September 2026 After a recent round of screening and interviews last semester, we would now like to welcome to our lab team, our newest research assistant, Mykala Hannah! We are looking forward to working with you beginning this Fall 2026 semester, Mykala!

July 2026 Congratulations to our PI and CHAMPION Mental Health research lab Director, Dr. Rainier Liboro, on his recent 2027 UNLV President’s Public Purpose Community-Based Research (Existing) Partnership Grant, which will be funding the lab’s next research project with Golden Rainbow, The LGBTQIA+ Community Center of Southern Nevada, and other community partners from the state! Hooray!

May 2026 Huge congratulations all around for our CHAMPION Mental Health lab team members ! Big props to our RAs, Kat Rivera and Star Chimilio-Lawson, for being selected as the best poster in their session of the UNLV Office of Undergraduate Research Spring 2026 Symposium! Wow! Great job, Star and Kat! Kudos to graduate student, Richelle Kennett, for successfully obtaining a Patricia Sastaunik scholarship for 2026-2027! Woo hoo! And finally, congratulations to graduate student, Danica Christy, on her SB165 Behavioral Health Workforce Scholarship for this summer and for her UNLV Outreach Undergraduate Mentorship Program (OUMP) Outstanding Mentor Award! Way to go! What a team of superstars! Yes!!

March 2026 Graduate student Danica Christy and senior research assistants Rea Navarro and Star Chimilio-Lawson represented the CHAMPION Mental Health lab at the UNLV Psi Chi and Psychology club Research Matching Event this month. They shared with students interested in gaining research experience the focus, agenda, and important work we do in our lab. Thanks, Dani, Rea, and Star!

January 2026 Congratulations to Danica Christy for successfully defending her Qualifying Activity prospectus recently. Dani’s committee was impressed by her proposal presentation and now she is working to complete her QA and defend it by the end of this Spring 2026 semester! Woo hoo!

November 2025 Our research assistants Star Chimilio-Lawson and Mak Blewett recently presented the poster, “Religiosity, suicidality, and internalized homonegativity: Perspectives and experiences of ethnoracially diverse sexual minority students” at the UNLV Office of Undergraduate (OUR) Fall 2025 Symposium. We were so happy for them when their abstract was accepted after working hard on their submission with our very own, supportive and spirited graduate student, Danica Christy. They had a great time at the symposium and we are so proud of them for representing our CHAMPION Mental Health research lab. Way to go, Star and Mak! Woot woot!

September 2025 Big congratulations to Danica Christy for successfully defending her Master’s thesis last month! Your committee was so impressed with your work and thoroughness! Yay! Congratulations too to Andrea (Rea) Navarro and Kat Rivera for their recent completion of their College of Liberal Arts (COLA) internships! Awesome accomplishments! Woot woot! Additional kudos to Rea for being an awardee of the UNLV Office of Undergraduate Research (OUR) 2025 Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship (SURF) Program! We have such a productive and dynamic lab. Woo hoo!

July 2025 Big props to Richelle Kennett for being accepted into the Frontiers in Sexual and Gender Minority Training Program this summer! Richelle attended the program last June 26 to 28 at the University of California, San Francisco. The application for the program was quite competitive and Richelle was able to join the program with her costs for attending the course, which includes tuition, airfare, hotel accommodations, meals, and ground transportation, all covered. Nice! Congratulations, Richelle!

May 2025 Congratulations to our very own Andrea Navarro, who was not only selected as a McNair Scholar last December 2024, but was also accepted into the McNair Summer Research Institute Program. Receiving a $2,800 stipend, Rea’s involvement in the program will allow them to conduct their independent undergraduate research project over the summer. Additionally, Rea also recently received the Promising Novice Researcher Award from UNLV’s Psychology Outreach Undergraduate Mentorship Program (OUMP). Rea, you’re definitely on a roll! Props to you!

April 2025 Senior research assistants Alex Ribeiro and Andrea Navarro will be presenting a poster at the UNLV Office of Undergraduate (OUR) Spring 2025 Symposium next month. After submitting an abstract for the symposium, we received the good news that our submission was accepted for presentation on Friday, May 2. Congratulations! Way to represent, Rea and Alex! In other big news, more celebratory congratulations to Alex Ribeiro on his acceptance to several graduate school programs this year! After some careful consideration, Alex has chosen to accept the offer for him to join UNLV’s MS Couple and Family Therapy Program. Way to go Alex!

