Age: 25
Years with Team: Rookie
Hometown: Granite City, Illinois

Education: Southern Illinois University Edwardsville
Major(s): I hold a Bachelor of Science in Psychology, Master of Science in Clinical Child and School Psychology and Specialist Degree in School Psychology. 
Minor: Mass Communications

Awards & Honors:
• 2007-2008 Recipient of the Illinois School Psychologist Association Research Grant Award for the proposal entitled “The Relationships of Behaviors Associated with Childhood Bullying, Cyberbullying and Victimization with Adult Self Esteem and Anxiety.” 
• 2006 Who’s Who Among American College Students
• Student Advisory Committee for SIUE Psychology Department
• The Dean’s List Southern Illinois University Edwardsville
• Accepted to the 2004 Midwestern Psychology Association Poster Presentation for research regarding the Psychology of Learning.
• Graduated from Southern Illinois University Edwardsville with Honors, Cum Laude.

Occupation (Job Title): School Psychologist
Brief deScription of your daily responsibilities: My job is to tailor students’ educational services to meet their needs for academic success.  I use many different approaches to do so including consultation, intervention, prevention, education and assessment. 
Your career goals: I have attained one of my career goals, and that is to become a school psychologist.  However, I would also love to study and attain a Ph.D. in NeuroPsychology.

Hobbies: I enjoy the theatre, traveling, dancing, music and running.

Favorite childhood memory: My favorite childhood memory would have to be the time I spent with my grandparents, specifically my grandpa Cliff.  Everyday after preschool, Grandpa Cliff and I would walk to the local corner store, Shooies.  He would purchase a newspaper, and I picked out a piece of candy.  After the 20 minutes I spent ruminating on the best choice of candy, we would walk back home hand-in-hand, sit on the swing in the backyard, and he would hum me to sleep.  

Something interesting about you or your family others may not know:  (For example:  Ashley’s Grandmother bakes pies for the homeless in her neighborhood during the Thanksgiving and Christmas Holidays.)

Instead of attending college on a basketball scholarship after high school, my father, James , choose to enlist in the Marines and received two Purple Hearts during the Vietnam War.  He has recently spent a generous amount of time and effort trying to contact his Vietnam “buddies” as well as those families who lost their loved ones during war.  A few Christmases ago, my father contacted the family of one of his closest friends in his division who was killed in combat during the war.  My father shared stories of him with his family and answered any questions they had.  The family was extremely emotional and appreciative that my father called. They were never given any sort of answers or closure to their sons’ life during the military or death. 

Five things you would like to accomplish in this lifetime:

(1.) Attain a Ph.D. in Pediatric NeuroPsychology
(2.) Master sign language
 (3) Travel the world to learn of different cultures
(4.) Explore Hawaii
(5.) I would love the opportunity to travel overseas to visit our troops currently serving in the military to say “thank you” for their hard work and sacrifice.

One word to describe yourself: Feisty

What is the first thing you would do after winning the lottery?  Pay my parents back for my education.

Interesting places you have visited:  It may not be interesting to some but because my brother, Jeffrey, is in the Army, I have had the opportunity to visit a number of his assigned bases.  The first base Jeffrey was assigned to, Fort Jackson in South Carolina, was very interesting in that I was able to see firsthand what Basic Training entails. 
               
What is in your CD player right now? Wicked, the musical.

Something you feel very strongly about: Despite ones feelings or beliefs regarding the current war, I feel very strongly about supporting our troops.  That is, providing those in the military with the necessary equipment overseas to a mere handshake and “thank you” to both active and retired military for their duty.  

When you were a child, what did you want to be when you grew up? When I was a child, I wanted to be so many different things when I grew up: Architect, Dance Instructor, Teacher, Weather Girl, Banker Physical Therapist and a Grocery Store Clerk. 
If you could have any animal as a pet, what animal would you choose? Horse

Your favorite subject:
Elementary School - Math