Coloradan Conversations: Transforming Treatment for Mental Health
Coloradan Conversations launched its 2023 season with a highly relevant topic: Transforming Treatment for Mental Health, featuring a conversation centered on new ways to diagnose and treat mental illness using brain imaging, genetics, telemedicine and community-based intervention—particularly among college-aged students. This dialogue was inspired by the Coloradan alumni magazine’s Fall 2022 cover story, “Ƶ Researchers Rethink Mental Illness.”&Բ;
Read the post-event write up from ƵBT
[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d5HKQoEZWsA&ab_channel=UniversityofColoradoBoulderAlumni%26Students]
Exhibit Partners:
On-campus partners include: Coloradan alumni magazine, The Herd, College of Arts and Sciences, Alumni Career Services.
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Help make an impact and consider making a gift to the groups doing important work in mental health:
Ƶ the Speakers
[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tLGJLMP110Q&ab_channel=UniversityofColoradoBoulderAlumni%26Students]
June Gruber is a licensed clinical psychologist, associate professor of psychology and neuroscience at Ƶ Boulder and director of the Positive Emotion and Psychopathology Laboratory.
Her research includes positive emotion and reward-related disturbance in psychopathology with a focus on bipolar and mood-related difficulties, and she co-leads a call to action centered on the mental health crisis sparked by the COVID-19 pandemic.
Gruber has published over 100 articles and chapters and edited two books including the Oxford Handbook of Positive Emotion and Psychopathology and Positive Emotion: Integrating the Light Sides and Dark Sides with Judith Moskowitz. Her work has been recognized by the Association for Psychological Science’s Rising Star Award, the Janet Taylor Spence Award for Transformative Early Career Contributions, the Society for Research in Psychopathology's Early Career Award and two National Alliance for Research on Schizophrenia and Depression (NARSAD) Young Investigator Awards.
[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tvm9YVHtqgI&ab_channel=UniversityofColoradoBoulderAlumni%26Students]
Kourtney is a Ƶ Boulder psychology alumna with a minor in sociology, and a senior project manager and professional research assistant with the Mindful Campus Program and the Girls Like Us Program at the Renée Crown Wellness Institute.
She is a 2020 recipient of the Barry and Sue Baer Scholarship for Undergraduate Research and served as a victim advocate for Movement to End Sexual Assault (MESA) in Boulder County, as well as an intern and volunteer with the Gang Reduction Initiative in Denver.
Kelley advocates for social justice integrated with mindfulness-based practices and is passionate about mental and physical health; engaging within her community to research and inspire change; and creating inclusive mental health resources and support. She is driven to investigate proactive methodological approaches that support child development with lifelong impacts and plans to pursue a PhD in clinical psychology.
[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Hkn7HhmgL8&ab_channel=UniversityofColoradoBoulderAlumni%26Students]
Amelia is a PhD student in clinical psychology and neuroscience at Ƶ Boulder. She graduated from Tufts University with a BS in clinical psychology in 2018, and came to Ƶ Boulder to pursue her interests in the development and treatment of adolescent psychopathology.
She is particularly excited by the prospect of identifying predictors and mechanisms of successful treatment outcomes, with the goal of more informative evidence-based care for teenagers.
[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Hkn7HhmgL8&ab_channel=UniversityofColoradoBoulderAlumni%26Students]
Elisa Stern is a PhD student in clinical psychology and behavioral genetics at Ƶ Boulder. Stern’s research focuses on connecting neuroscience with behavioral genetics of mental health, including genetic and environmental influences on psychopathology onset and risk of comorbidity.
She graduated from Colby College in 2017 with a BS in psychology and concentration in neuroscience and worked as a postgraduate research associate for two years at Yale University School of Medicine.
She chose Ƶ Boulder to pursue her interests in adolescent substance use; intergenerational transmission of parental health traits; and genetic and environmental influences on psychopathology onset and comorbidity.
Learn More
focused on identifying and understanding mental health wellness priorities among Black girls
Engage More
created and led by June Gruber
Crown Institute Participatory Toolkit- The toolkit is a collection of activities and guidelines intended to support the collaborative design of research projects, practical resources, and curricular materials.
Research on Affective Disorders and Development (RADD Lab) led by Dr. Rosi Kaiser:
Wellness resources, practices and podcasts from the