Emeriti Fellowships awarded
at the Fall 2009 Emeriti Luncheon
Recipients of Emeriti Fellowships are Deborah Laurin (Psychology) and Aiken Lenh (Mathematics). The recipient of the Jane Matson Memorial Fellowship award is Kezia Gopaul-Knights (Counseling), Pedro Quijada (History) is the recipient of the William E. Lloyd Fellowship and Jeffrey Bryant (Political Science) is the recipient of the John L. Houk Fellowship. Aditya Mohanty (Biology undergraduate) is the recipient of the first undergraduate emeriti fellowship, established in the memory of David Cameron Fisher, son of Janet Fisher-Hoult.
Deborah Laurin is a Psychology major. Since she started her studies at CSULA, she has been a graduate assistant in Psychology and a research assistant at the Center for the Study of Traumatic Stress Lab where she has worked extensively with refugees. Deborah's research interests also include international health and she will be pursuing a Masters in Public Health in conjunction with a Ph.D. in Clinical and Health Psychology. She has been an NSF sponsored research scholar at UCLA and received stipends at CSULA for research and travel. As an award winning artist, she brings another helpful skill to her work in the area of refugee mental health.
Aiken Lenh's goal is to become a mathematics teacher in high school and/or college. Immigrating from Vietnam with his family in 1999, he initially focused on learning English to pursue studies in Business and Economics for which he received a B.A. at UC Riverside in 2006. While at UCR, in order to make ends meet, he took a job as a teacher's assistant in Math at a middle school and realized that he loved teaching. When he first came to CSULA to study Mathematics, he found himself having to focus on the prerequisites in order to become an official graduate student. During that time he tutored math in the TRIO program at LACC and, finally official at CSULA, he was hired to teach Math 89 as a teaching associate. He is now a student in the teaching credential program and looking forward to completing his credential along with his Master's.
Kezia Gopaul-Knights is the recipient of the Jane Matson Memorial Fellowship in Counseling. She is currently pursuing her M.S. in School Psychology with certification in Applied Behavior Analysis. Her goal is to become a school psychologist who can work creatively in dealing with students who present challenging behaviors; in particular those with autism. Kezia is a graduate of the University of the West Indies in Trinidad and, as a member of the Student Psychological Association, was involved in the "adoption" of an elementary school class for which the college students acted as mentors. Her membership in the Peer Counselors Association lead to her involvement with a pre-release prison program. From these experiences, she realized that early intervention with children can have profound effects on them.
The recipient of the William E. Lloyd Memorial Fellowship, Pedro Quijada is a graduate of CSULA. In his first year as a graduate student in the History Department, he was awarded the Eugene Fingerhut Award for outstanding graduate students. His main interests are colonial and modern Latin America and he is planning to continue his studies for a Ph.D and teach at the university level. As a student of History, he is interested in conducting historical research. His thesis project will focus on the environmental degradation that has resulted from the manufacturing industry in Tijuana since 1965 and is entitled "The Rise of Industrialization and the Downfall of the Environment: A study of the Demise of the Alamar River and the Colonia Chilpancingo, Tijuana."
Jeffrey Bryant is pursuing an M.A. in Political Science with the goal of teaching political science or history in a community college. A musician, director and producer of videos and performance art and documentary films, Jeffrey has also been a volunteer instructor with the Literacy Network of LA. Currently, he holds a position with Fox TV, but his volunteer teaching rekindled his interest in teaching in community colleges. He completed his BS in International Relations at UCLA and designed a strategy of study that aimed for a historical understanding of the uniquely American political experiment. He is completing an MA program at Mt. St. Mary 's College for which his thesis is focused on an examination of the virtue of courage in relation to modern liberal democracy.