Social and Behavioral Sciences Outstanding Graduates

SAN BERNARDINO >> The psychology department was well represented when Ashely M. Araiza, Outstanding Graduate Student, and Jason B. Alipio, Outstanding Undergraduate Student, were honored during Cal State San Bernardino’s College of Social and Behavioral Sciences’ 2016 Commencement. The college’s ceremony, capped the university’s 50th anniversary celebration, which was held at the Citizens Business Bank Arena in Ontario. An estimated 865 students participated in the college’s graduation exercises. Araiza, who graduated with a master’s degree in general experimental psychology, has received numerous honors, awards and grants, including awards for Psychology Outstanding Graduate and Undergraduate Service, the NIH Graduate Fellowship for Research Initiative for Scientific Enhancement, and the California State University Future Scholars Scholarship. As a graduate student, Araiza served as a teaching assistant for research methods and statistics courses, an independent research methods lab instructor, and a research lab manager supervising 15 undergraduate students. Araiza served on the editorial staff of the Psychology Student Research Journal and has been involved in various service and leadership activities, including chair of a paper talk session at the Western Psychological Association, as well as president and vice president of the Psychology Club. Her research interests are health psychology, motivation, self-regulation, weight stigma, eating behavior and quantitative methods, and her master’s thesis focused on “Weight Stigma and Eating Behavior: The Role of Inhibitory Control in the Relationship between Weight Stigma and Food Selection.” She has presented five posters at national conferences, such as the Society for Personality and Social Psychology, as well as the Society for Behavioral Medicine. She also has presented numerous posters at regional conferences. Araiza will be attending the State University of New York Stony Brook, where she has been accepted into the social and health psychology doctoral program, and has already won a competitive research fellowship. Alipio, a veteran of the U.S. Marine Corps, graduated with a degree in biological psychology. As a student with a military background, he was intrigued by the adverse mental health outcomes following the stressful environment of combat, and as a college student, sought to learn, and eventually contribute to, the improvement of treatment options for individuals who suffer from these disorders. He received various competitive research and travel grants to present his findings at state, national and international scientific conferences, such as the Annual Biomedical Research Conference for Minority Students, NIH Initiative for Maximizing Student Development and NIH Research Initiative for Research Enhancement. In the spring of 2015, he presented his research to Congress at the Posters on the Hill Conference in Washington, D.C., a highly competitive national event. He also won first place at the CSUSB Research Competition and the system-wide California State University Research Competition. Alipio has made 21 poster presentations at professional conferences, including the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology, the Western Psychological Association, the Society for Neuroscience and the International Behavioral Neuroscience Society. In addition, he has served as a teaching assistant for the experimental psychology course and has been an editor for the OSR Journal of Student Research and the Psychology Student Research Journal. His academic achievement allowed him to enroll from a bachelor of arts program directly to a doctoral program – an impressive accomplishment. Alipio was accepted into five doctoral programs and will enroll in the neuroscience doctoral program in the fall at the University of Maryland-Baltimore School of Medicine.