- In December 2025, graduating STRIPE Lab member Audrey Ronan received the Borine Top Capstone Award for her paper on psychological safety in virtual teams in the workplace.
- In Fall 2025, Liz Szanton received two(!) research grants: the 2025 APAGS/Psi Chi Junior Scientist Fellowship and the American Psychological Foundation Springfield Research Fund Grant. The Springfield Grant, which provides $20,000 in funding for studies on current LGBTQIA+ topics, will fund her work on a project with her undergraduate advisor, Dr. Ryan Lei, which has aims to challenge harmful stereotypes and reduce misinformation that leads to bias and discrimination against LGBTQIA+ communities.
- In August 2025 at the American Psychological Association Convention in Denver, Dr. Ertl received the Fritz & Linn Kuder Early Career Award for Distinguished Scientific Contributions, which honors early-career contributions made to the science of counseling psychology.
- Tong Wu earned the highly competitive McFadden-Simboli Research Award through the College of Liberal Arts Undergraduate Research Opportunities Program for her upcoming project: an invited book chapter on the topic of "Cultural Beliefs about Mental Health in Bilingual Populations” co-written with Dr. Ertl and two colleagues.
- Tong Wu presented a research poster at the Minnesota Undergraduate Psychology Conference titled "How does spending as a form of social and affective coping influence psychological distress?"
- In April, McNair Scholar Kahleesia Chapman presented her collaborative research poster at the April 2025 Minnesota Undergraduate Psychology Conference, titled "Disentangling the Roles of Discrimination and Cultural Protective Factors in Mental Health Outcomes for Women of Color in the U.S." Kahleesia's first-authored project extended the work of Josh's earlier poster by testing for significant differences in outcomes across all mental health profiles.
- In April, Josh Archambault presented his first-authored poster at the 2025 Undergraduate Research Symposium at Coffman Memorial Union, titled "A Person-Centered Analysis of Ethnic Identity and Mental Health in Adult Women of Color in the U.S." He collaborated with another undergraduate student (Kahleesia Chapman) and a counseling psychology doctoral student on a three-part longitudinal project, and this poster demonstrated the first step of the analytic process.
- Members of the STRIPE Lab took on the windy city at the Midwestern Psychological Association 2025 Conference in Chicago, Illinois! Our lab presented three excellent posters at MPA, led by Tong Wu (first author on collaborative lab poster), Shilpa Thomas (capstone project), and Mariam Onafowokan (capstone project). A Brainwave article described our great trip to the MPA Conference and the support the undergraduate students received to attend.
- In February 2025, Kayleigh Fenton presented her poster titled "Pre-Menstrual Dysphoric Disorder, Attitudes and Emotions Related to Menstruation, and Mental and Sexual Health Outcomes in Cisgender U.S. Women" at the 19th Annual University of Minnesota Women’s Health Research Conference. Her poster was nominated as a finalist for a poster excellence award in the Student/Trainee Category.
- Mariam Onafowokan presented her senior capstone research project, focused on ethnic identity in relation to health behaviors among women, at the Psychology Undergraduate Research Day in December 2024.
- In August 2024 at the American Psychological Association Convention in Seattle, Dr. Ertl received the Dorothy Booz Award for Outstanding Achievement in Counseling Health Psychology, which recognizes exceptional research and practice in the field.
- Melanie Rodriguez-Mejia, Selena Xiao, and Meri Bosnic celebrate their upcoming graduation and pose for a photo in Elliott Hall in April 2024 after presenting their senior capstone projects at the Psychology Undergraduate Research Day.
- Four members of the STRIPE Lab presented their capstone and independent project research at the UMN Undergraduate Research Symposium in April 2024, including Sara Jeremiason, Melanie Rodriguez-Mejia, Audrey Ronan, and Selena Xiao. Great work!
- We are delighted to welcome Lizy Szanton, a stellar new incoming doctoral student who will join the Counseling Psychology PhD program in Fall 2024 to work with Dr. Ertl and the STRIPE Lab! Congratulations, Lizy!
- Members of the STRIPE Lab participated in the UMN Psychology Undergraduate Research Fair in late March 2024!
- In February 2024, Dr. Ertl presented to the Hennepin University Partnership community on "PrEP for Cisgender Women Who Use Substances: Meeting the Needs of Those at the Margins."
- Shilpa Thomas was recognized with an Undergraduate Research Scholarship, which provides a stipend for outstanding students to conduct research under the mentorship of a UMN faculty member. In Summer 2024, Shilpa’s project will be conducted with Dr. Ertl and will focus on racial and ethnic differences in disordered eating symptomatology among college students.
- In Spring 2024, Audrey Ronan received a Dean’s First-Year Research and Creative Scholars (DFRACS) Program Scholarship, which is an experience offered to exceptional CLA first-year and transfer students to provide them an opportunity to engage in a CLA professor's research or creative project. Audrey will be working on lab management tasks, data analysis and scientific writing, and supporting a new data collection project with Dr. Ertl focused on experiences of internalized gender oppression.
- In December 2023, our lab published a new paper in Archives of Sexual Behavior, titled "Do Traditional Gender Role Beliefs Promote Abstinence and Sexual Health Behaviors Among Latina College Students?"
- In October 2023, Dr. Ertl received the Early Career Award for Excellence in Counseling Health Psychology Research from the American Psychological Association Division 17 Health Psychology Section.
- Amelia Blankenau earned the competitive National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship Program (GRFP), which provides three years of support over a five-year fellowship period for the graduate education of individuals who have demonstrated their potential for significant research achievements in STEM or STEM education.
- Members of the STRIPE Lab are pictured in Fall 2023: from left to right, Dr. Melissa Ertl, Selena Xiao, Mariam Onafowokan, Meri Bosnic, Melanie Rodriguez-Mejia, and Sara Jeremiason.
