Ebonee Johnson, assistant professor of community and behavioral health in the UI College of Public Health, has been awarded a $25,000 Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) Team Award from the Research Development Office within the UI Office of the Vice President for Research.

Johnson will work as co-principal investigator along with co-PIs Allison Levine, assistant professor in the UI Department of Counselor Education, and Jacob Priest, associate professor in the UI Department of Psychiatry and UI Couple and Family Therapy and director of the LGBTQ+ Counseling Clinic.

The purpose of this DEI Team Award, entitled Project STEER (Support, Train, and Empower Emerging Researchers) in School Mental Health, is to provide research training and development to a cohort of four UI undergraduate students from underrepresented backgrounds. 

Project STEER students will receive structured, evidence-based research training and mentoring to prepare them to work on a larger project led by the PI team in their roles as affiliated research faculty for the Iowa Center for School Mental Health. This larger project’s purpose is to develop an evidence-based, culturally responsive, equity-infused mental health awareness training to enable K-12 stakeholders to recognize and respond to student mental health needs. 

The DEI Team Award supports disciplinary teams consisting of multiple investigators working with a collection of undergraduates with a preference for students from traditionally marginalized groups. The goals are to engage these students in mentored research and training experiences that prepare them to excel as next generation researchers and scholars. In FY22, four DEI Team Awards were funded through the Seeding Excellence Initiative.