Research on Intersectional Sexual and Gender Identity Experiences (RISE LAB)
Post-Doc
Current:
Kiet Huynh, Ph.D.
Pronouns: He/him
Dr. Kiet Huynh has his Ph.D. in counseling psychology from the University of Miami. His clinical postdoc was focused on LGBTQ mental health at Counseling and Psychological Services at the University of California, Berkeley. He also completed a three-year fellowship through the Minority Fellowship Program with the American Psychological Association. The fellowship was focused on racial/ethnic minority mental health and substance use. Kiet’s research to date has explored minority stressors within LGBTQ populations with an emphasis on LGBTQ BIPOC individuals. In particular, he has examined the impact of minority stressors on mental health, how to cope with minority stressors, and how to measure minority stressors. His dissertation, supported by the University of Miami’s John C. Mitchell Research Fellowship in Psychological Trauma, investigated the adaptive and maladaptive ways LGBTQ BIPOC individuals cope with intersectional heterosexism and racism, and the resulting impact on mental health. He enjoys utilizing a variety of quantitative methods including structural equation modeling, meta-analysis, multilevel modeling, and psychometric analysis to explore the impact of minority stressors and coping on LGBTQ health. Kiet is currently leading the LGBT POC Microaggressions Scale Revision project, a study aimed at revising and updating the original LGBT POC Microaggressions Scale (Balsam et al., 2011) to capture intersectional experiences of racism and heterosexism. Kiet also provides research consultation to PAU faculty and students on research with LGBTQ populations.
Past:
Em Matsuno, Ph.D.
Pronouns: They/Them
Dr. Matsuno is the inaugural CLEAR Goldblum-Carr Postdoctoral Fellow, working under the mentorship of Dr. Kimberly Balsam. They graduated in 2019 with a PhD in counseling psychology from the University of California, Santa Barbara and completed their pre-doctoral internship at UPenn’s counseling and psychological services. Em’s research goals are two-fold: 1) to understand the minority stressors and resilience factors that transgender and non-binary people (TNB) experience and 2) to develop and test interventions to reduce minority stressors and/or increase resilience factors for TNB people. For their dissertation, Em developed and pilot tested an online intervention to increase supportive behaviors among parents of transgender youth and received the Roy Scrivner grant from the American Psychological Foundation to conduct a larger efficacy study of the intervention. Em is excited about starting new research projects at PAU including developing a measure of minority stress and resilience among non-binary people. Em has supported trans communities through their contributions to the APAGS committee on sexual orientation and gender diversity, Division 44 committees for transgender people and gender diversity and children, youth, and families. They previously acted as chair of the Division 35 Sec IV graduate student committee and are currently co-chairing a special task group in Division 17 to create a pipeline for TNB people into counseling psychology. Based on their advocacy and research supporting trans populations, Em received the award for Outstanding Graduate Student from Division 17 in 2018 and the Distinguished Student Contribution Award from Division 44 in 2019.
Rylan Jay Testa, Ph.D.
Pronouns: He/him/his
Dr. Rylan Jay Testa is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Psychology and the Director of the Health Behavior and Disparities Lab at Rhodes College. He completed his Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology at Temple University in 2011 and is a licensed psychologist in the state of California. Dr. Testa's research focuses on understanding and preventing self-destructive health-related behaviors, such as suicide, eating disorders, sexual risk-taking, and substance abuse. Dr. Testa is particularly committed to addressing these issues in marginalized and underserved populations. Several of his publications have focused on delineating the relationship between gender minority stress and suicidality among transgender and gender non-conforming people. For his work in this area, he has received the American Psychological Association Division 44’s Transgender Research Award. Dr. Testa is also author of The Gender Quest Workbook, a resource for managing stress and bolstering resilience in gender diverse youth. Overall, his work is grounded in the understanding that psycho-social factors are crucial to improving health outcomes. He aims to develop interventions that address these factors through innovative means, including technology-based, primary-care based, and community-based interventions.