Hall of Fame

Results from the Peer Relations Lab food competitions

Bacon off

Winner = Andrew Bower

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Gluten-free cupcake-off

Winner = Heather Howard

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Salsa-off

Winner = ?

Clinton Lee, DQ

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Soup-Off

Winner =

Gluten-free chocolate chip cookie-off

Winner = Carolyn Sutter

Pie-off

Winner = Tie!

LATEST LAB ACCOMPLISHMENTS

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October 11, 2025 - CONGRATS to Giana Hamilton for completing her MS in Child Development!!!

Sept 11, 2024 - Congrats to former lab RA, Robanjeet, for being accepted into her top 2 postbac programs!!

July 26, 2024 - Professor Nishina was named chair of the Dept of Human Ecology

April 15, 2024 - Congrats to lab RA, Chloe, for accepting admission into her top-choice masters of public health program at UC Irvine!

March 27, 2024 - Congrats to former lab RA, Max, for getting into his top-choice PhD program at USC!

March 19, 2024 - Adrienne was quoted in this article in the Sacramento Bee regarding diversity experiences in school settings: https://www.sacbee.com/news/equity-lab/representation/article286386480.html

March 2024 - Congrats to Tseng for passing his qualifying exam and advancing to candidacy!

March 2024 - Congrats to ALL of the RAs in the lab, who are on one or multiple posters accepted to be presented at the UC Davis Undergrad Research Conference!

February 15, 2024 - Congrats to former lab RA, Audrey, for getting into a clinical psych grad program!

July 24, 2023 - See the funded Healthy UC Davis program: Graduate Peer Mentorship (GPS) - Navigating to social fitness! An upcoming project led by grad student Marika and lab affiliate Madeline: https://healthy.ucdavis.edu/funded-projects/current/graduate-peer-support

June 16, 2023 - Great news! Chisom received the William M. Jackson academic achievement award for the highest academic achievement in class. WOW! Great job!!

June 16, 2023 - Max and Elizabeth received Psychology major citations as graduating seniors. Congrats

June 16, 2023 - Congrats to Elizabeth, Max, and Chisom on their graduation on Friday. We wish you all the best for the future!

June 2, 2023 - A BIG congrats to Marika and lab affiliate, Madeline, who were just awarded a Healthy UC Davis grant: Graduate Peer Support (GPS: Navigate your way to social fitness!) to support the social well-being of graduate students!!!

May 8, 2023 - A big thank you to all my former and current students! I was just awarded the 2023 Distinguished Graduate and Postdoctoral Mentoring Award! This is one of the most meaningful honors I have received in my career.

May 5, 2023 - Congrats to former lab member, Hidra, for getting into her top PsyD graduate program!

April 27, 2023 - CONGRATS to Marika for being awarded the prestigious Graduate Student Mentorship Award!!

March 16, 2023 - CONGRATS to Anshika, a recent graduate from our lab for being accepted into multiple MSW programs, including her top choice!

March 8, 2023 - Congrats to Max and Elizabeth for their undergrad travel awards to present their research as the Society for Research on Adolescence in San Diego next month!

March 1, 2023 - CONGRATS to Chisom (paper) and Max and Elizabeth (poster) to present their research at the Undergrad Research Conference in April.

February 16, 2023 - Congrats! Grad student Marika, for publishing her master’s thesis: Gender and Ethnic Differences in University Students’ Attitudes about Mental Health Services

February 2, 2023 - CONGRATS to Anthony, a recent graduate from our lab for being accepted into his top choice MSW program!

May 27, 2022 - Congrats to former undergrad RA, Alyssa, for getting into her top-choice MFT program!

April 11, 2022 - Congrats to former undergrad RA, Sharon, on getting into her dream nursing school!

March 9, 2022 - A BIG CONGRATS to Michael Medina, who just accepted a tenure track position at Boston University-Wheelock College of Education and Human Development!!

February 6, 2022 - Congrats to Elise on her new job as test site specialist at Curative, Inc!

January 2022 - Professor Nishina was one of the opening plenary speakers for the Institute of Education Sciences Annual PI meeting.

