Ishan Vengurlekar is a School Psychology doctoral candidate at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. Broadly, Ishan’s research interests center on early intervention for youth with elevated mental health challenges. He is particularly interested in leveraging and optimizing brief mental health interventions in schools to a) reduce the burden on school staff and b) ensure every student with heightened concerns receives treatment. Ultimately, he hopes to revamp mental health interventions to be more cost-effective, flexible, and accessible as a method to mitigate the needs-access gap in youth mental health treatment. Ishan is also strongly passionate about mentoring. Throughout his graduate training, Ishan has mentored several undergraduate students interested in pursuing doctoral psychology programs. He is especially invested in providing mentorship to marginalized or minoritized students who may have fewer mentorship opportunities and reduced access to professional resources. To meet his mentees’ needs, Ishan often employs a developmental model of mentorship, tailoring feedback, instruction, and guidance depending on the skills and goals of each mentee. Ishan will begin his predoctoral internship at the Munroe Meyer Institute as part of the University of Nebraska Medical Center, where he will specialize in the research on and provision of school mental health services. He looks forward to continuing his mentoring work throughout his internship and career.
Read the full article at: https://grad.wisc.edu/diversity/peer-mentor-awards/