March 2025 Congratulations to Danica Christy and our research lab team on the acceptance of our abstract for a poster presentation at the Western Psychological Association 2025 Convention, which will be held here in Las Vegas, Nevada, on May 1 to 4. Great job, Dani! Woo hoo!

January 2025 After an exciting round of screening and interviews last year, we would now like to welcome our lab team’s new research assistants, Mak Blewett, Star Chimilio Lawson, and Kat Rivera! We are looking forward to conducting research and working with you in our ongoing research projects!

October 2024 Congratulations to Dr. Brandon Ranuschio on his brand new job at PIE ORG, Chicago, Illinois. We are so happy and proud of you! We know you’re going to be doing great work you will enjoy. All the best to you and your career in the Windy City!

August 2024 Woo hoo! Heartfelt congratulations to Trinity Puno on her acceptance to the University of Montana School of Medicine! Wow! Your hard work and perseverance has definitely paid off! You do us proud and we cannot wait to see you succeed in medical school. Cheers!

July 2024 We would like to congratulate Nadia Sheik Yosef on her acceptance to the Masters of Social Work program of Columbia University! We are very proud of you, Nadia! Great job!

May 2024 Congratulations to Danica Christy for successfully defending her Master’s thesis proposal last April 29, 2024! What a way to end her first year in our Psychological and Brain Sciences PhD Program at UNLV! Kudos too to our excellent research assistants, Nadia Shiek Yosef and Alexander Ribeiro on their poster presentations at the Society of Research on Adolescence Annual Meeting, which was held in Chicago, Illinois, USA, last April 19, 2024, and at the UNLV Office of Undergraduate Research (OUR) Spring 2024 Symposium, which was held last April 26, 2024. Way to go, Alex and Nadia! Represent!

April 2024 A new graduate student, Richelle Kennett, will be joining the CHAMPION Mental Health Lab in the coming Fall 2024 semester! Richelle has been offered a position in the Psychological and Brain Sciences PhD Program of the Department of Psychology (under the mentorship of Dr. Rainier Liboro) at UNLV, and most recently, she has decided to accept the offer. Our lab team looks forward to working with Richelle in the near future!

March 2024 Congratulations to Dr. Brandon Ranuschio for successfully defending his doctoral dissertation last March 29, 2024! Brandon will be completing all his requirements for the UNLV Psychology Department Psychological and Brain Sciences PhD Program this Spring 2024 semester in a record time of four years. Amazing! Props to Dr. Rainier Liboro who was recently announced as the UNLV 2024 Top Tier Award recipient for his scholarly and community work that upholds several of UNLV’s Top Tier 2.0 core areas and values. Awesome news! UNLV Top Tier 2.0 News

December 2023 Kudos to our CHAMPION Mental Health lab team for a record of accomplishing six publications this year! Thanks to the lab team’s dedication to the CBPR work that we do! Here’s to a great New Year ahead!

October 2023 Our very own Janelle Wackens was accepted to the Master’s in Social Work Program of UNLV. Congratulations, Janelle! Well done! We wish you all the best on your new career path!

August 2023 Congratulations to Dr. Sherry Bell for successfully defending her doctoral dissertation last July 6, 2023! Stellar work! In the Fall 2023 semester, Sherry will begin her Postdoctoral Fellowship in the Department of Psychology of the University of Oregon. Props and kudos, Sherry!

June 2023 This month, Dr. Rainier Liboro, Sherry Bell, and Brandon Ranuschio presented at the 19th Biennial Conference of the Society for Community Research and Action in Atlanta, Georgia, USA. Dr. Liboro presented at a symposium panel on resilience, and Sherry and Brandon presented conference posters on the findings of the lab’s two most recent research projects. Represent!

April 2023 Congratulations to Sherry Bell for being selected by the UNLV Graduate College to receive both a 2023 Summer Doctoral Research Fellowship and the 2023 Patricia Sastaunik Scholarship! These awards are an excellent recognition of Sherry’s ongoing research work and dedication to completing her Psychological and Brain Sciences PhD program milestones. Well done, Sherry!