January 22, 2022 - Our paper, with Karen Nylund-Gibson as lead author, was just published online

Nylund-Gibson, K., Garber, A. C., Singh, J., Witkow, M. R., Nishina, A., & Bellmore, A. (in press). The utility of latent class analysis to understand heterogeneity in youth coping strategies: A methodological introduction, Behavioral Disorders

November 2021 - Congrats to Giana, who just accepted a job at Unity Council in Oakland!

November 17, 2021 - Professor Nishina presented an invited talk for the UC Center Sacramento as part of the UC Adolescent Consortium talk (Friendships, Identity, and Well-being Among Diverse California Youth and Implications for Life After the COVID -19 Pandemic):

Diversity in Schools: A California Resource

October 7, 2021 - Congrats to Tseng, who just got a paper accepted by the Journal of School Health:

Vang, T. M., & Nishina, A. (in press). Fostering school belonging and students’ well-being through a positive school interethnic climate in diverse high schools. Journal of School Health.

Fall 2021 - Well wishes to former lab affiliate Dr. Luis Parra on starting his tenure track position at .Washington University in St Louis!

July 29, 2021 - CONGRATS to Liana, who was just accepted to the Occupational Therapy doctorate program at University of the Pacific!!

July 8, 2021 - CONGRATS to Dr. Lyndsey Ruiz for completing all requirements for her PhD!!!!

May 27, 2021 - Liana is presenting some of the research at the Bulosan Center Conference on Saturday, 3:45-4:30.

You can register here: http://tinyurl.com/RegisterBuloCon2021

Her talk will be here: http://tinyurl.com/MediaFilAm

And you can view it here after the event.

May 18, 2021 - Congrats to Tseng for being named a Horowitz Early Career Scholar!!

May 12, 2021 - Michael Medina & Adrienne gave an invited talk for Understanding Diversity in STEM: WMPD Day (Women, Minorities, People with Disabilities).

Scroll down on the page to view presentation and slides: Importance and Challenges Incorporating Multiracial Demographics in STEM as part of the session on LGBTQ+ and Multiracial Demographics in STEM: Opportunities and Challenges for Inclusion

May 3, 2021 - Melissa Witkow and Adrienne co-guest edited a special issue for Journal of Early Adolescence on biracial, multiracial, and multiethnic early adolescents. That issue + paper is forthcoming:

Conceptualizing and measuring biracial/multiracial/multiethnic status: Friendship homophily in early adolescence

April 15, 2021 - Welcome to Marika, an incoming PhD student, who will be joining us in fall 2021!

April 2021 - Congrats to Liana! She just completed all her requirements for graduation!!

March 15, 2021 - Michael’s research was just cited in the Huffington Post: https://www.huffpost.com/entry/time-to-broaden-friend-group_l_604924a1c5b6cf72d093ba7b

March 14, 2021 - Congrats to Liana, Nicole, Carolina, Maya, Elizabeth, and Elise — they all had their research accepted for presentation at the 2021 Undergrad Research Conference!!

February 2021 - Congrats to Lyndsey who recently had a paper published in the Journal of Nutrition Education and Behavior:

Ruiz, L. D., Jones, A. M., & Scherr, R. E. (2021). Validity and Reliability of a Nutrition Knowledge Questionnaire for High School–Aged Adolescents. Journal of Nutrition Education and Behavior, 53(1), 54-59.

November 7, 2020 - Not a lab accomplishment per se, but as a research lab that studies the diversity, we highlight a few interesting factoids. “To Nate’s point about Democrats and demographics on the ticket, I thought a lot about this during the primary. Since 2000, Dems have had someone from a historically underrepresented group on the ticket — Obama, Clinton, Harris. Joe Lieberman, the 2000 VP nominee, was the first Jewish American to appear on a major party presidential ticket. They won the popular vote each time. The one time they lost the popular vote, in 2004, was when they had two white, Christian men. It’s still not very many observations, but it does suggest that Americans are generally willing to vote for a presidential ticket that doesn’t look or worship like all the ones in the past.” Quoted from: https://fivethirtyeight.com/live-blog/2020-election-results-coverage/ Julia Azari, November 7, 2020, 12:17pm

November, 2020 - Congrats to former lab member, Alysha, on her new job at EdPLus at Arizona State University!

