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SELF-HELP MEETS DOT.COM
David Aboussafy, PhD, 31
Manager of content development and research,
Ucounsel Corp.
Annual salary: Very competitive |
David Aboussafy, PhD, admits that choosing to work at a start-up technology company over faculty jobs and hospital staff positions may not have been the most financially secure decision for a new psychologist. But the decision feels less like a risk and more like serendipity every day, he says.
Not only is the company expanding and making money, he's pioneering new territory--and loving it. "Emerging technology as an effective health education tool really intrigues me," says Aboussafy, manager of content development and research at Ucounsel Corp., a Vancouver, Canada-based company that offers online behavioral health self-help courses as part of benefits packages for businesses. "This is the direction that self-help manuals are going."
At Ucounsel, Aboussafy creates multisession, interactive online courses, or "self-help manuals come to life," on topics such as stress management, stopping smoking, panic, insomnia and asthma control. He oversees every step of the development, including the writing and editing, testing and research, and digital production.
"We take the written material and we storyboard it...looking at where we want to add video and animation," says Aboussafy. "It has been an incredible learning experience for me, almost like producing miniature movies."
Words like "streaming video" and "flash media," which meant nothing to Aboussafy a year and a half ago, are part of his daily lingo now. And he's picked up Web design skills through his daily collaboration with animators, graphic designers and technology experts. In fact, his career is 180 degrees from what he expected to be doing with a doctorate in clinical psychology from McGill University in Montreal and an interest in beha
vioral medicine and health psychology. But it was his health expertise that led him down the digital path.
While developing health education materials on smoking and stress management during his clinical postdoc at Vancouver General Hospital, he impressed psychologist Robert Wilson, PhD, president and chief executive officer of Wilson Banwell, a Vancouver-based psychological services and employee-assistance program provider, and founder of Ucounsel. Wilson asked Aboussafy to draft an online course for the then-fledgling company. Six months later he offered Aboussafy a full-time job that paid more than the academic positions and hospital staff positions he'd been interviewing for.
Not to say he signed on for the money. Instead, Aboussafy saw it as a great way to merge his psychology training with the excitement of the technology boom.
And while he foresees his future will involve technology, he hasn't cut his ties with research or practice. He's running a smoking-cessation program for the British Columbia Ministry of Health and conducting research on asthma self-management at Vancouver General Hospital.
"People just keep telling me to keep my options wide open," he says. "I follow everyone's advice."
--J. CHAMBERLIN
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PHILOSOPHER AT HEART
Sharon Bober, PhD, 34
Consulting psychologist to the Cancer Risk and Prevention Program at Beth Israel Deaconess Hospital
Annual salary: Competitive |
What is the meaning of life? That's not exactly the question Sharon Bober, PhD, spent her undergrad as a philosophy major pondering. But close.
"I was always interested in how meaning is made in ambiguous situations in life," she says. She translated her philosophical interest into "something more grounded in human experience" when she decided to study psychology in graduate school at Clark University.
Her dissertation examined autonomy and empowerment in the context of relationships. "I really wanted to explore those concepts in the context of illness," she says. The experience of cancer in her own family made her realize that cancer brings up fear, panic and anxiety that "affects the whole family."
"How do people make decisions that are meaningful and satisfying when they are scared or confused?" she wanted to know.
In her role as consulting psychologist to the Cancer Risk and Prevention Program at Beth Israel Deaconess in Boston, Bober helps find answers to these important questions surrounding illness. Her responsibilities include examining preliminary assessments for depression and anxiety when a patient first comes in, acting as psychology consultant for a multidisciplinary team--a medical oncologist, a surgical oncologist and a genetics counselor--and providing psychotherapy and consultation for women who may be dealing with cancer or the risk of cancer.
At the Cancer Risk and Prevention Program, women get a risk assessment and are given advice and feedback about the assessment. Some women may be in a situation to undergo genetic testing for cancer, allowing them to determine early on how likely it is that they will have the disease. She helps manage and cope with the results of genetic testing and, in some cases, offers counseling on whether to even undergo the testing.
