HBHE 800 Professional Portfolio

This should include a written statement of the student’s professional goals, an emerging research statement and teaching philosophy for those interested in an academic career. Students interested in non-academic careers should prepare a research statement and other relevant documents for their career path (e.g., policy brief, program overview, etc.). A 10 – 12 page paper that describes the significance of the contents (e.g., published articles, funded grants, references to toolkits developed) should accompany the portfolio. The research statement and teaching philosophy/other document should be incorporated into the portfolio. Should help you understand where you are developmentally as a professional. Narrative, Portfolio showing who you are as a professional. Gathering things literally that represent your professional developmental at this point. Include areas that are planned to get experience but not your

Table of Contents

Introduction

Professional Goals My unusual upbringing and educational career have inspired me to dedicate myself to improving the effectiveness of health care for underserved populations through research and research-based practice. I believe the health care system must respond to the ethical and social issues that arise in medicine by actively integrating interdisciplinary research, and I look forward to helping shape this response through teaching and publication. Some specific goals I have are:  To develop programs and tools to assist communities in improving the social climate for people with disabilities.  To develop a tool to facilitate intervention planning among families affected by developmental disability.  To increase visibility of LGBT populations in health care and public health training.  

Research Vision Through this research and program development, I hope to contribute to improving academic, health care, and personal transitions for young people with disabilities. Areas to expand on health disparities perspective Utilizing the non-profit organization I have founded, Engaging Autism, I anticipate combining my training in psychology and public health with the skills I will develop in medical school to work in the areas of patient advocacy, community outreach, research, and physician and community education. I plan to work throughout my life in the service of underprivileged communities in the US and abroad. I believe that effective clinical practice should be based in reliable, well-designed research, and as a physician I hope to continue spending a significant portion of my time conducting research. My long term career goals include working to integrate improved consideration of socio-cultural factors into successful clinical practice via research-based methodology, in particular developing a clinical research paradigm that facilitates the collection of research quality bio-medical and socio-cultural data by clinicians in a way that improves the clinical experience for patients, health care providers, and staff. I also hope to develop a model to facilitate improved advocacy for people with disabilities within the medical and educational systems.

Clinical Toolkit for Intervention Planning in Chronic Disease My goal is to conduct research that will impact health provider long-term intervention planning for people with disabilities and chronic illness, especially developmental disabilities. A key feature of this work in the long term will include an assessment tool for health providers to facilitate identification of personal, social and community factors that are relevant in patient- level intervention planning. This tool will assist health providers in understanding intervention decision making and facilitating intervention planning for young people with disabilities by facilitating identification of interventions that are the best fit for families, taking into consideration self efficacy regarding treatments and experience of stress related to disability. This will enable clinicians to more easily make effective, personalized intervention plans for individuals with disability and their families. I am specifically interested in exploring challenges to long term intervention planning for children, adolescents and young adults with disabilities or chronic illness. One step in the development of the intervention planning tool will be to identify factors that contribute significantly to intervention planning, such as social and clinical contacts, personal skills and resources impacting self-efficacy regarding intervention implementation, and experience of stress. This issue is significant because there has been little effort to quantify the factors influencing intervention selection among disability populations. Currently health care providers lack tools to assist with planning for the common social, behavioral, and academic/employment issues that affect successful management of chronic illness and disability. Assisting clinicians in proactively planning for social and personal issues that impact intervention implementation is crucial to the long term successful management of a disability. Barriers in these areas have negative effects on intervention decision making and treatment adherence. Depression and negative social outcomes are common in people with disabilities, and are associated with other negative outcomes.

Comparative effectiveness Changing physician behavior Allies for Ability: A Process for Visibility Building I am also interested in developing programs to address common barriers to success. The prevention of depression and other mental illnesses among people with disabilities, as well as the prevention of social isolation, are two such areas that I would like to do further work on. Allies for Ability, a program I am currently working on, addresses through education and community organizing, the need for visible allies to disability communities to improve the social climate for people with disabilities.

First Words Study Coordinator for two longitudinal studies that screen and follow prospectively infants and toddlers at high risk for language or developmental delay. Responsibilities included identifying and recruiting high-risk populations, supporting identified families through the diagnostic and longitudinal tracking process, and assisting them with the identification and utilization of community resources. I also devised an integrated file and electronic data tracking system, managed all daily tasks associated with study design, data collection and management, and trained and made regular reports to a staff of over 20 clinicians and students regarding various aspects of the study protocol. Additionally, I prepared numerous Internal Review Board applications, established reliability on the Autism Diagnostic Interview and the Autism Diagnostic Observation Schedule (ADOS), and worked on developing the ADOS-Toddler Module and an intervention group for toddlers with Autism Spectrum Disorders.

