Maria A. Kalantzis

Mentor Spotlight

The ABCT Academic Training and Education Standards committee annually solicits nominations for the “Spotlight on a Mentor” recognition to highlight the diversity of excellent mentors within the membership ranks of ABCT. Its goal is to spotlight promising early-career and well-established mentors across all levels of academic rank, areas of specialization, and types of institution. We asked the four 2024 winners to share some wisdom related to their own influential mentors, their mentorship philosophy, and advice for mentees and aspiring mentors. Click here to learn more about Spotlight on a Mentor.

Maria A. Kalantzis (she/her) is a 5th year PhD candidate in clinical psychology with a health psychology specialization at Bowling Green State University. She was selected to serve as a Graduate Summer Research Fellow at the Center of Excellence of Eating Disorders. Maria’s research has been funded by Bowling Green State University’s Diversity Initiative Funds, P.E.O. Scholar Award, and the Arab American Center of Philanthropy. Broadly, her research program involves utilizing ecological momentary (EMA), mixed-methodology, and meta-analysis to understand the interplay between minority stress, biomarkers, and psychopathology, including eating disorder symptoms beyond sociocultural influences.

Specifically, Maria aims to combine EMA and natural language processing to personalize evidence-based treatment for psychopathology for those experiencing minority stress. She is also passionate about representing Arab, Middle Eastern, and North African Americans in the clinical science literature—a sorely underrepresented population in clinical science and psychology. Maria has published 15 peer-reviewed articles/book chapters and has given several workshops on introductions to meta-analysis using R and SPSS. She has received the Kenneth Shemberg Award for Outstanding Clinical Abilities, the Donald and Zella Leventhal Award for Outstanding Psychological Research and Clinical Practice, and the Academy of Eating Disorders Early Career Scholarship. She was also one of 16 P.E.O. Scholar Awards to win a special Named/Endowed award for the 2024-2025 year.

Maria has served as an Instructor of Record for multiple psychology courses across various institutions. At Owens Community College, she taught an Independent Study of Psychology in Spring 2022. She continued her teaching at North Central College (her alma mater). At St. Mary’s College of Maryland, she served as a Visiting Instructor of Psychology both in Fall and Spring 2023. She developed the novel courses Psychology of Eating Disorders and Diversity Science in Clinical Psychology. In addition, she taught Directed Research courses and was invited to teach Quantitative Methods at Bowling Green State University in Fall 2024. Maria believes in order to be an effective mentor, one must take the perspective of the other. Mentoring other students has been the highlight of her graduate training thus far.

“My mentorship philosophy and what mentor I aspire to be is similar to my clinical training and aspirations: I aim to meet the person where they are at and attempt to help them achieve those goals in a way that works for them. I believe that everyone has a unique set of values they bring to the table. As a mentor, how can I uplift those values to promote learning about the research process? For example, if someone values justice, how can we tailor a research project to move toward this value? I believe there are universal research skills one should acquire, regardless of one’s values, and I attempt to start there with folks I help mentor. However, I have to think about how I can continuously think outside the box to provide mentorship on skills that align with their values. To this end, I hope to mentor students in refining their professional story—not just the products that can come from the research process, like publications or poster presentations. 

I have so many mentors to thank for helping me develop my mentorship style. Dr. Karl Kelley, a professor of Psychology at North Central College. When I took his psychological statistics course, I was extremely nervous. However, Dr. Kelley was able to identify a value of mine—understanding history—and helped me apply it to the content in both one-on-one meetings and for other students in the class. From this, I was able to develop meaning to the course, and now I can officially say my operational definition of having fun is doing statistics. These types of interactions are moments I hope to instill in my current and future mentees. Secondly, my lovely mentors both at the undergraduate and graduate level, Dr. Leila Azarbad, Dr. Mary Moussa Rogers, and Dr. Abby Braden, who all taught me to lead mentorship with kindness and empathy for a mentee’s lived experience! 

I invite [graduate students] to take in the clinical skills [they’ve] learned, such as active listening and reflexive work. I have found the most meaningful mentorship experiences are ones where I have been able to deeply listen to the people who want mentorship and reflect on my blind spots as a mentor. As I am preparing for the job market soon, I am very eager to take in the wonderful mentorship I experienced and apply it to my future undergraduate and graduate mentees!”