Center to Improve Veteran Involvement in Care (CIVIC)
Interviewing the CCSP Lab
Do you have any research experience prior to working with CIVIC?
Avery: I have some previous research experience from my time at Lewis & Clark college as an undergrad. I worked in the Behavioral, Health, and Social Psychology Lab and helped with a few survey-based studies looking at the use of a coin flip as an attention check. One of the professors who led the lab was a real stats nerd (in a good way) and discovered that humans can’t really fake the results of flipping a coin 50 times. Chance is lumpy!
I also conducted a survey-based study of my own through my social psychology capstone course. I attempted to operationalize RBF by having participants look at an assortment of female-presenting and male-presenting faces and asked them to attribute emotions to the face as well as rate the likability of the person in the pictures. I found that pictures with female-presenting faces with neutral expressions were more likely to be considered as appearing angry and less likable than the pictures with male-presenting faces.
Brandon: A little! I had a few months of experience working in the Behavioral Health and Social Psychology (BHS) lab at Lewis & Clark College before joining CIVIC as a PVARF Summer Fellow in 2019. I was mostly focused on an online anchoring bias survey involving health information and providing feedback on the early stages of OHSU’s War on Melanoma messaging campaign.
Colin: No, I started with the lab for the first time last summer.
What research are you working on currently?
Avery: Since I split my time between working with Drs. Denise Hynes, Jason Chen, and Sam Edwards, I’m working on a fairly long list of studies. Most of the studies I’m on right now are in some kind of regulatory or preparatory phase- such as JIT submissions, IRB amendments, new IRB submissions, hiring- or a dissemination phase. Here are a few highlights across the three teams I work with: we just received a revise and resubmit for a manuscript I led exploring lack of care engagement among Veterans at risk for suicide. This paper is based on some analyses Apoorva led from Jason’s SPRINT pilot. We also just submitted an IRB amendment for the parent study for this work so that we can conduct some chart reviews. I’m looking forward to seeing what we learn from those. For Denise’s team, we’re sending out surveys to Veterans so that we can learn about their experiences with care coordination. We’re also getting started on a scoping review on VHA care coordination research since the Choice Act was implemented. For Sam’s projects, I’m mostly focused on the IRB and JIT submissions for his upcoming IIR. While more of a QI/QA project than research, we have also been working on some exciting relational coordination work with the PVAMC hospital division leadership.
Brandon: Lately I’ve been working mostly on qualitative analyses of interviews with Veteran supporters (e.g., clinicians, community members, loved ones, friends) regarding the community engagement needs of Veterans discharging from inpatient psychiatric care, transcribing Veteran interviews about suicide loss experiences, administering on online survey about perceptions of Veteran identity and suicide-related social norms among Veterans and non-Veterans, and the IRB and JIT preparations for Jason’s recent HSR&D award focused on exploring suicide-related care quality among BIPOC Veterans.
Colin: Suicide prevention research in the form of Veteran suicide exposure.
What do you enjoy most about your current position/work?
Avery: As you can likely tell from my previous response, I am never bored! I love the variety in the work I do. While it may look chaotic to some, I love being able to jump between different tasks and projects throughout the day, and have learned to appreciate the ebb and flow of a research position. One month, we may be swarming with grant deadlines, paper resubmissions, and participant recruitment, then the next month just plugging away at some IRB documents, TMS trainings, and qualitative analyses. I love that I’m able to find energy from the busy times and calm during the slower times.
Brandon: I mostly enjoy being exposed to such a wide variety of tasks and topics, especially at such an early stage of my career. I think this position has really granted me deeper insights into my interests, professional strengths, working style, and that sort of thing.
Colin: I enjoy the community aspect of the team. Working with all members of the team on projects feels like less of a job and more of something that is necessary and beneficial for all members to work on together.
What is the most difficult part of your work?
Avery: The most difficult part of my work, for me, is that things often don’t go quite as planned. So much of our time is spent planning (e.g. for recruitment, analysis, timelines, grants), so it can be challenging when that plan doesn’t work out fully. For example, not reaching recruitment goals, tasks taking longer than anticipated, or a grant not being funded. Though this can certainly be frustrating, I know it comes with the territory and I’m grateful for everything I’m learning along the way.
Brandon: It can sometimes be rough feeling like we’re behind schedule more often than not, but such is research! I think it’s a common challenge in part because we all have a lot to do a good chunk of it is time-sensitive and/or time-consuming. Jason, Avery and I decide to have a day or week without assigning any new tasks every so often. It’s definitely helpful and a relief to carve out time for catching up on things when needed.
Colin: The most difficult part of the work for me is the fact that this line of work is quite difficult and learning to cope with the heavy topics that often come up during our suicide research can be a lot to handle all at once.
Outside of work, what are you passionate about?
Avery: I have a few hobbies that I’m passionate about. I love to play ultimate frisbee year-round, though the competitive season is in the summer. This past summer, my team won the title “best team in Oregon”! When I’m not playing or training for frisbee, I love to go backpacking in the summer and snowboarding in the winter with my partner, Azen.
Brandon: Three things, mainly: my (shared) cat, Smash Bros Ultimate (particularly Captain Falcon), and (lately) pushing the limits of what sorts of foods can be paired with goat cheese. And it seems I’ve accidentally started a modest collection of smart home devices (mostly air purifiers) that keep me pretty entertained.
Colin: Outside of work, I am very passionate about soccer. Much of my free time is spent playing, watching, and coaching the game.
What are your future goals or plans?
Avery: Professionally, I’ve always had a more general goal of having a job that’s fulfilling, that challenges me, where I feel valued, and one where I can maintain a good work-life balance. Since all of those attributes apply to my current job, I plan to keep learning as much as I can in my current role before venturing further into another. Whether that’s more on the administrative side (project manager, IRB analyst, HR) or science side (data analyst, PI, etc.)- I’m not sure. I’m grateful to cross paths with so many folks in CIVIC with these roles that I can learn from along the way. I’d also like to buy a house one day and go to nationals with my frisbee team.
Brandon: I used to be pretty set on getting a PhD in clinical psychology, but now I’m not so sure whether I have the appetite for more time in school. I’ve become more interested in data science, information design, and a few other odds and ends over the last few years. I don’t have any concrete plans at the moment other than to keep on trucking and explore those areas more as time and circumstances permit.
Colin: My future goal is to attend graduate school and work to become a licensed practitioner in the line of mental health work!
