Veronica Wilson was acknowledged with the 2024 GSA Excellence in Teaching Award. The GSA Excellence in Teaching Award (ETA) recognizes graduate students who have shown excellence and gone above and beyond as teaching assistants or teaching associates at UC Santa Barbara.

Veronica Wilson is the recipient of the 2024 Dixon-Levy Graduate Student Association Service Award.  “This prestigious award will be given to outstanding members of the university community who have unselfishly devoted themselves to the improvement of graduate student life. Contributions to graduate life should extend beyond what is deemed appropriate to everyday work or civic service responsibilities.” https://gsa.ucsb.edu/awards/dixon-levy-gsa-service-award

Also, Veronica’s Mental Health First Aid team won the 2024 William J. Villa Service to Students Award this year, co-sponsored by Housing and Residential Services, and Student Affairs. This year she personally hosted a total of 4 trainings for the team and certified 88 students (undergrad and grad), staff and faculty on campus in Mental Heath First Aid. “The Villa Award is intended to recognize a department/unit that consistently strives for excellence in its support for students and displays approachability, flexibility, availability, openness to innovation, and teamwork.” https://www.sa.ucsb.edu/getman/VillaApplication.aspx 

In Academic Year 2022-2023, Dr. Jennifer Kam’s project, "Communication in Support of Separated Latina/o/x Families: From Research to Policy and Practical Implications" was awarded the UCSB Division of Social Science's Pahl Initiative for the Study of Critical Issues Research Grant. As part of that, two of the "Pahl Scholars" were selected to do a follow-up set of public-facing short videos. Jennifer was one of those two and the videos are now available for distribution. The videos can be viewed here:

Chapter 1: The Idea

Jade Salmon has been selected to receive the 2024 ICA Interpersonal Communication Division's Outstanding Thesis Award. Their MA thesis was entitled “Caught Within the Family System: An Examination of Emerging Adults’ Dilemmas in Navigating Sibling Depression." The committe chair was Tammy Afifi and members were Walid Afifi and Andy Merolla.

Chantel Haughton has been selected to receive the 2024 ICA Interpersonal Communication Division's Outstanding Dissertation Award. Her dissertation was entitled “Exploring the Process of Parent-Young Adult Child Mental Health Conversations: An Actor-Partner Interdependence Model Approach.” The committee chair was Tammy Afifi and members were Jennifer Kam and Andy Merolla.

Walid Afifi has been awarded the 2024 Boase Prize. Named in Honor of Paul Boase, former Director of the School of Interpersonal Communication (now the School of Communication Studies) at Ohio University, this award honors distinguished scholarship in the field of communication. The Boase Prize honors scholars who have made an outstanding contribution to the discipline through scholarship that has had a major influence on the direction of scholarship within the field. The award is given to a person whose scholarship demonstrates a commitment to the field in ways that honor the spirit of Paul Boase – his dedication to others, his dedication to making a difference, and his love of learning. The recipient of the Paul Boase Prize receives a $2,000 honorarium and gives a presentation in their department next Spring.

Allison Mazur has accepted an offer as a postdoctoral research fellow with the Kinsey Institute at Indiana University in Bloomington, IN. Allison will be working with Dr. Zoë Peterson, Director of the Kinsey Institute Sexual Assault Research Initiative, on sexual violence prevention research. 

In early April, Lindsay Miller participated in the Consortium of Social Science Association (COSSA) Advocacy Day in Washington, D.C., to advocate for the importance of social and behavioral science research. This two-day event involved training for advocates from across the country to engage with policymakers, and a day of meetings on Capitol Hill with congressional offices. In total, Lindsay met with five Senate and House offices representing California. In these meetings, she described the importance of federal support of social and behavioral science research and of using social science to inform federal policy. UCSB is one of COSSA’s member organizations, and all UCSB students are invited to attend future Advocacy Days. Please feel free to contact lindsaymiller@ucsb.edu if you are interested in learning more.