Tardis Lab was well represented at the 2019 Biennial Society for Research in Child Development (SRCD) meeting in Baltimore, Maryland.

To begin with, Dr. Meca was selected as a mentor for the Society for Research in Child Development (SRCD)‘s Frances Degen Horowitz Millennium Scholars Program. This program was developed as a vehicle to encourage and support scholars from under-represented ethnic/racial groups from North America in pursuing graduate work in developmental science. As a mentor, Dr. Meca had opportunity to provide guidance and support to two amazing doctoral students, Alysa Miller (https://psch.uic.edu/profiles/alysa-miller/) and Hye Jung Park (https://psychology.asu.edu/content/hye-jung-park)!

In addition, Rachel Davis, Richie Kubilus, Julie Rodil, and Dariel Taylor app resented their research focused on the links between identity processes and their relationship to psychosocial functioning, alcohol use, and academic performance, but they also proudly represented the ODU Department of Psychology, ODU College of Sciences, and Old Dominion University! Dr. Alan Meca is so proud of each and everyone of them! RAWR

Iayonna Brown, a transfer sophomore at Old Dominion University (ODU) and a first-year Research Assistant in the TARDIS Lab has just received the Michael Greenspan Study Abroad Award from the Department of Psychology at Old Dominion University.

The Michael Greenspan Study Abroad Award is funded by a direct donation from Dr. Michael Greenspan the founder of Greenspan Advisory and an alumni of ODU. Greenspan Advisory utilizes business psychology principles to improve businesses around the world. The award will provide Iayonna with $4,000 to be utilized towards study abroad experience in Spring 2019 at Keele University in Keele, England!

Dr. Meca and the TARDIS lab will miss Iayonna’s tremendous contribution to our research agenda but are excited for this opportunity. Hopefully she will have time to bring some TARDIS/Doctor Who souvenirs!

Dr. Alan Meca’s manuscript on personal and cultural identity development among recently immigrated Hispanic youth, published in Cultural Diversity and Ethnic Minority Psychology, is now publicly available (click here). The study sought to examine the directionality between personal (i.e., coherence and confusion) and cultural identity (i.e., ethnic and US) as well as their additive effects on psychosocial functioning in a sample of recently immigrated Hispanic adolescents. Although results indicated a bidirectional relationship between personal and cultural identity, personal identity predicted nearly every outcome! Given the direct effects of coherence and confusion on nearly every outcome, it may be beneficial for interventions to target personal identity.Building on these findings, TARDIS Research Lab is working on further exploring the relationship between personal and cultural identity development while refining current measures of cultural identity.

Dr. Meca led a conversation on the Hispanic/Latino Male experience as part of the 2018 Minority Male Symposium hosted at ODU. The event was focused on encouraging leadership, self-awareness, and career development among young Black and Brown males. In addition to discussing the experienced faced by Hispanic/Latino men, Dr. Meca was part of a panel focused on career development.

Dr. Meca was a speaker at the McKnight Annual Meeting hosted by the Florida Education Fund (FEF) in October 2017. Established in 1984, the FEF’s McKnight Doctoral Fellowship Program was designed to address the under-representation of African American and Hispanic faculty at colleges and universities in the state of Florida by increasing the pool of citizens qualified with Ph.D. degrees to teach at the college and university levels. As a by-product, it is expected that employment opportunities in industry will also be expanded.

Dr. Meca, a former McKnight Dissertation Fellow, was invited to give a discussion about the importance of post-doctoral positions as they relate to employment and served as a panelist on a Q&A panel for McKNight Fellows on the road to completing their doctoral degrees in psychology.

Welcome!

The Team on Acculturation, Risk, and the Development of Identity and Self (TARDIS) at Old Dominion University (ODU) is directed by Dr. Alan Meca. TARDIS is focused on understanding the role that identity developmental and cultural processes (i.e., acculturation, cultural stress, and cultural adaptation) on health risk behaviors (e.g., alcohol use, risk-sex taking behavior, etc.), psychosocial functioning (e.g., well-being, internalizing and externalizing symptoms, etc.), and educational achievement. Findings from TARDIS have implications for interventions, education, and public policy.

Interested in Joining?

If you are interested in the areas identity development, acculturation, cultural identity, emerging adulthood, and risk behavior, you may want to join TARDIS. Working for TARDIS will give you the opportunity to learn what research is all about and become involved in your community. As part of TARDIS, you will be involved in every step of research, from data collection to analysis. More central to your career, involvement in TARDIS will prepare you for your graduate school and research and academic careers.

Each year the TARDIS lab recruits a select number of undergraduate students to work on various research labs. If you are interested in joining TARDIS, visit the “Join Us” page on our website.