Alayna Park

Spotlight on a Researcher

Name: Alayna Park
Degree: Ph.D.
Pronouns: she/her/hers
Institution: University of Oregon
How long have you been a member of ABCT? Since 2011

Park is a licensed psychologist and an Assistant Professor in the Department of Psychology at the University of Oregon. She is one of the founding faculty of the Department’s diversity science area and an affiliate faculty of the Ballmer Institute for Children’s Behavioral Health. She completed her Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) and received the 2019 Charles E. and Sue K. Young Graduate Student Award, which recognizes the top graduate student in the College of Arts and Sciences each year.

She is clinically trained by leaders in cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT), acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT), Managing and Adapting Practice (MAP) and the Modular Approach to Therapy for Children (MATCH), integrative behavioral couples therapy (IBCT), and cognitive processing therapy (CPT), and she completed her predoctoral internship at the VA Long Beach Healthcare System.

Her research is driven by the goal of promoting human wellbeing and functioning through intervention and implementation science. She is particularly interested in developing and testing decision-support tools and other implementation supports for helping mental health professionals decide when and how to culturally adapt treatments to better meet the needs of their ethnic-racial minoritized clients.

She has published more than 45 empirical papers on the topics of mental health treatment design and implementation in public sector mental health settings, clinical decision-making, and cultural competence. Her research has been funded by the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH), William T. Grant Foundation, and Society for a Science of Clinical Psychology (SSCP). She has also received NIH-funded fellowships from the Child Intervention, Prevention, and Services (CHIPS) Research Training Institute and the Health Disparities Research Institute (HDRI).

Additionally, she has been quoted in news outlets including the New York Times and HuffPost, and her work has been recognized with awards, including the 2021 Spotlight on a Mentor Award and 2022 Reviewer of the Year Award from ABCT.

What strategies have helped you be successful in a challenging funding environment?

I have tried to approach grant writing as both a skill to be developed and a process of persistence. I have actively pursued training opportunities in grant writing and greatly benefited from the NIMH-funded Child Intervention, Prevention, and Services (CHIPS) Research Training Institute and the NIMHD-funded Health Disparities Research Institute (HDRI). These week-long workshops helped me learn how to prepare a strong application and provided invaluable space to workshop my ideas with fellow early career researchers, established scientists, and program officers.

I have also worked tirelessly to “increase the denominator,” as my friends and colleagues Drs. Kelsie Okamura and Rachel Kim say. I have applied widely and repeatedly, inching farther with each subsequent application. I have closely reviewed feedback from reviewers and made concerted efforts to apply that feedback to my revised proposals. I have also become increasingly comfortable asking colleagues – both within and outside of my institution – for feedback on my specific aims. Additionally, while my proposals for larger grants were under review, I sought out smaller funding opportunities to collect preliminary data that could strengthen my revised proposals.

Acknowledging that this is a particularly difficult time to secure funding for mental health disparities research, given shifting federal funding priorities, I am immensely grateful for funders who have continued to support this research, such as the William T. Grant Foundation. I am also grateful to my valued colleagues and mentors who have helped me understand and navigate the funding environment, validated feelings of stress and disappointment from rejection letters and increasing structural barriers, and joined in celebrating any and all of our successes.

How did you first become involved in research? What was this first research experience like?

I’m always astonished when I hear moving stories of what inspired others to enter our field – because in my case, I fell into research largely by chance. When I transferred from community college to the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) as a Psychology major, I had every intention of becoming a therapist – without realizing that would require at least a master’s degree. Learning this left me feeling scared and uncertain about my career path, since I had never envisioned myself pursuing graduate school. Around that time, one of my instructors mentioned that he was recruiting research assistants and explained that research experience would look good on any CV or resume. I jumped at that opportunity and started working with Dr. Bruce Chorpita, who has remained a valued mentor for the past 15 years.

As an undergraduate research assistant, I was responsible for various tasks including helping collect and enter data, running secondary analyses, and contributing to conference presentations and publications. I immediately enjoyed the collaboration, critical thinking, and creativity that research requires – but what has fueled me to keep going is the idea that my research can help promote human wellbeing and functioning at scale. Today, I feel very fortunate for my clinical psychology doctoral degree, which enables me to facilitate meaningful one-on-one change as a therapist while contributing to large-scale change as a clinical scientist.

What have you found most rewarding about your research?

I find nearly every aspect of research to be deeply rewarding. It feels like a dream to get paid to continually learn. I love engaging with the latest advances in mental health services research and related disciplines, and then thinking about how to translate that knowledge into rigorous studies that chip away at my central research question: How can we provide high-quality and effective mental health services to any client who is brave enough to enroll in therapy, and do so at scale? I love doing this work alongside hardworking, dedicated, and kind students and colleagues who share the goal of promoting human wellbeing and functioning. Additionally, I love that my research embeds me directly in the communities that I care most deeply about. I am continually inspired and energized by the strength and dedication of community leaders who work tirelessly to support those around them, and I feel it is a privilege to partner with them in this work.

How do you balance research with the other demands of your position?

The short answer is that I don’t – because, in the wise words of the National Center for Faculty Development and Diversity (NCFDD), “sh*t don’t fit.” On paper, my current position is 50% research, 40% teaching, and 10% service, which feels like an ideal balance for me personally. In practice, my time probably does divide that way, but it often exceeds a 40-hour workweek. For me, that’s fine: the extra hours usually go toward research, which I find energizing and enjoyable. I would rather work a little more on something I love than fewer hours in a way that feels less aligned with my interests.

That said, I’ve found intentional planning to be essential. Following recommendations from NCFDD workshops, at the start of each academic term, I map out my major research and personal goals, and then create a tentative week-by-week plan. This helps me both stay organized and realistically assess what is and is not within my bandwidth. As my valued colleague Dr. Dan Cheron says, “if it’s not a heck yes, then it’s a heck no.”

At the start of each week, I revisit my plan and break it down into more detailed daily tasks. I also try to dedicate at least 30 minutes each weekday to advancing my research. It’s still a work in progress, but this structure helps me keep research moving forward while meeting the other demands of my role.