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Featured Member
Kala J. Melchiori became a SPSSI member as an undergraduate in 2008, and currently serves as the SPSSI Graduate Student Committee Chair. She earned her BA in Psychology from Marshall University in Huntington, WV, in 2008, and her MA in Applied Social Psychology from Loyola University Chicago in 2011. She is currently working on her PhD in Applied Social Psychology at LUC. In addition to teaching courses on Prejudice and Gender, Ms. Melchiori is a data management intern at Achieving College Excellence (ACE), a program designed to assist low-income and first-generation college students at LUC. Ms. Melchiori's interest in the application of social psychology to feminist social justice issues began when she was an undergraduate, and she continues to use her personal experience as a woman navigating the current cultural climate as a jumping-off point for generating theory-based, empirical research questions.
Research
Ms. Melchiori has experience with many social-justice oriented research projects, including domestic violence, poverty, environmentalism, cross-race interactions, and privilege. Most of her work centers around gender, where she has worked to untangle three main questions: 1) How do women cope when confronted with sexism? Many assume that if they experience sexism, they would stand up for themselves and confront the prejudiced individual. However, the myriad concerns we have in any social situation may influence our behavior in unanticipated ways. 2) How do popular media portrayals of young women affect women psychologically? When women read about wildly popular fiction characters, such as Bella from Twilight or Katniss from The Hunger Games, the character's traits and actions may influence how the readers view themselves. 3) How do stereotypes of working mothers translate into discriminatory actions? Women, who may already be unfairly evaluated in the workplace, often face new forms of (and justifications for) workplace discrimination after they reveal that they are parents.
Honors
Kala Melchiori is the recipient of the 2012 Kobler Award for Out Standing Service by a Graduate Student. This award, given by the LUC Psychology Department, recognized Ms. Melchiori's service to the department, university, local community, and the field of psychology. She has also earned LUC's Social Psychology Graduate Student Research and Professional Development Award and an American Psychological Association Student Travel Award, as well as multiple Outstanding Student Awards when she was an undergraduate.
Service to SPSSI
In 2011, Kala Melchiori was elected the Chair-Elect of the SPSSI Graduate Student Committee and became Chair in 2012. During her tenure, Ms. Melchiori helped organize graduate student social events at the 2012 SPSSI Biennial Conference and spearheaded a Graduate Student Professional Development Conference in Washington, DC, in 2013. Ms. Melchiori is also the graduate student board member for the Journal of Social Issues, a SPSSI publication.
Passing it Along
Kala Melchiori's understanding of the psychological community and academia as a whole have been largely shaped by the mentors she has sought out along the way. One of her first mentors, Wendy R. Williams, is responsible for introducing her to SPSSI and helping her become involved in SPSSI leadership. After thanking Dr. Williams for helping her attend her first SPSSI conference, Dr. Williams told her something that she has never forgotten: "Don't thank me, just pass it along." Since then, Ms. Melchiori has strived to give back to the intellectual community that has given so much to her. She regularly collaborates with the undergraduate students in her research lab and presents on professional development topics to undergraduates. She also serves as the Resources Co-Coordinator for the LUC Psychology Department's Committee on Diversity Affairs (CODA). Ms. Melchiori has also taken Dr. Williams tactic to heart – whenever someone thanks her for her help, she invokes the norm of reciprocity and asks something in return: pass it along.
For more information about Kala J. Melchiori, please visit her website at https://www.sites.google.com/site/kalajmelchiori/