Brendan Skinner Email & Phone Number

I am currently a patient care associate at Ascension Borgess Hospital in Kalamazoo Michigan. I graduated from Western Michigan University in May of 2021 with a Bachelor of Science in General Psychology. I am currently taking time off school to get more research experience before I apply to clinical psychology programs. My research interests are around the topics of trauma, resilience, and sports psychology . In terms of valuable experiences, I am currently a research assistant at Western Michigan University for Dr. Amy Damashek in her Child Injury and Maltreatment Prevention Lab and Dr. Amy Naugle in her Study of Emotion and Adversity Laboratory. In these labs I work under Ph.D. candidate students Kalani Gates and Tabitha Mpamira. I am also currently a general member of Psi Chi, the International Honor Society in Psychology, and I served as captain of Western Michigan University’s men’s soccer team for two years. I was the men’s soccer representative in the Student-Athlete Advisory Council and the Mid American Conference. I have also spent significant time volunteering with the Gospel Mission Center, YWCA, Kindness Acts, Radiant church, Habitat for Humanity and Hurricane Relief. All these experiences have taught me a wide variety of skills. Working as a PCA at Borgess, I have learned how to interact with the patients on the behavioral health unit. I've learned how to therapeutically communicate, de-escalate, listen, and I've learned how to read the patient's mood and behavior as well as the entire unit's milieu. Soccer has taught me tremendous discipline and techniques for maintaining a schedule; it has taught me how to communicate with teammates and coaches as well as between them as an advocate and intermediary; and of course, it has taught me the value of teamwork. My experiences as a research assistant and student have enabled me to gain an acute attention to detail, meet deadlines, and conduct research. Finally, my experiences volunteering have taught me how to serve and support members of my community. I have developed greater compassion and empathy for people of all life circumstances, and I’ve grown to have a tremendous passion for supporting people through life’s difficulties especially when it comes to mental health. During my time at Western I earned a cumulative GPA of 3.89 and a 3.95 in my major, I was on the Dean's list and academic-athletic honor roll every semester, and I graduated Magna Cum Laude. I also earned the Diether Haenicke Scholarship for my entire time at Western.