October 27, 2020 - Congrats to our very own Michael Medina for being featured as Emerging Scholar by the Society for Research on Adolescence!

September 29, 2020 - Congrats to former lab RA, Jackie, for being awarded a Graduate Equity Fellowship from her graduate program at SDSU!

August, 2020 - Congrats to Lyndsey for being selected to be an American Society for Nutrition Science Policy Fellow, as well as a Professors of the Future Fellow through grad studies!!

June 12, 2020 - Congrats to Giana for just being awarded a WRRC grant to carry out her masters thesis research!! That’s two in less than one month. This really demonstrates the importance of her work.

June 2020 - Please see our joint statement from the members of the Peer Lab regarding recent events and civil rights protests in support of the Black community

May 29, 2020 - Congrats to former lab member, Jackie Garcia for being awarded a 2020-21 Sally Casanova Scholarship in her current masters program at SDSU!!

May 14, 2020 - Congratulations to Giana! She was just awarded a UC Davis SRRC grant to carry out her masters thesis research!

May 11, 2020 - We just received an NSF RAPID grant [Nishina, PI, with Co-PIs Alysha Ramirez Hall, Diana Meter, and Michael Medina]:

RAPID: Emerging Adults’ Daily Well-Being, Social Experiences, and Academic Persistence in the Context of the COVID-19 Pandemic (NSF BCS 2028034)

April 9, 2020 - Congratulations to Tseng for being awarded the competitive Graduate Research Mentorship Fellowship for the 2020-2021 academic year Only 6 are awarded across the entire university each year.

March 16, 2020 - Former lab RA, Emily, was accepted into a number of teacher ed masters programs. Whichever one recruits her will be very lucky. Congrats!!!

March 9, 2020 - Former lab RA, Candisse, will be going to UCLA’s Teacher Ed Masters program!! Congratulations!!!

March 9, 2020 - Former lab RA, Esther, just got accepted to Georgetown’s Health and Public Interest MS program. That field certainly needs great people like her. Congrats!!!

February 25, 2020 - Former lab RA, Veronica, just got into her top choice Doctor of Occupational Therapy program. Congrats, Veronica!!!

February 6, 2020 - Michael just had a chapter published from his work in his previous lab:

Rivas-Drake, D., & Medina, M. M. (2020). Ethnicity and race as contexts for moral development. In L. A. Jensen (Ed.), The Oxford Handbook of Moral Development: An Interdisciplinary Perspective. DOI: 10.1093/oxfordhb/9780190676049.013.36

January 24, 2020 - The Peer Relations Preconference webpage is now live! It will be held Wednesday March 18, 2020 from 12-5pm at the conference hotel. Register by Feb 15 for early bird reduced registration rates.

December 20, 2019 - CONGRATS to San Jose State University for successfully recruiting Dr. Uresti for a tenure-track assistant professor position!

December 17, 2019 - CONGRATS to Dr. Uresti (former lab member) for receiving a tenure-track professor job offer!

December 17, 2019 - All of the lab’s papers and posters were accepted for presentation at the Society for Research on Adolescence conference in San Diego in 2020. See you there! (And don’t forget the peer preconference!)

December 4, 2019 - Great news that Dr. Michael Medina just joined the lab as a postdoctoral scholar. He comes to us from University of Michigan.

November 11, 2019 - Congrats to Tseng for successfully passing his prelim exam!

October 16, 2019 - Congrats to former lab member, Jackie for receiving a Diversity Equity Fellowship in her MS program at SDSU!