The Toddler Project: Development of the Autism Diagnostic Observation Schedule Toddler Revision

Attention Study: Quantifying Social Behavior Coded, cleaned, and analyzed data Cultural Perceptions of the Etiology of Childhood Disability and Relationship to Treatment in the United States and West Africa My interdisciplinary honors thesis examined how perceptions of the etiology of developmental delays and illness in children are related to the treatment of these conditions at the individual and community levels. In particular, I integrated comparisons of cultures with individual and relational models of personhood to stress the importance of considering socio-cultural variables when planning intervention programs. To complete some of the cross-cultural aspects of my research, I traveled to Benin, West Africa over the summer of 2002 through the graduate level West Africa Study Program at Wayne State University. As part of this program, I also completed monthly preparatory research and educational seminars for a year. I produced several presentations and papers related to this line of inquiry. Observing how families' economic status and education level affected their child's access to services led me to become interested in the socio-cultural factors that influence interactions between families and the health care system. While doing research in West Africa, l noted that many of the children with developmental delay I encountered had acquired cognitive impairment as a result of diseases that are readily preventable or treatable in the United States. This experience was a crucial factor in my decision to pursue medicine rather than clinical psychology. Witnessing the dramatic health disparity between the US and West Africa forced me to confront the ethical issues inherent in working with seriously underprivileged populations. There, the need for holistic health care that is responsive to the needs of the population is readily apparent. It was obvious to me that in order to maximize my contribution to this community, I needed medical skills. Through my experience at the University of Michigan Autism and Communication Disorders Center (UMACC), I came to appreciate that this was also true in the United States, as disability communities are often lacking physician advocates who understand their needs across the lifespan, in both biomedical and socio-cultural contexts.

Gender Related Projects WOMEN’S & GENDER STUDIES PROGRAM In my two years as an Administrative Coordinator for the Women’s and Gender Studies (WGS) Program, my responsibilities included managing requests for speakers, making student advisor referrals and conducting drop-in advising, maintaining electronic files, and organizing a WGS Program awareness campaign. I was also awarded a grant to carry out research on contemporary gender theories for the program. Through the Women’s Educational Center I also worked for several months during this time on the Issues in Women’s Citizenship: Local and Global Assessments Project, and my responsibilities included assisting with study design, obtaining Internal Review Board approval, locating and recruiting participants, performing interviews and library research, and assisting in design of data analysis. Publications & Presentations 1ST AUTHOR & CO-AUTHORED PRESENTATIONS My consistent and diverse research work at all stages of my academic career has formed the basis for my many presentations at academic conferences, every year since 2000. As a first author, I have made six presentations at professional meetings and five at student-oriented conferences. I have also co-authored nine presentations for professional meetings. These professional organizations include the International Society for Autism Research, Society for Research in Child Development, American Psychological Association, and the American Anthropological Association.

Teaching Philosophy As evidenced in my teaching evaluations, my long-term commitment to these positions is a reflection of my enthusiasm for the classroom, and my passion for teaching. My diverse experiences in health care combined with my extensive teaching and research background in the health and social sciences make me an ideal candidate for this position. As my curriculum vitae shows, I have had many opportunities to develop my teaching skills, as well as extensive applied and research experience in health care and public health. As a supplemental instructor for several classes, my responsibilities included attending lectures, developing lesson plans for two discussion sections per week, leading the sections, grading homework and exams, calculating final grades, facilitating and supervising lab sections, and holding office hours. I also worked with a professor in Anthropology to adapt the course Human Origins and Prehistory to more effectively teach an undergraduate student with high-functioning autism. My skill in integrating my research and clinical experiences with course material led to my selection as a guest lecturer in several classes. These experiences introduced me to the challenges of teaching undergraduate students complex interdisciplinary material, adapting my teaching style to accommodate students’ differing learning styles, and working with diverse groups of people. I also tutored undergraduate students learning English as a second language, was a social mentor to freshman undergraduates, worked with urban and LGBT populations, and have studied the intersections of race, class, and gender as they relate to health care and health behavior. As a tutor and an instructor, I have assisted students in developing papers in a wide variety of areas, from social theory to psychological research. In my teaching evaluations, students have often commented on my enthusiasm and ability to clarify difficult material. I feel that as an assistant instructor, my role is help students integrate and apply the material to their lives, and to articulate their observations.

