News

To view CLEAR's December 2020 Newsletter, please click here. To be added to our mailing list, email us at CLEAR@paloaltou.edu. To learn about more recent events and projects, see below:

CLEAR Public Lecture Series

In 2019 we held our second annual event in the CLEAR Public Lecture Series in LGBTQ Research. This exciting series provides a forum for disseminating valuable insights from empirical research to the PAU community, including students and alumni, as well as the broader Bay Area community, on topics relevant to LGBTQ psychology.

The most recent lecture was held on October 30, 2019 and featured Anneliese Singh, Ph.D., LPC, an award-winning social justice scholar and community organizer. Dr. Singh is also a Professor and Associate Dean of the Office of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion in the College of Education at the University of Georgia, and a program faculty in the counselor education and supervision doctoral program. Her research, practice, and advocacy explores the resilience and liberation experiences of trans people, people of color, survivors of trauma, South Asian immigrants, and social justice and empowerment training, and she has over 100 publications among these areas.

Dr. Singh’s presentation was titled “Racial Healing in Queer and Trans Communities: Challenging Privilege, Confronting Systemic Racism, and Engaging in Collective Healing.” Over 60 attendees learned ten core strategies of racial healing that queer and trans people can engage in to build toward collective liberation and racial justice. Participants had the opportunity to break into small groups to explore their own racial healing work as well as how they might begin and continue to challenge structural racism across various settings.

We are enormously grateful to Dr. Singh for this inspiring lecture and all the participants who engaged in this important work.

Dr. Anneliese Singh with CLEAR Director Dr. Kimberly Balsam, CLEAR core faculty member Dr. Liz McConnell, CLEAR Assistant Elizabeth Savarese, and CLEAR Goldblum-Carr Postdoctoral Fellow Dr. Em Matsuno

Dr. Anneliese Singh in discussion with

audience members as well as Palo Alto

University President Dr. Maureen O'Connor

and CLEAR Director Dr. Kimberly Balsam

LGBTQ+ Sampling Methodology Think Tank

On June 27, 2019 CLEAR in collaboration with Project RISE of the University of California, Santa Barbara, hosted the LGBTQ+ Sampling Methodology Think Tank. This exciting project brought together LGBTQ+ researchers from around the nation in order to discuss sampling methodology in the 21st century.

During this event, we discussed challenges, barriers, and innovative solutions to the challenges of recruiting diverse LGBTQ+ participants in our current social and technological environment. We also held a public discussion hour to disseminate this information and answer questions from other students and community members interested in this topic. If you are interested in listening to a recording of the discussion hour, please click here and you can find the presentation slides here.

Moving forward, we will continue to disseminate this information, collaborate on publications and conference presentations, and hold future Think Tank events in order to continue to advance the field of LGBTQ+ research and, ultimately, to better serve our community.

Thank you to everyone who made this event possible, including the community members who participated in our public discussion hour and Palo Alto University President, Maureen O' Connor, Ph.D., J.D., who hosted the Think Tank faculty and students for a reception after the event.

Think Tank Organizers

Kimberly Balsam, Ph.D., Palo Alto University
Tania Israel, Ph.D., University of California, Santa Barbara
Sam del Castillo, University of California, Santa Barbara
Elizabeth Savarese, Palo Alto University

Think Tank Faculty

Kimberly Balsam, Ph.D., Palo Alto University
Laurie Drabble, Ph.D., San Jose State University:
Paz Galupo, Ph.D., Towson University
Peter Goldblum, Ph.D., Palo Alto University
Josh Goodman, Ph.D., Bates College
Tania Israel, Ph.D., University of California, Santa Barbara
Robin Lewis, Ph.D., Old Dominion University
Ilan Meyer, Ph.D., Williams Institute for Sexual Orientation Law and Public Policy, UCLA School of Law
Jon Mohr, Ph.D., University of Maryland
Bonnie Moradi, Ph.D., University of Florida
David Pantalone, Ph.D., University of Massachusetts Boston
Seth Pardo, Ph.D., University of California, San Francisco
Steve Safren, Ph.D., University of Miami
Nathan Grant Smith, Ph.D., University of Houston
Russell Toomey, Ph.D., University of Arizona

Students

Sam del Castillo, University of California, Santa Barbara
Elizabeth Savarese, Palo Alto University
Nat Bricker, Palo Alto University
Kenneth Dowling, Palo Alto University
Kristina Esopo, University of California, Santa Barbara
Ariel Friedman, Palo Alto University
Kyle Jones, Palo Alto University
Vinisha Rana, Palo Alto University
Adrian Valadez, University of California, Santa Barbara
Angie Wootton, University of California, Berkeley

This event was made possible by funding from private donations. If you are interested in donating to support future events to advance LGBTQ+ research, please click here and follow these steps:

Select ‘Make a gift or pledge’
Complete ‘Personal Information’ and select ‘Continue’
Click on the drop down box in the middle of the page and select ‘CLEAR’
Select ‘Make a Gift’ to the right of the page and complete

Need help? Please contact Nat Bricker at CLEAR@paloaltou.edu or 650-427-9571.

Dr. Kimberly Balsam and Some Think Tank faculty and students

Dr. Tania Israel with PAU President, Dr. Maureen O' Connor.