Polls are open through October 30, 2026
Each year, the American Psychological Association of Graduate Students (APAGS) membership elects new officers to the APAGS Committee. These officers represent psychology students and advocate for the profession and discipline on a national level.
This year, four positions are up for election:
The election period opens on October 2, 2026, and closes on October 30, 2026.
Voting is a privilege and responsibility of being an APAGS member. It is one that will help decide where and how APA commits its resources.
All APAGS members—student affiliates at all levels who pay APAGS dues and who have provided APA with their email addresses—will be sent an email with a unique link that directs automatically to their election ballot.
If you do not receive an email by October 2, 2026, please check your email spam filters and junk folder to see if the email arrived there. If you still do not receive an email, please contact Elections.
You will be able to vote for one of three candidates for chair-elect and three out of four candidates for member-at-large positions.
Please read the position descriptions first, then the prepared candidate statements below.
Since 2023, I’ve represented graduate students on APA’s Advocacy Coordinating Committee (ACC), where I’ve learned that representation is more than having a seat at the table. It involves listening intentionally, building coalitions, and translating needs into action. As chair of ACC’s Goals and Needs Assessment Subcommittee, I analyze survey results to help shape and recommend advocacy priorities to the APA Board of Directors. As Florida delegate on Capitol Hill, I advocated for graduate psychology education and NIH research funding. These experiences sharpened my understanding of how advocacy priorities become policy action.
My leadership beyond APA follows the same principle. I co-authored rapid-response position statements on LGBTQ+ rights and social justice issues; created a statewide collaborative problem-solving group connecting psychologists, trainees, and educators around challenges; and now serve as an ABCT CHANGE leader, using my capacity for inclusive, systems-level leadership. As a queer, first-generation graduate student, I know what it feels like to navigate systems not built with people like me in mind. For me, representation is personal, a collective responsibility grounded in curiosity and humility.
As APAGS chair-elect, I would bring these experiences in service of graduate students. My goals are: (1) to expand actionable pathways for students from intersecting backgrounds into leadership, governance, and advocacy; (2) to champion equitable, high-quality, and financially sustainable training; and (3) to strengthen APAGS as a bridge connecting students with APA governance, state associations, and advocacy partners to advance meaningful change.
These goals align with APAGS priorities to reduce financial burden, develop graduate-student leaders, and expand equitable training, while advancing APA’s commitments to diversify the next generation, increase training funding, advance evidence-informed policy, protect human rights, and strengthen coordinated advocacy. I want APAGS to do more than represent graduate students; I want us to help students shape APA and empower them to define what psychology becomes next.
“Students who are furthest from institutional power should not have to fight the hardest to be heard.”
My leadership is grounded in changing that. I am committed to serving graduate students through leadership, advocacy, and action, and I hope to continue that commitment as APAGS chair-elect. My goal is to deepen my involvement in APA leadership, advance APAGS’s established priorities, and initiate advocacy efforts on behalf of graduate student groups whose experiences/needs remain underrecognized.
I bring a sustained record of service, including roles as co-chair of the ABCT Women’s Issues in Behavior Therapy SIG, APAGS member-at-large, and current president of the UT Southwestern BIPOC Collective. Across these roles, I have organized programming to increase member engagement; advanced diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives; and built lasting collaborations among students, faculty, and community partners.
My mission is to pursue APAGS’s broader goals and to ensure those goals reach students standing furthest from institutional power. Leadership through service means listening to those who are often overlooked, amplifying voices that have been historically quieted, and being willing to challenge systems that were not designed with every graduate student in mind. Advocacy requires more than acknowledging inequities; it requires the courage to address them.
As chair-elect, I would aim to:
I want to turn strategic language into structural change to ensure that equity is not a value we cite, but a condition we build. Students deserve leadership that recognizes the complexity of their lives, makes room for their voices, and acts when existing structures fall short. I am ready to bring that conviction, record of service, and commitment to bold advocacy to APAGS.
We are living in an unsettling era, one that increasingly and disproportionately harms those from marginalized groups. I am familiar with some obstacles, as I grew up poor. Still, my relative privilege drives me to fight for oppressed groups, primarily working to dismantle barriers for Latinx immigrants in my work at the University of Houston (UH). My chair-elect campaign is a continuation of the work I began as a current APAGS member-at-large: Protect vulnerable graduate students at risk of losing funding or their program position.
APA and APAGS strategies that align with my goals:
1. Address the financial burden of graduate training (APAGS Strategy, 2019):
2. Respect and promote human rights (APA Strategy, 2024):
3. Champion DEI (APA Strategy, 2024):
I hope you will support me as chair-elect to elevate these shared values of resistance and progress to both APA and federal officials.
Access and engagement for graduate students lie at the intersection of community, exposure, and resources. I am energized by the opportunity to serve in the APAGS member-at-large position because I believe graduate student advocacy is strongest when we bridge connections with one another and prioritize equitable avenues for collective action. My track record of service and leadership has taught me the value of listening across communities, while identifying shared needs that reflect this mission. I have built partnerships with organizations serving Black and Latinx youth and families, founded NAMI Brazos Valley’s Women of Color Outreach Workshop, developed a Digital Mental Health Coping Toolkit to expand access in underserved communities, and mentored students in navigating academic and professional resources. Throughout the development of these initiatives, I have learned to identify gaps, bring people together, and build programs that respond to what communities actually need.
