looking at my GPA and at the time I had taken the GRE as well and he was like, yeah, I'm not sure that you're gonna get into programs with these grades in, like the main courses, like major courses and this GRE. So you might wanna do a little bit more like post back and then try again.

Speaker 2: 19:08

Little Zihino that was not your calling that's wild, but there's actually one of the very first recordings that we did on the podcast, dr Mercy Agyampong I hope I'm recollecting her last name properly, but she also spoke quite at length about I think we had it even in the title. I think she had like a two point something GPA when she graduated college and then still went on to get her doctoral degree and it was such a testament of the fact that, like when, the grades and assessments are not a measure of intelligence, they're not a measure of willpower, they're not a measure of research ability. So sometimes those can also limit us, but we have to be able to push forward and not let what's on paper, or what someone tells us is on paper, to stop us from pursuing our academic dreams and goals, if that's what we really want.

Speaker 2: 20:02

So, thank you also for sharing that additional context as well. So, when you were at Mizzou, talk to us about some of the successes and some of the challenges. What were the highlights of the program? What were some of the more rougher patches of the program?

Speaker 1: 20:19

Yeah, one of my highlights has to do with, like, my initial, like entry into the program. So, in terms of finding funding, I remember when I was in undergrad here in grad, students say like, oh, you shouldn't have to pay for you know, like doctor, doctoral program. At the time I wasn't really paying attention so I'm like I didn't really know what they meant. I just knew that they were TAs and they were getting either paid or you know something for it. And so, like one of the other things that helped me know that it was just divine orchestration for me to be there is that when I was interviewing for the programs that I interviewed for, I was pretty transparent with them about letting them know that finances is going to be a big barrier to me pursuing it. And I remember even telling, like folks during my time at the interview at Mizzou, that if I don't get funding, like this is just not something I'd be able to pursue right now. And so my advisor at the time wasn't obviously like I was interviewing with different people, but my person who had accepted me as an advisor, dr Christopher Slayton. He reached out to me and was like hey, can you just like rework your personal statement to be more specific to this fellowship and then I'll submit it for you I was still in undergrad at the time I'll submit it for you and get back to you on the results of that. So reworked it, literally sent it to him like maybe within the same week, and then on my birthday that year so yeah, march 17, 2016, he reached out to me and was like you were awarded the fellowship.

Speaker 1: 21:59

It was the Gusty Reggio fellowship. It's supposed to acknowledge the first black graduate student that Mizzou had and I was given that fellowship that was gonna cover my funding for five years and give me what's it called like a stipend for nine months out of the calendar year. And that was really a highlight because it I mean I still have to do assistantship jobs, like during my time in the program, but I didn't have to worry about how my tuition was gonna be paid and I ended up graduating. I have loans from undergrad, but I ended up graduating from the PhD program with no loans and no stress in terms of like how I'm gonna make that up.

Speaker 2: 22:43

Yeah, that is a huge success. Yes, yeah, so how did that kind of motivate you, even through the challenges, as you start to think about some of the challenges, just knowing that your advisor advocated for you to get this funding, to get this additional funding, and then having like the weight lifted up of your shoulders about how you're gonna pay for the program.

Speaker 1: 23:05

Yeah.

Speaker 2: 23:06

Was that one of the things that helped kind of shoulder you on through some of the lower points?

Speaker 1: 23:11

Yeah, absolutely, because one like super tangible thing is that, because I had that funding like monthly and also being in Columbia, missouri, be it a very to me small town because I come from a big city, but to them I don't think we consider it a small town.

Speaker 1: 23:29

but being in a small town that is not very diverse, like pretty like one of the widest places that I've lived. It was important for me to have moments to be able to just like escape and go visit my family when I was really missing them. So, having that stipend and also living in a place that was like lower cost of living, I was able to manage like paying my rent and still be able to save money to leave during times when I really felt like, okay, I need to get away. So I was able to go home during the winter holidays. I sometimes would be able to leave and go visit, like my cousin who also lives in the Midwest during like the fall break, just having time to actually leave. And that was possible because I had some of that funding. Like I know people who were not able to leave as often as they wanted to because they didn't have that type of funding, and so that's something that I'm really grateful for.

