Dominic Ysidron
Psychology graduate student Dominic Ysidron received a National Institutes of Health graduate research supplement award that will cover his graduate stipend for two years and provide him with research and travel support.
A first-year clinical health psychology student, Ysidron is working with Dr. Christopher R. France, Distinguished Professor of Psychology, who has an NIH R01 grant that investigates the efficacy of a multi-component motivational intervention on the retention of first-time blood donors. Ysidron’s NIH-funder research will look at racial and ethnic disparities among blood donors.
“While general motivation is crucial for increasing donor retention, a related issue remains: a vast majority of blood donors in the U.S. are white,” Ysidron says. “Racial and ethnic minorities are substantially and historically underrepresented in the blood-donation population. The supplemental project to Dr. France’s parent grant will aim to examine racially and ethnically unique motivations and barriers to blood donation. In the long-term, this research effort will contribute to the development of population-specific interventions for blood donor retention beyond just first-time donors.”
His other current projects focus mainly on the moral and social dynamics of pain.
Ysidron earned a B.A. in Psychology and Philosophy from Appalachian State University (Boone, NC) .
“While at Appalachian, I worked primarily with Dr. Andrew Monroe, a social psychologist, on morality and social cognition research—for two years as a research assistant and one as his lab manager. My time with Andrew culminated with my honors thesis, a conference presentation in London, and a co-authored manuscript currently on its way to publication.”
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