"Everyone has his or her own decision-making and coping styles. Each person may make sense of the same information in very different ways," she says.
Her work has piqued her interest in how women with increased risk make complex decisions surrounding cancer prevention. She is now researching how women make decisions about taking the drug tamoxifen, currently used with women in clinical trials to prevent breast cancer.
"This is really the first step to learning the kinds of challenges that women face. The next step is developing interventions to help people," she notes.
Bober is one in a growing number of psychologists and behavioral scientists working in oncology. "Sometimes the physicians are not sure about what I do," she says. "In general, they are still learning how to incorporate behavioral science into their practices. But the ones I work with directly see a lot of value in what I have to offer."
Bober still wrestles with philosophical issues. Through her clinical work and research, she hopes to bridge theoretical problems with real-world situations.
--J. DAW
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A DIFFERENT KIND OF PRACTICE
Sharon Lundgren, PhD, 33
Founder of Lundgren Trial Consulting Inc.
Annual salary: More than competitive |
Sharon Lundgren, PhD, is something of a rarity. She's one of only about 400 professionals--about a third of them psychologists--who consults on court trials, including preparing witnesses for trial, holding mock trials to help attorneys prepare for court and teaching attorneys how to present themselves to jurors.
Learning the ropes of this profession is "deep-end immersion by fire," the independent trial consultant says. Her first employer flung her immediately into trial work, with guidance from a senior consultant who knew the tricks of the trade.
She uses all aspects of her training--social psychology, experimental psychology, statistics and the listening skills of counseling--to help lawyers win cases or opt out of losing ones, says Lundgren, who lives in Houston. For example, she uses paper-and-pencil assessment measures to ascertain the opinions of mock jurors in mock presentations of a case, then informs attorneys with that information.
Marketing savvy is also a requisite for the field, she says. "A lawyer's case is like a product," she says. "You can't change the facts of a case, but you can learn how to spin them."
Lundgren's maverick attitude probably played a role in her eventual choice of profession, she surmises. When she left undergraduate school at Southwestern University in 1989, she had no idea which psychology specialty to pursue. To her surprise, a summer job as a vacuum salesperson piqued her interest in marketing.
"I noticed there's something very subtle about persuasion," she says. "People know when you're desperate--they can see the sales pitch coming. When you relax, you can sell better."
Those observations led her to minor in marketing at Texas A&M University while working toward a social psychology doctorate there, which she earned in 1995. She took courses in consumer persuasion, and interned at an advertising agency. When a graduate school colleague told her about trial consultation, the career seemed a perfect fit.
Lundgren's first job was at the Houston office of Litigation Sciences International Inc., a Los Angeles-based firm that pioneered the field of trial consultation. When the company folded in 1996, she moved to a rival firm, Forensic Technologies Inc. There she acquired a wealth of experience, including handling a $600 million antitrust suit.
While on maternity leave for her first child in 1998, Lundgren decided to launch her own business so she could have more time for family.
Now, she seems to have the best of both worlds. In her first year, she earned two to three times the lucrative salary she made at Forensic Technologies. Her caseload varies: Last year, she had about 20 cases; in 1999, she handled about eight, including a $1 billion lawsuit that consumed most of her time.
Her biggest challenge, though, is juggling a profession and her family, says Lundgren, mother of 2-year-old Nathan and 2-month-old Noah.
"Sometimes I feel guilty, like I should be just a stay-at-home mom," she says. "The next day I land my biggest case ever and I'm on top of the world."
--T. DeANGELIS
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'FACING' THE FUTURE
Michael Moon, PhD, 33
Internet marketing analyst
Annual salary: $70,000 |
First impressions often make the greatest impact, a lesson Michael Moon, PhD, puts to use in his line of work--creating Web sites that are visually appealing and user friendly.
Yes, your favorite cyber portal has a "face," attests Moon, an Internet marketing analyst who says entering a Web site is "like seeing someone's face for the first time."