February 2023 A new graduate student, Danica Christy, will be joining the CHAMPION Mental Health Lab in the coming Fall 2023 semester! Danica has been offered a position in the Psychological and Brain Sciences PhD Program of the Department of Psychology (under the mentorship of Dr. Rainier Liboro) at UNLV, and most recently, she has decided to accept the offer. Our lab team looks forward to working with Danica in the near future!

December 2022 Congratulations to Brandon Ranuschio for successfully completing his Qualifying Activity this month! Another milestone efficiently completed with great work and determination. Happy Holidays to everyone from the CHAMPION Mental Health Lab!

October 2022 Dr. Rainier Liboro was recently selected to be part of the prestigious Research Scholars Program of the Society for Community Research and Action (SCRA) – Division 27, Community Psychology Division of the American Psychological Association. Dr. Liboro was one of only six who were chosen among many candidates across the country to be included in the program this year. Congratulations to Dr. Liboro for this amazing recognition and opportunity! The Community Psychologist Fall 2022

September 2022 The CHAMPION Mental Health Lab welcomes it new Research Assistants Alex Ribeiro and Rea Navarro! Alex and Rea are joining our team just in time to help with the transcribing and quality checks of our remaining interviews from our two ongoing research projects, and the thematic analyses of the interview data.

August 2022 Graduate student and lab manager Sherry Bell recently presented virtually at the hybrid American Psychological Association 2022 Convention, which was held in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Sherry gave a poster presentation based on the preliminary results of our lab team’s survey on the resilience of middle-aged and older, men who have sex with men in Southern Nevada. The survey is part of a mixed-methods, strengths-based, community-based participatory research project, which our lab team began to conduct in 2021. Great job, Sherry! In other news, congratulations are in order for undergraduate research assistant Nadia Sheik Yosef, who was recently accepted into the Grad Rebel Advantage Mentee Program of UNLV’s Graduate College this month. Props to Nadia on this new achievement!

June 2022 In collaboration with Principal Investigator, Dr. Reimund Serafica, our very own Dr. Rainier Liboro recently received an American Association of Nurse Practitioners (AANP) grant, to conduct community-based participatory research focused on food insecurity, attitudes toward and adherence with a sodium-restricted diet, and the mental health of Southern Nevada Filipino-Americans with hypertension in a primary care setting. This grant funding will last till December 2023.

May 2022 Congratulations to both of our lab team’s graduate assistants for completing very important milestones! Sherry Bell‘s PhD Dissertation proposal to conduct a multi-site, CBPR mixed-methods study that will examine the impact of ethnic studies offered in secondary schools on the school engagement, social support, and critical consciousness of college freshman students in Nevada and California, was recently approved by her Dissertation committee. In the same week, Brandon Ranuschio successfully defended his MA Thesis work on a CBPR quantitative study survey that explored the awareness and knowledge of middle-aged and older people living with HIV/AIDS, and their healthcare and service providers, on aging, brain health, HIV, and the condition known as HIV-Associated Neurocognitive Disorder. Amazing work, Sherry and Brandon!

April 2022 This month, lab team research lead and Principal Investigator, Dr. Rainier Liboro, received two important recognitions. Dr. Liboro received the Community-Based Participatory Research Faculty Award Honorable Mention from UNLV’s Office of Community Engagement, and the Diversity Faculty Award from UNLV’s College of Liberal Arts, for his scholarly work, achievements, and contributions. Woo hoo!

February 2022 A hearty congratulations to Jenna Despres for her acceptance into the Lewis & Clark College Graduate School of Education and Counseling! Jenna will be joining Lewis & Clark College’s Master of Arts in Marriage, Couple, and Family Therapy Program in Portland, Oregon, in the Fall 2022 semester. Great job, Jenna! The lab team is really proud of you!

January 2022 The CHAMPION Mental Health Lab welcomes its new Research Assistants Nadia Sheik Yosef, Esmeralda Villalobos, and Janelle Wackens to our research team! Our new RAs have joined us just in time as we begin to conduct the second phase of our current research projects, our qualitative interviews. This semester, our lab is working on doing a preliminary analyses of our projects’ quantitive surveys. This analyses will inform the community reports that we plan to collaboratively develop with our community partners from Southern Nevada.

