Alumni Spotlight: Grant Shipp

Grant Shipp (he/him)

• Major: PSY BS (Spring 2024)
• Position: Research Coordinator & Mental Health Navigator
• Employer: Aliveness Project

What is your work like? What are your duties?

Aliveness is a nonprofit community center for people living with HIV, the majority of whom are low-income. We are boldly driven by a mission to advance equitable access to transformative HIV care and prevention. Therefore, it's important to note that in nonprofits like this, we wear different hats in order to adjust to the needs of our community at any given time.

I am a research coordinator responsible for carrying out the day-to-day tasks that make research possible. This includes study recruitment, data collection, conducting qualitative interviews, and analyzing data. In a study examining transportation barriers among unstably housed people living with HIV, I act as the front-line point of contact—managing participant experiences and ensuring they have the resources needed to participate. I also have considerable autonomy when it comes to generating study ideas, conducting analysis, and sharing research findings.

This year, I also piloted a Mental Health Navigation program at the organization. In my role as a peer navigator, I help individuals seeking mental health services connect to care. I conduct psychosocial assessments to identify needs and work with people to address barriers that might prevent them from accessing the care they desire.

How would you say your psychology degree has helped you with your current job?

As a first-generation and non-traditional student, I deeply valued the opportunity to be part of spaces where research was actively taking place. Immersing myself in research labs and committing fully to each project laid the foundation for the work I do today. Courses that proved especially useful for my client-facing work with vulnerable populations include counseling psychology, psychopathology, learning and behavior, and the psychology of stress and trauma.

In what way has your major complemented your current job?

I am especially grateful for being introduced to RStudio through the Introduction to Psychological Measurement and Data Analysis course. While the exposure was introductory and I didn’t walk into my job as an expert, it gave me a solid foundation to build on and refresh the skills I needed. Now, I feel confident that I could succeed in many careers involving data. Just as importantly, consistently showing up to class and engaging with the material helped me develop critical thinking skills and shaped me to be more scientifically minded.

How did you find your current position? 

I first learned about the Aliveness Project through my community and began volunteering in their harm reduction program, where I packed safer-sex and safe substance use kits for communities at risk of HIV. The program manager, who also serves as our Research Scientist, shared the news of securing funding for what would become Aliveness’s largest research study. At the time, I was gaining research experience in an academic lab and offered to volunteer on the project. After nine months of involvement, I was offered a position.

What advice do you have for our current psych students and recent grads?

Your network is arguably more important than your GPA. Try to identify a cause that matters to you and make an impact, it could be as small as volunteering an hour of your time. My job came to me unexpectedly, and it was the people and spaces I connected with, more than what was on my transcript, that opened the door. That said, take this with a grain of salt: I didn’t do well in community college, and once I transferred, raising my GPA became my main focus. If I could change one thing about my experience, it would be finding a better balance between academics and everything else.

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