As a member-at-large, I hope to bring a similar approach to APAGS’s 2026 priorities. I want to expand APAGS’s reach and impact by creating stronger undergraduate-to-graduate connections through exposure-based peer mentorship focused on graduate training, research, and professional development. I want to strengthen student engagement and affordability advocacy by creating authentic and genuine spaces where students can identify shared financial challenges and translate those experiences into structural solutions. I would also strengthen collaboration across APA by connecting APAGS with boards, committees, and leaders who can amplify graduate student needs.
I want to help APAGS on the mission of reaching students where they are, especially those who may not yet see themselves reflected in the organization. As a member-at-large, it would be my priority to bring our perspectives forward to help make graduate student advocacy feel more accessible and connected to the students it represents.
I am interested in serving as an APAGS member-at-large to draw greater attention to emerging issues affecting psychology graduate students that are often overlooked. I would focus on international student concerns and the ethical use of generative AI in psychology.
Recent years have shown how rapidly changing policies and sociopolitical climates can make international students particularly vulnerable. At a time of growing uncertainty, I believe student advocacy should stand in greater solidarity with international students and more fully incorporate their concerns. As the inaugural co-chair of the International Committee of APA Division 17’s Student Affiliates of Seventeen, I launched an International Student Needs Assessment to identify students’ concerns and priorities. More recently, I organized a webinar with immigration attorneys to raise awareness of recent immigration policy changes and discuss their implications.
I also believe graduate students need a more constructive approach to generative AI. AI is increasingly used in research, education, and clinical practice, but students have limited guidance for making ethical decisions about its use. Discussions of students’ AI use have often focused on policing misconduct, with ambiguous standards and binary approaches that offer students little practical guidance. My research has examined ethical issues and user experiences associated with AI, including in an article in American Psychologist.
As a member-at-large, I would aim to:
I am applying for APAGS’s member-at-large position because of my sincere passion and interest in representing the interdisciplinary field of psychology at the graduate student level. As a healer-in-training and a social justice advocate who works from a framework of Black feminist episteme, I come to the APAGS executive board with an interest not just in representation politics on APA boards and committees as a liaison, but additionally to center the lived experiences, contributions, and presence of diverse scholars and practitioners.
My prior and current positions on committees and boards across spaces of social science prepare me well for this position. Within APA, as current secretary for Division 17’s Student Affiliates of Seventeen, I am tasked to manage internal and external communications for the 22-member student board to support counseling psychology’s continued agenda towards multiculturalism. Within my university, I served as a graduate student committee member for the Office of Black Student Development search, tasking me to shape a student-centered search process with campus stakeholders to find a director who will meet the holistic needs of Black students at UC Santa Barbara (UCSB). As current administrative coordinator for the Student Commission on Racial Equity, I provide logistical support and facilitate agenda setting to tackle pressing diversity issues at UCSB and in the local Santa Barbara community. As shown through my previous and current administrative positions, I am passionate about being an integral part of organizations that concern themselves with the community care of students navigating complex social systems.
My specific goals as a member-at-large are to understand the concerns of APAGS members and board members alike, whilst ensuring our presence is situated at the most critical psychological actions today, particularly within funding for students and their research agendas, and increased focus on applied psychological work in health justice.
I am applying for APAGS member-at-large because I want graduate students to have a stronger voice in how psychology serves the public. As a queer Puerto Rican PsyD student in the Latinx Mental Health Emphasis at Mount Saint Mary’s University, Los Angeles, as well as a clinician, instructor, researcher, and parent, I have learned how to turn student and community needs into practical programming, advocacy, and organizational change that can lead to better access and support for all students.
Within APA Division 12 Society of Clinical Psychology, I serve on the Membership Committee and Strategic Planning Steering Committee. I helped restart the nationwide campus representative program, supported recruitment and retention efforts, and brought student perspectives into long-range planning. I am also helping develop bilingual continuing education programming, calling for a more visible place for advocacy and activism in clinical psychology, and working to elevate how health service psychologists are understood. In particular, I have emphasized the power of assessment to advocate for clients, improve access to services and accommodations, and support systems change.
As a member-at-large, I would focus on three areas. First, I would strengthen two-way communication through campus representatives, listening sessions, and clear updates that make APAGS opportunities and governance easier to understand. Second, I would support accessible, bilingual, and low-cost professional development, along with cross-division partnerships that create more leadership opportunities for students who have been underrepresented in APA. Third, I would help develop an advocacy and public-communication toolkit showing how graduate students can use research, practice, and assessment to inform policy, improve institutions, and communicate psychology’s value.
I want APAGS to be a place where graduate students feel heard, supported, and connected to real opportunities for change. I would bring a collaborative approach, a willingness to speak up, and a commitment to turning student concerns into practical action across APA.
