Creative Awareness: Connected me to creativity from an early age, instilled moment-to-moment awareness in everyday life, and prioritized mental health and space for free thinking throughout childhood.

Values & Character: Taught appreciation of small things, fostered independence, and emphasized the importance of responsibility and duty.

Self-Care: Modeled the importance of rest and taking things at your own pace.

Innovation & Impact: Instilled entrepreneurial spirit, fostered curiosity, and emphasized the importance of knowledge dissemination.

Meaning & Purpose: Found profound meaning in sermons, community, and clergy. My Judaism is a gift that cannot be separated from the fulfillment I find in my work.

Foundation: Introduced me to research and encouraged me to apply to PhD programs, setting the stage for my entire academic journey.

Support: Fostered my love of research and provided invaluable support through PhD applications.

Theoretical Framework: Introduced me to the RDoC model. This sparked my appreciation for social ecological approaches and inspired multiple research projects.

Career Direction: Changed my career trajectory by opening my eyes to pediatric psychology through her health psychology course.

Sleep Equity Passion: Speaker at one of my first conferences who cultivated my passion for sleep equity research.

Environmental Focus: Her research exploring sleep and environmental hazards continues to push me to examine upstream risks in my best work.

Networking & Support: A warm presence at my first conference who continues to look out for me and connect me to additional opportunities.

Research Leadership: Provides unwavering support and believes in all my ideas, investing extraordinary amounts of time in my development as a researcher.

Methods & Pedagogy: Provided mentorship in qualitative methods and intersectionality. Two years as her TA offered insights into mentoring and teaching.

Clinical Development: Supervised my first year of therapy and most complex assessment cases, fostering growth and teaching me to embrace discomfort.

Liberation Psychology: Introduced me to liberation psychology and showcased how to bring relationality, humanness, and advocacy into clinical work.

Pediatric BSM: Sleep supervisor at my externship who gave me first clinical experiences in pediatric behavioral sleep medicine with a strengths-oriented approach.

Clinical Specialization: Patiently introduced me to pediatric psychology and provided thoughtful answers to all my questions during my first externship.