Speaker 1: 24:26

And then also just like having the mental capacity to like handle everything else that was going on, from research to for counseling psychology. We have to do clinical work throughout the time of our program. Except for me, my first year, I didn't have to do that because I came straight out of undergrad so my first year was just classes and work. But it really takes a toll on students to be doing clinical work and giving therapy or doing assessments in hospital settings and then having to switch gears to go to class and then switch gears to go to work. So, knowing that I really didn't have to work an extra job like some people did, or I didn't have to really worry too much about that, I was able to spend that very limited mental capacity on those other things that were required.

Speaker 2: 25:20

Yeah, I'm glad you brought that up, because because I think that when we often for me, even myself, like when I think about the additional burdens and the additional labor that black women often take on in order to complete their doctoral degrees a lot of us work through the program and I've always thought about that as you're working and so because you need finances, because maybe you don't have funding, that takes away time from you to be able to do your work, and so maybe that means that you take a little bit longer.

Speaker 2: 25:54

But I've actually never made the connection between the extra work and the mental capacity. So I'm really I'm glad that you brought that up, because there is like a mental fitness that you need to persevere in a doctoral program and if you're navigating a lot of other different things, then you only have so much mental fitness, you only have so much mental energy. And if you're kind of like chopping at it, chopping it up into different pieces, so that you can have a little bit of mental energy for work and have a little bit of mental capacity for your life at home and like maybe you're taking care of an ailing parent or a dependent or something like that, so I've actually I've just always been thinking about it, working outside of a program as like a financial cost, and you've just helped me think about it as a mental cost too.

Speaker 1: 26:39

So, like. I'm being enlightened. I'm being enlightened. What's that?

Speaker 2: 26:43

that's a black pack. Yes, yeah, but I feel like we talk about it financially but not emotionally or mentally. But it is both an emotional and mental tax as well as a financial tax. Yeah, that was my boy. Okay, maybe other people will already knew that, but that was just new for me. But who's a parent?

Speaker 1: 27:01

there, I guess, is more so putting words to that.

Speaker 2: 27:05

Yes exactly. Yeah, did you have any black female mentors? I?

Speaker 1: 27:10

was like everybody talk about challenges, oh challenges.

Speaker 1: 27:14

Yeah, if you want to, I'll just highlight like a few, because I feel like it is something that I don't know if at the time of my interview a lot of students spoke about it, because when I was starting my program they had black women before me in the program. But at the time that I interviewed and for my first year or two there, I was the only black woman in the program. There were black men there who you know, were like brothers to me and helped to kind of, you know, take me along. But when I, yeah, first interviewed, like I felt the warmth of the program. The professors, the program director were very kind and all.

Speaker 1: 27:57

But I will say that just being in, I don't know, I feel like it's the doctoral experience to wear for black folks. We're sometimes taken to these towns that are outside of our comfort zone, outside of our communities that we're used to being around, you know, very ivory tower space, like it's just. That is something that I don't think I was as prepared for and so finding community and cultivating community during that time was really important and the isolation that I felt, and I know that other graduate students felt, was very different to what it was to be an undergrad. Like an undergrad, you go.

Speaker 1: 28:37

you're in this like utopia, away from you, know your you know, your family that you're born into or whoever is taken care of you, and you feel like you have this freedom to do whatever and enjoy life. And in grad school it's like, okay, you have these commitments and even though I had a fellowship, my assistantship is like they were working me for the money they're giving me you know.

Speaker 1: 28:58

So it's not like I had as much free time on my hand to do a bunch of things, but yeah, I had to be very intentional about how I was spending my time outside of the school, related stuff so that I could make sure that my mental health was still in check and that I still was able to, you know, like move along the program with some sort of sanity.

Speaker 1: 29:24

And then it wasn't my experience, but I know during our program there was so much restructuring that happened to where I had to step into like a student advocacy role and start to like speak up and demand certain things for myself and other students in the program, and that's something that is not accounted for in terms of like to pay or, I don't know, acknowledgement or anything like that, and it is something that's going to, you know, continue in different programs, because once you kind of leave the work that graduate students do, not much of it unless it gets written into like the university policy, not much of it is very sustainable.