October 3, 2019 - Our paper was just accepted for publication in Child Development Perspectives:

Nishina, A., & Witkow, M. R. (In press). Why developmental researchers should care about biracial, multiracial, and multiethnic youth

July 10, 2019 - Congrats to Lyndsey and her advisor in nutrition who recently received a grant to test her cross-age peer teaching program from the USDA National Institute of Food and Agriculture's Secondary Education, Two-Year Postsecondary Education, and Agriculture in the K-12 Classroom Challenge Grants Program

June 18, 2019 - Our paper was just accepted for publication in a special section of Educational Psychologist:

Nishina, A., Lewis, J. A., Witkow, M. R., & Bellmore, A. D. (In press). Ethnic diversity and inclusive school climate. In Educational Psychologist special issue: Promoting inclusive school climate: Multiple approaches to uniting students across groups (working title).

June 14, 2019 - TWO lab members are receiving undergrad citations from Human Development: Elise Pohlhammer and Emily Templin. Congrats to both of them!

June 3, 2019 - Congrats to Lyndsey for successfully passing her Qualifying Exam!

May 31, 2019 - CONGRATS to Shannon Peiffer for successfully filing her masters thesis!

May 22, 2019 - CONGRATS to Dr. Jakeem Lewis for successfully defending his dissertation!! Two lab members in one week. A new record!

May 17, 2019 - CONGRATS to Dr. Luis Parra for successfully defending his dissertation!!

April 18, 2019 - Congrats to Lyndsey! She was just awarded the 2019 Kosuna Doctoral Fellow award. This award is for outstanding performance as a PhD student in the Department of Nutrition and her potential as a future leader.

April 12, 2019 - Congrats to Jakeem for being awarded at UC Davis Graduate Studies Dissertation Award!

April 11, 2019 - Congrats to Emily—she was just awarded the Human Development Outstanding Senior Award, which will be presented in an award ceremony in May!

Emily Templin is a Human Development major/Biological Sciences minor with commitment to research and service. In her internship, Emily asked to be paired with the most behaviorally difficult students. She operated from a strengths-based approach that all students can be successful. With her independent and collaborative research, she examined the benefits of positive school climate and the risks when teens feel they don’t have sufficient financial resources. Emily’s service brought together UC Davis students of various faiths to identify common causes that are supported by all religions, such as issues of social justice. Emily has truly created a community of inclusion in all her endeavors

April 10, 2019 - Carolyn’s paper was just picked up by Food Network.

March 15, 2019 - Jackie was just accepted to the NYU QUEST summer research program AND was offered admission into the SDSU Psychology masters program!

March 8, 2019 - Congrats to Dr. Aubrey Uresti for filing her dissertation!

March 6, 2019 - Congrats to Dr. Natalie de Guzman for filing her dissertation!

March 6, 2019 - Congrats to Jackie, Elise, and Emily for having the research proposals accepted for the undergraduate research conference at UC Davis. They will be presenting their work in April (stay tuned….).

February 26, 2019 - Congrats to Emily for being nominated for several outstanding graduating senior awards from the College of Ag and Environmental Sciences!

February 25, 2019 - Congrats to Jackie for being awarded an undergrad research fellowship to present her work at SRCD!

January 29, 2019 - Congrats to Natalie for passing her dissertation defense!

January 6, 2019 - Jennifer’s paper was just accepted to appear in Public Health Nutrition:

Taylor, J. C., Sutter, C., Ontai, L. L., Nishina, A., & Zidenberg-Cherr, S. (In press). Comparisons of school and home-packed lunches for fruit and vegetable dietary behaviors among school-aged youth. Public Health Nutrition.

December 20, 2018 - Great news! SEVEN proposals from our lab were accepted for presentation at SRCD in Baltimore in March. Updated titles and date/times will be posted when they become available to us.

December 18, 2018 - Carolyn’s paper was covered by University of Illinois: https://news.illinois.edu/view/6367/729985

December 7, 2018 - Carolyn just had a paper accepted in Appetite:

Sutter, C., Taylor, J. C., Nishina, A., & Ontai, L. (In press). Parental and family predictors of fruit and vegetable servings in youths’ home-packed lunches. Appetite

October 19, 2018 - Congratulations to Jakeem for successfully passing his Qualifying Exam with committee members who were impressed with the quality of the work!

