Graduate student Spotlight Award winner – Summer 2014

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Congratulations to Elizabeth Nicholls.

 

By Katherine Donlon, MS

Elizabeth Nicholls is a fourth-year PhD student at Drexel University under the mentorship of Brian P. Daly, PhD. Her research largely focuses on chronic health conditions in under-researched minority groups, and she is an author on 15 peer-reviewed publications. 

 

Nicholls has developed two promising lines of research. The first, under the mentorship of Daly and Juan Carlos Arango-Lasprilla, PhD, involves psychological well-being in Colombian children with spina bifida. Her second research area, guided by Meghan L. Marsac, PhD, at the Center for Injury Research & Prevention at The Children’s Hospital of Pennsylvania (CHOP), investigates relationships between parent problem-solving skills and parent/child posttraumatic stress after pediatric injury. Elizabeth has completed intervention and assessment-based clinical practica at CHOP’s Family Stress and Illness and NeuroOncology programs (supervisors: Paul Robins, PhD; Canice Crerand, PhD; and Carol L. Armstrong, PhD). Currently, she works in the Psychological Consultation and Therapy clinic at A.I. duPont Hospital for Children, where she is supervised by Erica Sood, PhD. 

 

Nicholls was recently engaged to be married. In 2014, she plans to serve on the Div. 54 Student Advisory Board and apply for internship. After graduation, she hopes to continue research and clinical work related to pediatric chronic illness and disability.