Speaker 1: 30:05

So there was a lot of times where I feel like the work you were doing was kind of helpful in a way, but it almost is like it went to waste a little bit because the powers at the institution they weren't as intentional or they didn't care as much to kind of keep that stuff going. So finding community really was like the main way that could help me to stay sane and to continue to keep going and feel like, okay, what I'm experiencing is valid. But I can't let that hold me down, because I came here for a reason and y'all are not going to stop me from, you know, getting out of here with my degree.

Speaker 2: 30:44

Absolutely, absolutely. So when you finish your doctoral degree, can you talk to us about kind of how you were thinking about your post career plans and then kind of lead us into the thought process as you were wrapping up to what you're doing?

Speaker 1: 30:59

now, yeah.

Speaker 1: 31:00

So with counseling psychology typically, yeah, like the typical career trajectory is you graduate, you do an internship which is like a year of solely clinical work Some people might still be working for the dissertation during that time and then you go on to do postdoc, and postdoc would either be clinical or for some people they do transition into research postdocs, but that kind of becomes the standard Around.

Speaker 1: 31:29

Like my third year of the program I realized that I didn't want to do clinical work full time because of how emotionally taxing it was and I knew I wanted to do other stuff.

Speaker 1: 31:41

Like I just, yeah, there's a lot of things that I feel like I enjoy doing and want to be able to use my degree and expertise and like natural, you know, like God-given gifts, to contribute to the world. And so one of those things was I wanted to do consulting, which encompasses like organizational or leadership consulting, and so I took a class, an industrial organizational psychology class, which was required in our program. But it kind of perked my ears to like, oh, this is kind of interesting, I want to do more of this. And then I had a chance to be part of a project within the university system where we were sourcing vendors for executive coaches to come in and support faculty development at the provost and dean level and through that I was like, wow, there's really ways that I can use the skills that I'm learning as a counseling psychologist to impact folks in almost like a larger scale.

Speaker 1: 32:47

Because with counseling my thing was okay, I can support individuals.

Speaker 1: 32:51

At the time I was doing a lot of work with children and they have like practically zero autonomy over their lives, and so it was really sad for me to know with these kids at school, with these kids, you know, when they come into the hospital clinic setting, but they still go home to the environments that I'm doing research about and there's not much that can be done.

Speaker 1: 33:13

So I'm still working on like how to kind of have an impact in that way by trying to get my licensure so that I can still do some clinical work part-time.

Speaker 1: 33:23

But during that time I realized like I want to work with folks who have power to impact systems and impact more groups of people, and for me it looked like working with organizations and leaders who are able to impact like policy and stuff like that, because then that has more of a trickle down effect than working at the individual level, and so that's kind of how my interest started to bud for consulting and then I ended up connecting with one of the people who I had connected with originally from that program of executive coaching and I reached out to her just for, like, an informational interview.

Speaker 1: 34:07

And she happened to be like, oh, we have this program or we have there's this company that I do some contract work with and they have an opening, like I'm going to give you the information for their, the partners, and reach out to them. And you know, see, like go from there. And so I reached out to them, she connected me with them via email and I my first meeting with them apparently was like I guess, the first interview, so I did that and, yeah, that's where I'm working now.

Speaker 2: 34:40

Great, so you do consulting with this one company. Can you talk about how your degree and the research skills that you built through the degree and it like shows up in your day-to-day job.

Speaker 1: 34:53

Yeah, yeah, so the company is a leadership consultancy.

Speaker 1: 34:58

We do like a number of different things.

Speaker 1: 35:01

On my end the talent management side of things A big bulk of my work is assessing, helping organizations to assess and select talent for their organization, and then at some point we also help to develop them and help organizations forgot how they can retain some of that exceptional talent, and so what that looks like is they do the assessments and I'm one of the people who interprets that.