At his jobs at software companies Quaartz.com and Egghead.com, an Internet commerce company, Moon designed Web site "personalities" using both words and images. To target consumer taste, he dressed business portals to "well-designed, informative and useful" perfection.
Perhaps Moon so easily envisions winning Web sites because he was born an eager observer. "When I was a toddler and my family went out to eat at restaurants," he says, "I would just sit with my mouth stuffed, cheeks ballooning out like Dizzy Gillespie's... watching, observing and scrutinizing everyone."
True to his silent trumpeting of childhood, Moon became a violinist. But psychology was his foremost vocation.
Experiences such as mentoring younger musicians fed Moon's fascination with "questions of emotional, cognitive and social development." After obtaining his bachelor's degree in psychology from the University of California, Santa Cruz, Moon traded coasts for a doctorate in psychology from Columbia University. He also earned a Certificate in Organizational Development and Consultation from the William Alanson White Institute of Psychiatry, Psychoanalysis and Psychology.
Midway through his PhD track, Moon grew "disillusioned with the concept of academic freedom" that had initially propelled him toward academic research.
"The cons became clear," he says, citing "funding sources, research communities and departmental pressures" as involving more politics "than I cared to participate in."
The Internet was enticing new territory to Moon; Web sites offered an opportunity to "build something" to serve others. Newly armed with his PhD in 1998, Moon entered the cyber-world as an entry-level customer service representative for Onsale.com. When that company was acquired by Egghead.com the following year, Moon was promoted to analyst. At the end of 1999, Moon transferred to Quaartz.com as a marketing manager.
"In both cases, the roles had been created for me and my research abilities," he says. His marketing positions "came as a result of brainstorming with my eventual bosses," Moon says. "They didn't even realize that they had a need to fill!"
Though he enjoys his marketing career, knowing "I couldn't have done it any other way," there are times when Moon has felt like an island in a sea of MBAs.
"I've felt a bit like a squatter with a psychology background on marketing territory," Moon admits, surmising that he may "turn the tables and use my marketing background for a role that is related to psychology."
--E. O'CONNOR
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MARKETING MEDICATIONS
Anne Marie Apanovitch, PhD, 32
Senior analyst, Bayer Corp.
Salary range: $80,000-$115,000 |
Although she has a PhD in experimental psychology from Kent State University, Anne Marie Apanovitch, PhD, doesn't see herself as a psychologist, per se.
"I think of myself in terms of the skills that I've acquired, rather than by my degree," says the senior marketing analyst at Bayer Corp. "I'm a manager, critical thinker, communicator and statistician."
Apanovitch says her career path has "always been a quest to team-build
by applying my skills." Now at Bayer, "I work on various projects in different groups," she says, noting she most enjoys "the applied aspect" of marketing.
She is part of a special quantitative team performing strategic analysis for clients within Bayer. "We try to do an objective, cost-effective analysis of different marketing programs," Apanovitch explains. "I analyze the different marketing programs used to promote drugs,
see which are most effective and then make recommendations to the internal clients."
Moving from the classroom to the boardroom, Apanovitch didn't miss a beat; the skills of an outstanding research leader met the demands of Bayer's marketing team from the outset. "My background and skills were crucial to getting me to where I am today," she says.
Apanovitch's colleagues, most of whom hold MBAs, value the skills she garnered in academia. "Being a successful team member means utilizing the skills of everyone at the table. We each offer complementary skills," she says.
Apanovitch attended Saint Olaf College in her home state of Minnesota, earning a joint degree in Spanish and psychology. Inspired by a memorable professor, Chuck Huff, PhD, under whose tutelage she performed her first research for a study on capital punishment, Apanovitch directed her desires toward graduate school. After graduating from Kent State in 1996, she served as a project director of HIV/AIDS prevention research at Yale University for four years before moving to Bayer.
Apanovitch calls entering the pharmaceutical industry "a natural progression from what I was doing at Yale."
Integrating herself in "a very team-oriented environment" was "not a matter of rebelling against the academic tradition," she asserts. "I continue to grow as I would in academics. Both are viable options; I simply chose this way instead."