September 27, 2018 - Lyndsey just had a first-authored paper published:

Ruiz, L. S. & Scherr, R. E. (2018). Risk of energy drink consumption to adolescent health. American Journal of Lifestyle Medicine. https://doi.org/10.1177/1559827618803069

September 2018 - CONGRATS to Lyndsey who just received a prestigious Food and Agricultural Sciences National Needs Graduate Fellowship from the USDA National Institute of Food and Agriculture!

August 1, 2018 - Melissa Witkow and I are co-guest editing a Special Issue on Biracial, Multiracial, and Multiethnic Youth for the Journal of Early Adolescence. Manuscripts are due December 15, 2018. More info here.

July 1, 2018 - Welcome to Tseng Vang, an incoming Human Development PhD student who is sitting in on lab meetings.

June 15, 2018 - Congrats to research assistants Candisse, Krystal, Piter, and Veronica on their graduation!!

May 31, 2018 - The following paper was just accepted for publication:

Lewis J.A., Gee P.M., Ho C.L.L., Miller L.M.S. (In press) Why do older adults with Type 2 diabetes join a diabetes online community? JMIR Aging. http://dx.doi.org/10.2196/10649

May 23, 2018 - CONGRATS to Dr. Jennifer Taylor for filing her dissertation!

May 17, 2018 - Jennifer just accepted a postdoc at UC San Diego, a joint position between Center for Wireless & Population Health Systems and the Design Lab! Congrats!!

May 17, 2018 - Congrats to Jennifer for being offered multiple postdocs across the country. Stay tuned...oh the suspense...

May 1, 2018 - Congrats to Alysha for accepting a job with United Way! They are so lucky to be gaining her as a colleague.

May 1, 2018 - a belated congrats to Veronica for receiving an UC Davis undergrad travel award to present her poster at SRA!

April 25, 2018 - co-authored publication with Luis just got accepted for publication in JRA.

Nishina, A., & Parra, L. A. (In Press). Discrepancies between retrospective and actual self-reports of peer victimization 6 years earlier. Journal of Research on Adolescence.

April 11, 2018 - EIGHT lab members will be presenting at SRA in Minneapolis this year. We are also currently recruiting for a postdoc.

March 28, 2018 - Congrats to Luis for being awarded a Ford Foundation Dissertation Fellowship!!

March 21, 2018 - Congrats to Luis for just being awarded a Dissertation Year Fellowship from UC Davis!

February 22, 2018 - Congrats to Shannon for just being awarded the Orville Thompson Fellowship!!

January 21, 2018 - The Peer Relations Lab will be attending The Society for Research on Adolescence Biennial Meeting from April 12-14 in Minneapolis, MN. The schedule for the ten presentations that members of the lab will be participating in can be found here!

January 20, 2018 - CONGRATS to former undergrad research assistant in the lab, Adaurennaya "Ada" Chidinma Onyewuenyi, who just got a tenure track faculty position at The College of New Jersey in the Dept of Psychology!!

December 20, 2017 - Jakeem, Alysha, and collaborators (Jason Dyer & Christy Byrd at UC Santa Cruz; and Shaun O'Grady at UC Berkeley) just received a seed grant from the University of California Consortium on the Developmental Science of Adolescence to carry out research on cross-ethnic friendships

December 7, 2017 - Jennifer is giving an invited talk at the UC Office of the President (UCOP) Nutrition Policy Institute today.

December 7, 2017 - Alysha is giving an invited talk at the UC Davis Developmental Forum today.

October 16, 2017/November 7, 2017 - The cross-ethnic lunchtime peer interactions paper was just covered by University of Wisconsin, Madison media.

September 11, 2017 - The cross-ethnic lunchtime peer interactions paper in Journal of Youth and Adolescence was just covered by UC Davis media.

August 31, 2017 - Jakeem says, "Look at all those papers in press. In-press-ive!"

August 30, 2017 - the following paper was just accepted for publication in Appetite: Taylor, J., Sutter, C., Ontai, L., Nishina, A., & Zidenberg-Cherr, S. (in press). Feasibility and reliability of digital imaging for estimating food selection and consumption from students’ packed lunches. Appetite.