Training I have pursued trainings throughout my teaching career to improve my teaching style.

Center for Research on Learning and Teaching Graduate Teacher Certificate

Multicultural Classroom Facilitation Training

Supplemental Instructor Training

Teaching Experience These experiences have taught me the importance of helping students apply their critical thinking skills so they may most effectively frame their own analysis of a topic, as well as understand the perspectives of others.

Standardized Patient Instruction Program Responsibilities include acting as a medical patient in order to evaluate and give verbal and written feedback on 3rd and 4th year pediatric residents’ clinical interaction skills in a breaking bad news case and on 3rd year medical students’ communication skills in a pediatric developmental delay case.

Health Sciences Scholars Program I have found the unique teaching and mentoring experience extremely rewarding. I enjoyed the opportunity to help students navigate the complicated experience of beginning their freshman school year and finding a place in HSSP, and the larger university. I was impressed by the commitment of the HSSP students to finding the path to a career they are passionate about, and their willingness to help other students achieve this goal. The structure of HSSP offers students the unique opportunity to interface closely with peers that have similar interests. As a GSI in this program, one objective I have is to assist students in effectively utilizing the professional and peer networking opportunities that HSSP presents. Another important goal when teaching is to empower students to discover their own path. I am excited about the opportunity to help them develop their passions, both as a group and individually. In my research, I have taken a multi-disciplinary approach to framing the issues that surround diagnosis, treatment, advocacy, and integration of people with Autism Spectrum Disorders. This multifaceted approach is especially applicable to HSSP because it highlights the importance of understanding the many factors that affect how people perceive and interact with the health care system at all levels, from patient to physician.

Sociology of Sexuality I view Sociology from a social advocacy perspective, and I encourage my students to identify issues they care about. One way I accomplish this goal when teaching is to incorporate current events, either from on campus or a broader community, to perk students’ interest and to help them develop critical thinking skills with respect to their social environment. For Soc 345: Sociology of Sexuality, I took on the responsibility of scheduling the LGBT speaker’s bureau and independent speakers.

Statistics and Probability I taught with Psychology 301: Basic Statistics and Probability for 11 semesters Ran labs

Research Methods Psychology 201: Methods of Research Design

Culture and Personality Anthropology 325: Culture and Personality TA Culture and Conceptions of Mental Illness: An Analysis of the Work of Arthur Kleinman. Presented to Ant/Soc 325: Culture and Personality, April 2003 Psychic Life, Personhood, and Culture in Freud’s Id, Ego, and Superego. Presented to Ant/Soc 325: Culture and Personality, February 2003

Social Theory Psychic Life, Personhood, and Culture in Freud’s Id, Ego, and Superego. Presented to Ant/Soc 325: Culture and Personality, February 2003, and Soc 303: Contemporary Social Theory, October 2002 Decentered or Divided: Applying Derrida’s Theories to the Social Dynamics of Mental Illness. Presented to Soc 303: Contemporary Social Theory, November 2001

English as a Second Language tutored English as a Second Language for 18 months worked in classroom Mentoring & Advising Through teaching and mentoring, I have had the opportunity to help numerous students identify and pursue opportunities they are truly passionate about, and I find this highly personal aspect of teaching very rewarding. Independent Study Supervision Johanna Jackson, Sociology and Anthropology Major, 2011

Sociology Undergraduate Research Program SURO provides a structure for Sociology undergraduate students to be involved in conducting research on an established project for academic credit.

Clinical Practice Philosophy

For the past nine years, I have worked doing in-home behavioral and play-based intervention with children who have an Autism Spectrum Disorder. Through this work, I have received over one thousand hours of training in the theory and application of numerous behavioral intervention approaches, and I have helped families learn these methods in order to better manage their child/ren’s condition.

Ability Building, LLC Over the past nine years, I have done in-home intervention with several children with autism. Responsibilities include development, maintenance, and application of one-on-one social and academic intervention programs, and development and maintenance of daily and weekly family-specific progress reports. In the context of this work, I received training concerning biological and intensive early intervention strategies for children with autism, including the Lovaas (Applied Behavior Analysis), Carbone (Verbal Behavior), Sundberg and Partington (Verbal Behavior), and Greenspan (Development-Interaction-Relation) models for intervention. Through a family I was working with, I was recruited by a local speech pathology clinic, Lepak and Associates, where I worked as a behavioral aide at their summer camp and preschool for children with autism and language delay for a year. Recently, to facilitate administrative aspects of my work with families, I have incorporated as a Limited Liability Corporation, Petrak & Associates Ability Building, LLC. Develop and apply evidence-based social and academic intervention programs for children with autism spectrum disorders and support to their families in educational system advocacy Chip Monk About the Chip Monk Series This educational book series centers around the challenges and accomplishments of Chip Monk, a socially-anxious young chipmunk. Chip's confidence and ability to interact socially with the other animals grows as he undertakes many adventures in the All Color Forest.