Market analysis was enticing because "being a good manager, communicator and working well with people are really valued," she says. "I'm also now out of the laboratory and in a very applied setting, which is exciting for me."
Preparation and a pinch of good fortune lead, she believes, to myriad career options. "Think about your long-term options and the skills that you'll need to be successful performing those jobs. Then work on building up those skills every day. The opportunities come for everyone, it's those that are prepared to take them that will be successful," she urges. "In that sense, I feel very lucky."
--E. O'CONNOR
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THE GRANT MAKER
Margaret Feerick, PhD, 33
Health science administrator, the Child Development and Behavior Branch at the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development
Salary range: $74,697-$97,108 |
When Margaret Feerick, PhD, graduated from Cornell University with a doctorate in developmental psychology, she wanted a job where she could apply her scientific background and use the writing and public relations skills she garnered as an undergraduate and as a fund-raiser.
It sounds like a tall order, but she's found the perfect marriage of her interests as a program director for the Child Development and Behavior Branch at the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD).
"My psychology training is essential to what I do," Feerick says. But she also relies on the writing and people skills she developed earlier in her career.
Feerick, who graduated in 1998, administers one of the largest grant portfolios at NICHD--Cognitive, Social and Affective Development, and Child Maltreatment and Violence. She oversees about 155 active grants and another 100 in various stages of submission and revision that cover a range of areas like cultural change in child-rearing beliefs and practices or the effects of improving children's mental health care and developmental outcomes.
Feerick reviews the scientific progress of grantees and works with grant applicants to help them develop their proposals. "I spend a lot of time walking them through the process and helping them decide on the relevance of their research for the institute," she says.
She then reviews all applications for her program area and makes funding recommendations to NICHD's national advisory council. Feerick also keeps an eye out for research gaps in her program area. Once a gap is identified, she collaborates with experts in the field to develop the specifics of the funding initiative, and then recommends how much money NICHD should allocate.
Her job description also includes writing program announcements and organizing conferences and workshops to inform principle investigators and other psychologists about the NICHD grant process. "A lot of times, people don't understand that they can submit applications at any time within our grant cycles," explains Feerick. "They don't need to be responding to a particular call for applications."
Her PR training comes in handy for responding to congressional and public requests for information on her program, requiring her to translate the science into lay terms. Feerick developed those communication skills at
her first job out of college as director of development and contributions for
a private junior high school in New York.
By the time she finished her doctorate at Cornell, Feerick had worked on several federally funded research studies and had developed and written numerous grants.
"I really thought it would be interesting to take my research grounding and apply it in some way," she remembers.
She's shepherded the program for two and a half years now, and both its applications and funding continue to grow by leaps and bounds. Last year alone, her active grant portfolio increased by about 50 percent.
--D. SMITH
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REACHING MILLIONS
Doug Kaufman, PhD, 32
Director of Internet product development, Blackboard Inc.
Annual salary: Very competitive |
Doug Kaufman, PhD, an enthusiastic psychologist with a penchant for teaching and education, seems perfectly suited for a faculty position at a major university. Not so. Kaufman discovered during graduate school that classrooms of 20, 50 or even 100 students just weren't going to be big enough for him.
"My voice wasn't reaching as far as I really wanted it to," says Kaufman. "I thought there might be a way to extend my reach beyond the confines of the classroom and have a greater impact on students and education as a whole."
At the education technology company Blackboard Inc., Kaufman found the global classroom he'd dreamed about--one with millions of students, dozens of subjects and endless possibilities. Kaufman is director of Internet product development at the Washington, D.C.based Blackboard, a company that creates software that enables schools--including every Ivy League university but one--to offer online courses and manage school services.
"We've developed solutions that provide institutions with all the features they need to build an online campus," says Kaufman. "Students can
register for courses online, upload their homework and pay their parking tickets through us."