Speaker 1: 35:33

So in my training from Mizzou, I worked within a hospital clinic setting where I was doing assessments for parents who were bringing their kiddos and or caregivers who were bringing their kiddos and for assessments of autism, other neuro developmental assessments, adhd stuff like that. So the basis of the assessment work and doing like the interviews with the families that is something that I still carry over to now because it helps with my interpretation. It helps when I have the interviews with these C-suite leaders and just getting information out of them and trying to bring the assessment data to life. So I still use those same skills and actually I feel like, even though I didn't get my PhD in IO or industrial organizational psychology, the skill set that I have as from the counseling psychology side is one that has been really helpful for me with the perspective that I bring to the organization and the work that I do now.

Speaker 2: 36:41

Did you feel like? Was there a point where you said, no, I know I'm not gonna do clinical work, I'm not interested in teaching or additional research, I'm gonna like look for a non-academic, non-clinical role? Or do you feel like it kind of naturally happened in that you were connected in this way to this company? Or was there a moment where you were like absolutely not not going to even look? Did you look at any academic jobs? Did you like poke? Do you do any searches for any kind of clinical jobs? Kind of curious as to how you were thinking about your career trajectory.

Speaker 1: 37:16

Yeah, all throughout I was always open to all academic, clinical and then when consulting came in the mix around my second or third year, I was open to that. I feel like over time of like doing the student advocacy work that I was doing, my openness to remaining in academia started to decrease because of all of the politics that I was seeing in the space and I was like I just don't want to be a part of this you know game for real, like I want to do the research but I don't want to have to deal with all this extra stuff.

Speaker 1: 37:55

So, yeah, my interest in that started to decrease around, like you know, towards the end of my tenure and like as a doctoral student. And then the clinical piece of it. That's something that I'm still interested in and I actually, when I was applying for different places I applied to, so I ended up applying to the place that I'm at now and then I applied to three clinical postdocs and I was accepted into two of them. I actually had accepted one of them and thankfully, I was pretty honest with them in the interview that I also have an interest in consulting and long-term like want to do this and do clinical work on the side.

Speaker 1: 38:36

So I still, you know, left that in on my good term, but I did end up having to go back to them and let them know like my kind of like dream opportunity opened up and I really want to take this and I'm still, you know, gonna pursue getting my psychology licensure so that I can practice as a licensed psychologist. And you know I plan to reach back out to them at some point because they were it was like a joint group practice that they created two black women who I really admire the work that they do. So, yeah, over time, like the academic one decreased, I still do want to do research at some point, but just not within the academic setting. I know that there are organizations that do community-based research and I think I would feel more that's like that, aligned with my values yeah, totally makes sense.

Speaker 2: 39:34

So, since you currently work with developing leaders and executive talent, you know how do you ensure that your consulting work is culturally sustainable and contributes to global black liberation. Do you encounter any black leaders in your client work and, if not, how are you kind of making sure that you're inserting ideas of cultural competency and anti-racism into the work.

Speaker 1: 40:00

That is a really tough one because, by virtue of how like white and patriarchal the spaces are, I don't interact with a lot of black leaders, and part of that is, you know, as I'm also learning a lot more about the IEL space now that I'm in it and looking into the research, in that there are a lot of companies that have what they call like adverse impact.

Speaker 1: 40:26

There's not you know the number of black folks that interview versus what they have in the organization does not match up. And that's something that, in a way, really aligns with some of the research that I did during my doctoral program of you know, for more of a clinical standpoint of wanting to do work with relations like of ongoing, like healing, and culturally relevant and sustainable, like interventions for black folks that contribute to black liberation. But within this space, I think I'm still trying to actually figure out what that can look like. Some of the ways that that has come up so far is like with the assessment work that we do.

Speaker 1: 41:11

There's a lot of talk about how valid not necessarily how valid they are, but the impact that it has for black people when organizations are using assessments that maybe are not fully vetted in terms of how they, how much they've been tested on black folks and, yeah, I feel like I'm forgetting the words I'm trying to use like the impact it has on them.

