Pictured from left: Igor Grant, M.D.; Robert Heaton, Ph.D. and Alan Litrownik, Ph.D., have been a part of the JDP since its early days.
“I interviewed at several other clinical psychology programs but chose the JDP because of the collaborative environment between SDSU and UC San Diego,” said Jessica Montoya, Ph.D. ’17, assistant professor in the Department of Psychiatry at the School of Medicine. “Each student is paired with a mentor who has their own program or research. This match is key, having someone to mentor your research but also on a personal level helps to provide stellar training.”
The JDP combines a traditional research-oriented academic Department of Psychology at SDSU with a research-oriented medical school-based Department of Psychiatry at UC San Diego. The program starts with a two-year core curriculum of formal instruction and introduction to clinical practice at an in-house training clinic, followed by hands-on advanced clinical experience, including an American Psychological Association-accredited internship, and specific instruction in their chosen track: behavioral medicine, experimental psychopathology or neuropsychology. Students typically graduate from the program within five or six years.
“The founders of the program saw the importance of specialization,” said Vanessa Malcarne, Ph.D., professor in the Department of Psychology at SDSU and co-director of the program. “Today, many programs have specialized tracks, but back when the program was founded 40 years ago, that was unique. It has served our students very well in preparing them for the careers that they’re going to have after they finish the program.”
Lauren Brookman-Frazee, Ph.D., professor in the UC San Diego Department of Psychiatry and co-director of the JDP, added that students also benefit from the variety of research opportunities and partnerships that being part of a two-university system program provides.
“Our students and our faculty are conducting cutting edge research across many areas of mental health and wellness,” said Brookman-Frazee. “They are developing, testing and implementing state-of-the-art evidence-based practices that are important for our society, but they are also working together and mentoring the next generation of scientists, clinicians and leaders in the field.”
Fifth-year Ph.D. student Elizabeth Rangel’s research interests lie in implementation and dissemination science, with a focus on reducing mental health disparities especially among underserved populations.
“This program has provided such incredible opportunities to be a part of different families’ trajectories with regard to health care,” said Rangel. “I’ve worked with neurodivergent children and their families and have learned so much about developmental disabilities and the way different systems of care talk to each other. I’ve worked with a variety of different populations in various settings including inpatient hospitalization programs and outpatient psychiatry. I could not have imagined that I would receive this depth of training.”
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