Kaufman, the only psychologist among Blackboard's 450 employees, is responsible for Blackboard's latest project--researching, developing and expanding online resource centers geared toward faculty who teach Web-based courses and students who take the courses. He and his staff have developed 253 online centers--on topics ranging from psychology to finance--each offering full-text journal articles, online communities, news and Web links.
Kaufman was no stranger to online resource centers before working at Blackboard. While earning his PhD in social psychology at the Virginia Commonwealth University, he developed Web sites for courses he taught and created the site www.alleydog.com, an online resource center for psychology students across the country. Just when Kaufman thought the Web site might serve as the foundation for his own company, the site attracted the attention of Blackboard's founders, who persuaded Kaufman to join their company and build similar resource sites for Blackboard's wider audience.
Nowadays Kaufman can't imagine a more exhilarating job or better place to put his social psychology skills to work. His training has helped him to manage his staff at Blackboard, research content for the resource centers and develop ways to market the centers.
He's enjoying being at the head of the class in the online learning industry, playing an occasional game of foosball to spark his creative juices, and developing new services through partnerships with companies such as America Online and textbook giant Pearson Publishing.
"Just the other day I was thinking, 'Here I am meeting with one of the biggest textbook publishers in the world, and just a few months ago I was in a classroom using these books we're talking about!'" he marvels. "I am lucky to be at a company that is having a real impact on education and opening doors for me."
--J. CHAMBERLIN
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VARIETY IS HER SPICE
Alette Coble, PsyD, 29
Consultant, teacher, practitioner and coordinator
Annual salary: $48,000 |
Alette Coble, PsyD, works four jobs--not because she needs the money, but because she likes the variety and believes "practical experience is really important."
She has a private sports psychology practice, Athletic Performance Enhancement Counseling. She teaches classes for caregivers for people with disabilities. She's a consultant for Full Circle of Choices, an agency that serves adults who have developmental or emotional disabilities. And she's a clinical coordinator for Circle of CareSTRIVE, a day treatment program for adolescent girls who are on probation or who have difficulty in school.
Coble spends a good portion of her 60-hour workweek consulting with Full Circle of Choices and doing "attendant care training"--teaching caregivers how to communicate effectively with people who have disabilities.
"Many times disabled persons can't communicate easily," says Coble. "So attendants will assume what the disabled person wants rather than actually figuring it out."
"Not many psychologists do this type of attendant/client communication work within the disability community," she adds. "It's a really underserved population."
In her role as consultant to Full Circle of Choices she also works with care attendants and facilitators, conducting conflict resolution. "A person with a disability may have eight to 10 different people helping them in the course of a week. This can lead to a lot of frustration for the disabled people and even for the care attendants."
She compares attendant/client training to couples therapy. "I focus on communication skills and the dynamics of relationships. We're doing very personal stuff. There's a high level of trust and intimacy that must develop between an attendant and a person with a disability."
Coble's intense interest in helping people with disabilities stems from
her own personal experience: She is
permanently disabled with cerebral palsy. Bolstering her psychology training is her experience of living with the condition.
While in graduate school at John F. Kennedy University, she did her internship in a psychiatric emergency unit at a county hospital. "Because of my disability, I took many of the cases involving disabled clients who came to the unit," she says.
Her work didn't go unnoticed. About three months after she graduated, supervisors from her internship called to say that the director of Full Circle of Choices was looking for her. "She tracked me down because she liked the work I did with some of their clients," she says.
Coble rounds off her week spending Saturdays in her private sports psychology practice in Walnut Creek, Calif., and working during the week at the day treatment center for adolescent girls.
"One minute I'm working with an adolescent girl in trouble, the next I'm working with an athlete who wants to improve his or her performance. The approach is totally different," she says. "Sometimes I feel like Jekyll and Hyde."
--J. DAW
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SECURING THE SKIES
Bart Elias, PhD, 33
Human performance investigator
Evan Byrne, PhD, 37
Senior human performance investigator
Office of Aviation Safety at the National Transportation Safety Board
Annual salary: Starts around $50,000 |
Evan Byrne, PhD, is the kind of guy who looks up whenever an airplane passes overhead--even if it means he's constantly tripping over his own feet.