Clinical Training Over 3000 hours of clinical experience: 700 hours at Lepak and Associates with children with ASD, all developmental levels, under direct clinical supervision 2300 hours of in-home early intensive behavioral intervention with children with autism, detached supervision Verbal Behavior Based on Skinner’s principles of verbal behavior. Trained in multiple interpretations of these ideas (Sundberg & Partington 2---,

Applied Behavior Analysis Trained in Lovaas techniques

Clinical Assessment Instrument Training Reliability on: Autism Diagnostic Observation Schedule Autism Diagnostic Interview – Revised Worked on developing the ADI-T, used in research Autism Observation Scale for Infants (AOSI) Training and practice in the administration of:  Intelligence assessment measure: o Mullen Learning Scales o Bailey Infant Development Scales  Language Development Assessment tools: o Communication and Symbolic Behavior Scales (CSBS) o Karlsberger Healthcare Consulting I work with a team in the collection and analysis of qualitative and quantitative data, specifically concerning organizational structure and functioning, ways that environment is integral in shaping experience, and channels of communication as they relate to patient and provider satisfaction. I also participate in the development of health system specific reports identifying problem areas and proposing solutions to improve the delivery of efficient, effective health care for specific health care systems across North America. In a project with the University of San Francisco Pediatric Specialty Clinics, I assisted with direct data collection, independently critically analyzed qualitative data to devise a coding and summary strategy, and presented findings in a way that facilitates problem solving. My research activities also include conducting research on the best practices in various areas of health care, and producing reports and presentations summarizing these findings.

University and Community Service

MICHIGAN ROAD SCHOLARS TOUR The Michigan Road Scholars Tour is a week-long traveling seminar throughout Michigan designed to educate University of Michigan faculty about the state’s population, economy, environment, health care and educational systems to facilitate their understanding of the UM student population and opportunities for UM research in Michigan. Responsibilities include assisting in preparation of pre- and post- trip materials, daily organizational and management tasks, and participation in trip activities. RECIPIENT OF THE MAIZE & BLUE AWARD The Maize and Blue Award is the highest honor given to graduating students at the University of Michigan-Flint. Students who receive the award have shown distinguished scholarship and commitment to the university throughout their undergraduate career. Although only one nomination is required, I was nominated by the Chairs of the Psychology and Anthropology Departments, as well as by the Honors Program Director and two other faculty from these departments. CIVIC LEADERSHIP I have developed my leadership skills in many student and community organizations, including:

Students for Social Change, 2001-2004. Vice-President, Psi Chi, psychology honors society, University of Michigan-Flint Chapter, 2001- 2002. Social Mentor, Project Zero One Three to encourage an alcohol-free transition to college life, 2001-2002. Stream Collector, Flint River Watershed Coalition’s Flint River Stream Monitoring and Training, 2001-2002. Founder & Coordinator, Kids CCAN Garden program at the state-funded Consortium for Child Abuse and Neglect through the True Blue Service Scholar program at the University of Michigan – Flint, 2000. Community Organizing Coordinator, College Democrats, 2000. Outreach Facilitator to Michigan Chapter of the National Abortion and Reproductive Rights Action League (NARAL), College Democrats. Lectures & Educational Events Chair, Campus Programming Board, 1999-2000.

LGBTQ community At each stage of my education, I have held leadership positions in Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender (LGBT) organizations. Maintaining a connection to the LGBT community is important to me, and I anticipate continuing this volunteer work. Outbreak Guide to Inclusion of LGBTQ Material in Public Health Courses Some examples of my LGBT leadership service work include: Outbreak, University of Michigan School of Public Health LGBTQA student organization, 2008. Queer Studies Collective, University of Michigan Interdisciplinary student organization: Co-led grant preparation, 2007. Anthropology Student Organization: President, 2002-2004, Co-organized and obtained funding for a student trip to the National Gender Public Advocacy Coalition Training, 2003. Discussion Group Leader, LGBT Center, University of Michigan - Flint, 2002 – 2004. Interviewer, University of Michigan Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Visibility Study, 2000.