Scholar In Residence

Dr. Jardin Dogan-Dixon is a licensed psychologist who currently works in a federal correctional setting. She graduated from the counseling psychology doctoral program at the University of Kentucky in 2022. Her intersectionality-informed research has a three- pronged focus: 1) Black identity, racial trauma, and mental health; 2) Black sexualities, sexual pleasure, and intimate relationships; and 3) drug and incarceration-related health disparities. The objective of her research agenda is to demonstrate how racial trauma can lead to adverse health outcomes, an overreliance on maladaptive coping strategies, and relationship dissolution that hinders powerful and protective community-building among Black populations. To date, Dr. Dogan-Dixon has published thirty-three (33) scholarly manuscripts, and her work has been supported by a predoctoral fellowship with the National Institute of Drug Abuse (NIDA), University of Kentucky Center for Health Equity, and Active Minds. She has a commitment to treating race-related stress and racial trauma via a multifaceted prevention and intervention approach of research, clinical practice, and community work. Thus, her clinical experiences have taken place in college counseling centers, racial trauma clinics, and criminal justice settings. She recently completed her predoctoral internship at the Federal Medical Center in Lexington, KY. Moving beyond academic research paywalls, Dr. Dogan-Dixon facilitates mental health and racial trauma workshops for local communities and anti-racism trainings for national organizations. Her work has been featured in media news outlets including NBCLX, Women’s Health, Vice, Bustle, and PsyCom. Dr. Dogan-Dixon also created her Instagram platform @blkfolxtherapy to increase access to culturally-relevant mental health education and heighten the visibility of Black mental health professionals.

Ultimately, Dr. Dogan-Dixon has goals of reducing mental health barriers and stigmas, improving access to identity-affirming therapy, and providing Black Americans with tools to improve their mental, sexual, and relational well-being to live meaningful and fulfilling lives. In her spare time, Dr. Dogan-Dixon enjoys weightlifting, traveling, and calligraphy.

Terrill O. Taylor is a doctoral candidate in the Counseling Psychology program at the University of North Dakota, and a predoctoral intern at the Counseling and Mental Health Center at the University of Texas at Austin. His areas of research focus on issues of race and racism, with specific emphasis on intersectionality, racial disparities in systems of justice, anti-Black racism, and restorative justice.

He developed the Restorative Justice Attitudes Scale, a measure designed to investigate individuals’ support for reconciliation and healing processes, which was published in The Counseling Psychologist. He has since used the measure to analyze how race and racism influence individuals’ decision-making when interfaced with systems of justice. It is his intent to develop intervention and prevention mechanisms that will have an impact on dismantling all forms of racism and oppression that restrict Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC) from living authentic, healthy, and meaningful lives.

Terrill’s research has received national recognition. His dissertation entitled, Does Race Matter? An Experimental Vignette Study on Harm Severity, College Student Discipline, and Restorative Justice was selected as winner of the 2022 Jeffrey S. Tanaka Memorial Dissertation award on behalf of the APA Committee on Ethnic Minority Affairs. Terrill also received the APA Division 45 2022 Outstanding Student Research Award, and he was also the 2020 recipient of the Barbara Smith & Jewell E. Horvat Graduate Student Award for Research on Queer Individuals of Color. In addition, Terrill received an Outstanding Dedication to Social Justice and Liberation in Counseling Psychology Award from the Student Affiliates of Seventeen (APA Division 17). In his spare time, Terrill enjoys traveling and spending time with his friends and family.