Now he's putting that interest to work in the Office of Aviation Safety at the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) in Washington, D.C. There he and colleague Bart Elias, PhD, investigate the human factors involved in aviation accidents. Byrne received his doctorate from the University of Maryland in 1993; Elias received his from Georgia Tech the following year.
When accidents involving pilots, air traffic controllers, airplane mechanics or cargo loaders occur, Byrne and Elias are "launched" to an accident site, maintenance shop or airport.
As human factors psychologists, they investigate the people involved in an accident, the task they were performing, the equipment they were using and the environment they were working in. Their data-collection efforts might entail gathering records, consulting with experts or interviewing survivors, supervisors, mechanics, next of kin or anyone else with potential insights.
Back at the office, the data analysis stage begins. "If you have a cockpit voice recorder, you know what actions took place," says Byrne, a senior human performance investigator who has been at the board for almost five years. "Other times you have to work out some possible scenarios."
Take John F. Kennedy Jr.'s fatal crash, one of Elias' first cases. Since the accident occurred before he joined the board in 1999, Elias analyzed data collected by field investigators. He examined weather reports and transcripts of interviews with Kennedy's flying instructors and then reviewed the psychological literature on spatial disorientation. The board concluded that the accident's probable cause was disorientation caused by haze and a
dark night.
"Anyone who's flown long enough has experienced disorientation," says Elias, a human performance investigator with a private pilot's license of his own. "It's important to bring your own personal experiences to bear."
As the number of passengers soars, the aviation field will need more human factors psychologists to help ensure safety in crowded skies. Opportunities for accident investigators include jobs in airline safety offices or management positions within the NTSB or the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA).
A background in aviation helps. Byrne spent three years conducting research on human/machine interfaces for the FAA and other federal agencies at a research lab. Elias put in six years conducting research on cockpit displays and related issues in an Air Force lab. Once at the NTSB, they underwent special in-house training for investigators.
"Flying doesn't always mean accidents," says Byrne, a flying club member who takes frequent sightseeing flights over Maryland. "It can be fun as well."
--R. CLAY
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THE ENTREPRENEUR
Elizabeth T. Miller, PhD, 32
Founder/Director of Research DatStat.com Inc.
Annual salary: Not taking one now; sees it as an investment in future earning capability. |
Over coffee one day in 1996, Elizabeth T. Miller, PhD, and a friend were discussing the latest study Miller was doing in her clinical psychology doctoral program at the University of Washington.
"I had minimal time and resources," remembers Miller.
Her friend suggested using the Web. And so began a chain of events that would influence Miller's future. Her partner, George Dittmeier--a software architect and engineer--"was willing to develop the technology," she says. The research project was the first ever in the social science field to use a Web-based survey.
Miller's Web survey sparked interest in the research community, and she and Dittmeier began consulting. Soon after, DatStat.com was born. "We decided to start a company when we realized there was such interest in using the Web to do research," Miller says.
DatStat.com provides integrated data collection and data management services via the Web. "Generally speaking, high-caliber researchers are expert researchers, not expert technologists. They shy away from technological solutions not easily integrated into their work," she notes.
DatStat.com's services include running and administering secure Web servers; developing Web-based data collection forms; providing a secure, customized online data management environment; trouble-shooting software and hardware obstacles; interacting with institutional review boards and offering staff and user support, all to enable researchers to save time and money while increasing data accuracy and accessibility.
"The Web isn't appropriate for all research," admits Miller, "but for multi-site studies or those with certain populations, there are numerous advantages to having easily accessible and centralized survey forms and data."
As the founder and director of research for DatStat.com, Miller's days are varied and always busy. "Sometimes I'm sitting in front of the computer working on contracts or the Web site or marketing materials. Other times I'm out talking to clients and potential clients." She's also taking business classes and is very involved with the Forum for Women Entrepreneurs in Seattle.
Her psychology background has helped her launch and run her business by equipping her with critical-thinking skills. "As psychologists, we learn to think outside the box," she says, "So many clients have said 'You helped us do better research than we've ever done because you ask the right questions ahead of time.'"