August 30, 2017 - The following paper was just accepted for publication in the Journal of Vocational Behavior: Ramirez Hall, A., Nishina, A, & Lewis, J. (In press). Discrimination, friendship group diversity, and STEM-related outcomes for ethnic minority college students. Journal of Vocational Behavior.

August 7, 2017 - Hooray! Congratulations to Lyndsey for passing her preliminary exam!

July 27, 2017 - The following paper was just accepted for publication in the Journal of Family Theory and Review: de Guzman, N. S., & Nishina, A. (in press). 50 years of Loving: Interracial romantic relationships and recommendations for future research. Journal of Family Theory and Review.

*co-lead authors

July 18, 2017 - The following paper was just accepted for publication in the Journal of Youth and Adolescence: Nishina, A., Bellmore, A., Witkow, M. R., Nylund-Gibson, K., & Graham, S. (in press). Mismatches in self-reported and meta-perceived ethnic identification in high school, Journal of Youth and Adolescence.

July 10, 2017 - In collaboration with co-PIs Amy Bellmore (University of Wisconsin, Madison) & Melissa Witkow (Willamette University), Dr. Nishina was just awarded a 4-year grant from the Institute of Education Sciences, funded by the US Department of Education!

July 6, 2017 - Dr. CAROLYN SUTTER officially filed her dissertation paperwork. Wonderful!

June 28, 2017 - Congratulations to Aubrey! She was just awarded a 2017-2018 Dissertation Fellowship from the UC Davis Graduate Group in Education.

June 18, 2017 - Congratulations to Dana Conlin on her graduation from UC Davis. Dana will be attending a PhD program at the University of North Carolina, Greensboro, where she will study how to improve the school experiences of youth.

June 2017 - Jennifer and Carolyn presented research from the Parents-to-Peers study at the International Society of Behavioral Nutrition and Physical Activity (ISBNPA), Victoria, Canada.

June 5, 2017 - Congratulations to Alysha -- her paper on how daily payments improve completion rates in online daily report studies. Ramirez Hall, A., & Nishina, A. (in press). Daily compensation can improve college students’ participation and retention rates in daily report studies. Emerging Adulthood.

May 31, 2017 - Congratulations to Jakeem for being awarded a 2017 Human Development Graduate Group Merit Fellowship to carry out his research!

May 26, 2017 - Congratulations to Luis for just passing his Qualifying Exam!

May 19, 2017 - Congrats to Luis who just received an NSF GROW award to collaborate with researchers in the Netherlands!

May 18, 2017 - CONGRATULATIONS to Jakeem A. Lewis for receiving his MS in Child Development today!!!

May 16, 2017 - Congratulations to Jakeem and co-authors. His paper on how cross-ethnic lunchtime interactions predict adolescents' GPA and teachers' expectations of educational attainment was just accepted for publication. Lewis, J. A., Nishina, A., Ramirez Hall, A. N., Cain, S., Bellmore, A., & Witkow, M. R. (in press). Early adolescents’ peer experiences with ethnic diversity in middle school: Implications for academic outcomes. Journal of Youth and Adolescence.

May 10, 2017 - CONGRATULATIONS to Carolyn Sutter for successfully defending her dissertation. :)

May 5, 2017 - Lab member Alysha just gave an invited talk at for the School of Behavioral and Brain Sciences at the University of Texas, Dallas!

April 28, 2017 - Lab members Dana, Eva, and Veronica will each be presenting their research at the undergraduate research conference at UC Davis!

April 27, 2017 - Lab member Alysha will be presenting her research in a paper symposium at WPA in Sacramento, CA.

April 6-8, 2017 - Lab members Alysha, Carolyn, Jakeem, and Krista will present their research at SRCD in Austin, TX.

March 13, 2017 - Congratulations to Skye for passing her qualifying exam!

March 1, 2017 - Congratulations to Carolyn for accepting a postdoc position at University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign!

February 2017 - Congratulations to Jakeem for being chosen as a Millennium Scholar for SRCD 2017!

February 2017 - Congratulations to Alysha for being chosen as a Millennium Scholar Mentor for SRCD 2017!

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