Speaker 1: 41:39

But that's something that, yeah, has come up in conversation and for the work that I do and the person who's like my direct leader we have a lot of conversations about that, because there are times where I've even noticed with some of our international candidates. Like the assessments that we use, we thankfully have us as humans behind the scenes looking through the data and actually writing the reports and having the conversations with the companies, so it's not just like an AI generated thing that's going out to them, but I'm always having conversations with them about, like I think there there might be a cultural component here. This is what it is. So, on an individual level, like I do that, but I think me entering into this new field, I'm realizing that there is a larger issue that, yeah, it does need to be addressed, just in terms of, like, how it's having a systemic impact on folks who are black and could be very successful in the workplace, but maybe companies are not actually giving them a fair chance right, right.

Speaker 2: 42:45

Well, we're looking forward to continuing to follow along this work, this transformative work that you're doing with your counseling psychology background, developing leaders, developing talent. We hope that you get to do more of that in our community, since that something that is also important to you. So, as we start to wind down, would love to know what is one thing that you would do differently, if any, during your doctoral journey.

Speaker 1: 43:10

I I remember like seeing this question when Sarah and I first spoke and I was like I guess I don't know this is no regrets for you.

Speaker 2: 43:22

I love that. I mean, if it's not, I do feel like how my journey went.

Speaker 1: 43:27

Like it, yeah, I feel like I was led in a way that makes me feel like I was doing stuff, in a way that was like fulfilling and like authentic to who I am. I will say, though, that I, even though I was very much like on the student advocacy tip, I would say that I wish that I didn't feel as scared to speak up about certain things, which I did end up, for the most part, speaking up about, but there's such like a difference in hierarchy and the power system, or the power differential between faculty and students, but I mean, with some of the things that were going on, like within the graduate program and the larger university, I feel like it wasn't. It's not worth it to try to mince, like how we advocate for students, especially black students and other students who are at a disadvantage, for the sake of, you know, whatever could happen due to that fear. So I think that's the only thing that I would change is just like being more vocal about certain things right.

Speaker 2: 44:40

yeah, that's very similar to the advice that Dr Shelley and Gadjadar gave I just I talked to her yesterday, so it's like very much on my mind, but she said something similar that was like don't sacrifice your authenticity for likability, so like don't kind of hold yourself back from yeah being your true self and for advocating and for speaking up yeah just so that you can be liked, so that that really closely aligns with with what she said too.

Speaker 2: 45:07

So what is one final piece of advice that you have for current or prospective black women and non-binary?

Speaker 1: 45:15

doctors yeah, this one I would say like do it's hard because every program is kind of different and different demands. But coming from a program where you know I had to juggle a lot of different things and my weekly hours were super maxed out, I would say to not sacrifice your personal, like self-care, mental health time, social life.

Speaker 1: 45:39

Like find a way to continue to incorporate that in whatever you're doing, because it the degree is not worth your mental health or your happiness or you know anything else that is going on. Like obviously there's things that will miss. Like I experienced so much loss and so much celebration that I missed out on being around family, for, but I tried my best to make sure that I was still maintaining, like my life outside of academia, because that is more so what life is about. Like this degree is a part of who I am, and so I think it's important to continue to maintain those aspects of our identity and what makes us like happy and going, so that we can be able to get out of the program with, you know, some sort of semblance of sanity and health.

Speaker 2: 46:38

Yes, we can finish with just a little bit of sanity left yeah, and then we've done a good job. Well, thank you so much, doctor on one guy for joining us today on the co-orcist's podcast is an enjoyed pleasure speaking with you and learning more about how you've applied your research to your current work. I hope that other people learn and take some gems away from your journey and continue to follow on with you.

Speaker 1: 47:00

I really appreciate you creating this space. Like when I first found it. I'm like I don't even know how she got to figuring all this stuff out.

Speaker 2: 47:08

But we need it, so I really appreciate it, and you, dr Kohlin thank you again for listening to this week's episode of the cohort sisters podcast. If you are a black woman interested in joining the cohort sisters membership community or you're looking for more information on how to support or partner with cohort sisters, please visit our website at wwwcohortsistascom. You can also find us on all social media platforms at cohort sisters. Don't forget to subscribe to the cohort sisters podcast and leave us a quick review wherever you're listening. Thank you so much for joining us this week and we'll catch you in next week's episode.