Currently, DatStat.com has three full-time employees, 12 consultants and four board advisers working on 12 contracts.
"We're really growing and changing all the time," she says.
As for her own professional growth, Miller says she'll continue to nourish her entrepreneurial spirit. "I hope I'll continue to bridge psychology and industry in other forms." She's flexible and innovative, she says, which is probably why she started her own business rather than choosing a more traditional psychology path. DatStat.com "taps into my strengths and challenges me," she says.
--J. DAW
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A PASTORAL LIFE
Bruce Yoder, PhD, 51
Associate pastor for development, Richmond Hill
Annual salary: Less than the average practitioner. |
On the highest hill in Richmond, Va.--with views so romantic that young men bring their girlfriends there to propose--is a historic monastery that once housed cloistered nuns. And just as fascinating as the grounds is the singular institution that now inhabits them, an institution known as Richmond Hill.
It started 13 years ago as an ecumenical community that provides hospitality, healing and racial reconciliation through prayer and worship services, individual and group retreats, counseling, discussions and studies in urban spirituality. Rev. Bruce Yoder, PhD, Richmond Hill's development officer, calls it a quiet place that "encourages people to work at levels of increasing depth in order to transform their own lives, their relationships and the city."
One part of the community is a group of residents who live by a modified Benedictine rule, gathering for prayer three times a day and offering hospitality to thousands of guests annually.
Yoder, who has been a Mennonite minister for many years, earned his MDiv from Yale in 1975 and his PhD in psychology in 1997 from Virginia Commonwealth University. Nine years ago he discovered Richmond Hill and began attending its Monday night service because "it was the best interracial gathering I knew," he says.
He became more involved through volunteer work and worship services while working on his psychology degree. He intended to teach in a seminary after earning his doctorate. But about the time he earned his PhD, Richmond Hill created a position for someone to coordinate its development efforts, including a $7 million capital campaign to renovate the ancient facilities. Yoder saw a chance to combine religion and psychology, and applied for and was given the job in 1999.
Yoder is a nonresident staff member and one of the few
salaried employees. He freely admits the pay is low for a professional. But he finds more compensation being part of a group committed "to being catalysts for what we believe God wants to happen" in changing individuals and social institutions.
No day is typical. He may:
• Start by going to a meeting at the YMCA on a program of dialogues Richmond Hill will host on metropolitan Richmond and race, jurisdiction and economics.
• Meet with an accountant on the capital campaign. Rewrite a solicitation letter to donors.
• Get a ladder and change the fluorescent bulb over the copier (strict division of labor is not one of the community's values).
• Attend a Chamber of Commerce dinner to be introduced to corporate contacts.
Yoder notes that for psychologists looking for innovative careers, there are not many places like Richmond Hill. For that matter, there may not be many psychologists in search of sacrificially low incomes. But he does believe there's "a wonderful match" between psychology and development work in general.
Good development officers know, he says, that the job is not just fund raising. It's about cultivating relationships.
--K. FOXHALL
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A CLARK KENT EXISTENCE
Teri L. Elliott, PhD, 37
Assistan professor, Disaster Mental Health Institute, The University of South Dakota
Annual salary: Less than the average practitioner. |
Though there were still skirmishes to be caught in, the Bosnian war was technically over when Teri L. Elliott, PhD, traveled there in 1996 to observe, listen and try to understand the impact the turmoil had had on the people.
In Mostar one day, she watched a group of children play. As she drew closer, she recognized the game they were so caught up in: cemetery. They were making little graves, putting little markers on them. Like so many traumatized children, they were acting it out again and again, Elliott explains, until they could see it in a way that made sense to them.
It is for that kind of insight Elliott would like to bring more psychologists into her field of disaster mental health--a career path she believes will burgeon in the next 10 years as more humanitarian aid agencies recognize that psychosocial interventions are as essential as other types of aid to enable people to function after a tragedy, be it a man-made conflict or a natural disaster.
Her own job is evidence of the field's increasing prominence. Almost three years ago, just as she was finishing her degree at Long Island University in Brooklyn, the Disaster Mental Health Institute at the University of South Dakota hired her as its first full-time faculty member. The position, with requirements for both teaching and ongoing service in trauma, was what she had trained for despite a persistent lack of evidence such jobs existed.
Now she, along with the institute's director and the three other faculty members, leads a Clark Kent life: On many days, as Elliott says, "We act pretty much like regular professors. We come in, we teach our classes, we do supervision, we do our research."
But with a phone call, they can be heading across country or around the world. Elliott screened and provided mental health services to victims of the 1999 North Carolina floods. And in 2000, at the request of the Gambian Red Cross, she flew to that country on two hours notice to do crisis intervention when a Red Cross volunteer and a number of high school students were shot in a civil uprising.
Other parts of her work are more planned. Under the institute's agreement with the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, she is helping the Gambian Red Cross develop programs to teach the nation's natural healers and others about psychological support. At other times she has gone into school systems to teach suicide prevention or disaster preparedness or to instruct school counselors on psychological support after traumas.
She is also conducting research on the truth and reconciliation process in South Africa; the Northern Ireland conflict; bullying and the strengths of children who don't bully; and why helpers enter the field of trauma.
It's not a job for everyone, says Elliott. And it's very hard for professionals, she says, because in working with various cultures, "You have to let go of what you know and then you have to grab it back."
But for Elliott, who gave up a more lucrative career in computers, "It's great, rewarding work."
--K. FOXHALL
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CLIMBING CAPITOL HILL
Natacha Blain, JD, PhD, 32
Counsel, Office of U.S. Senator Richard Durbin (D-Ill.)
Annual salary: Competitive |
A typical day for Natacha Blain, JD, PhD, often unfolds like the front-page article in the Washington Post or the lead story on CNN.
Each morning Blain, a counsel for U.S. Sen. Richard Durbin (DIll.), scans the news looking for clues on what her day will bring. With just a moment's notice, she could be attending to the concerns
of Durbin's constituents, talking with lobbyists and examining pending
legislation. The next minute, she might be preparing the senator for confirmation hearings on President Bush's cabinet nominees. Or the day may find her busily drafting legislation, a job responsibility that enables her to put her psychology training
to work.
"The senator has taken an active interest in mental health issues," she says "and I am happy to help bring some of these issues to his attention."
Recently Blain developed legislation granting presumptive eligibility benefits to mentally ill offenders. She's currently examining ways legislation might be able to reduce the high rates of police suicide.
Blain's route to Congress was nonstop. She caught the public policy bug in graduate school when she worked as an intern in APA's Public Policy Office. Soon after graduating from the law-psychology program
of Villanova School of Law and Allegheny University now known as MCP-Hahnemann University, in 2000 Blain started working for Durbin as an APA Congressional Fellow.
The excitement of work in Congress hooked Blain almost immediately, and she accepted an offer from the senator to serve on his staff permanently before her fellowship ended in August.
"I interviewed with many congressional offices and committees, and decided to join Durbin's
staff because they were so welcoming and really took the time to look at my background and determine how best to utilize both my law and psychology degrees."
And the initial shine hasn't worn off, says Blain. If anything, the excitement that first captivated her has only gained momentum.
For instance, one day near the end of the 106th Congress, she cancelled all her meetings, skipped lunch and ignored her ringing phone so she could pull together Durbin's talking points on the Republican Legal Immigration Family Equity Act. The bill was slated to come to the Senate floor that night and failed to include changes in immigration laws that Senate Democrats supported.
"We got together a comprehensive 15 minutes of talking points for him, which is pretty good, and then the issue didn't come to the floor," she says. "We had no idea what was going to happen. We just had to be very prepared."
Indeed, timing is everything on Capitol Hill, says Blain.
"When the moment is right to strike you have to take that moment," she says. "If you wait too long to get more information, someone else will have introduced the legislation."
--J. CHAMBERLIN