October-November 2021 It’s been a busy couple of months for the CHAMPION Mental Health lab team! In October, the lab team began screening and interviewing applicants for new openings for research assistants. The search and interviews continued in the month of November, and it looks like the lab should have their new research assistants in the new year! The lab team has also been busy attending and becoming involved in events sponsored by its community partners, which also serve as recruitment outreach efforts to increase the lab’s participants for its three ongoing online surveys. These events include outreach at the Huntridge Family Clinic, the Southern Nevada HIV Consortium’s Nevada Latinx AIDS Awareness Day event, the Golden Rainbow’s Vaccine Hesitancy Town Hall and vaccination drive, and other activities. It’s been hectic!

August 2021 The CHAMPION Mental Health lab began the rollout of the three surveys of their two research projects this month with the support of its primary community partners, The LGBTQ Center of Southern Nevada and Southern Nevada Health District, and multiple community collaborators and supporters (please see our Ongoing Studies web page for details). Our hope is to gain much information from the perspectives and lived experiences of community stakeholders, both service users and providers alike.

June 2021 This month, Sherry Bell, one of our team’s graduate students, presented our poster, “Perspectives of racial and ethnic minority older men who have sex with men on barriers and facilitators that foster resilience to HIV/AIDS in the 21st century”, at the 18th Biennial Conference of the Society for Community Research and Action (Div 27 Community Psychology of the American Psychological Association). Sherry was also part of a symposium presentation at the conference, along with undergraduate students of the Outreach Undergraduate Mentorship Program (OUMP) of the Department of Psychology. Sherry and the undergraduate students presented, “Challenging the narrative: A Participatory Action Research study understanding the career development of undergraduate Psychology students”. Congratulations, Sherry!

Also in the news this month, on June 26th, Dr. Rainier Liboro, attended, expressed his congratulations, and spoke at the grand opening of the Las Vegas TransPride Center. It was a momentous event and a significant milestone in Las Vegas history. The new Las Vegas TransPride Center is a safe haven and an important hub for services for our local trans community!

April-May 2021 These past two months, the CHAMPION Mental Health Lab research team presented two posters. One on a recently completed research project, and another on a research project that is about to begin by the end of this summer. During the Western Psychological Association’s 101st (virtual) Convention: The Big Issues, which was held last April 28 to 30, Brandon Ranuschio, one of our lab team’s graduate students presented our poster entitled, “Coping styles and specific coping strategies for promoting resilience to HIV/AIDS: A qualitative study on the lived experiences of older gay and bisexual men”. Not long after, Jenna Despres, one of our lab team’s research assistants, presented our poster entitled, “Awareness and knowledge on aging and HIV-Associated Neurocognitive Disorder: Service user and provider perspectives in Southern Nevada”, at UNLV’s Office of Undergraduate Research Spring 2021 Symposium, which was held last May 3 to 7. Props to Brandon, Jenna, and the rest of the team for presenting our lab’s research work! Kudos!

March 2021 The quantitative surveys for both ‘The Resilience of Middle-Aged and Older Men Who Have Sex with Men to HIV/AIDS: Stakeholder Perspectives in the 21st Century’ and ‘Awareness and Knowledge on Aging and HIV-Associated Neurocognitive Disorder: Service User and Provider Perspectives in Southern Nevada‘ research projects, led by CHAMPION Mental Health Lab graduate students/assistants Sherry Bell and Brandon Ranuschio, respectively, are well on their way to being completed and rolled out after an initial trial run with the help of the rest of the lab team! The next stage is to have the surveys reviewed by the lab’s community partners for edits and feedback. Great work by the entire lab team!!

January 2021 The CHAMPION Mental Health Lab just received approvals from the UNLV Institutional Review Board for its proposals for its two new CBPR projects to be conducted in Southern Nevada beginning 2021. These two new CBPR projects will involve the engagement and involvement of the lab’s community partners: The LGBTQ Center of Southern Nevada, The Southern Nevada Health District (Ryan White program), Aid for AIDS of Nevada, Golden Rainbow, and the Community Counseling Center of Southern Nevada.

This is a great start to the new year! Kudos to the lab team!

November 2020 Awards were given last month to two members of the CHAMPION Mental Health lab team. Graduate student Sherry Bell was recently awarded the Edward Lovinger Psychology Scholarship. As a new graduate student of the Psychology and Brain Sciences PhD Program, this was quite an achievement! Also, research lead Dr. Rainier Liboro was recognized by the UNLV Libraries and granted an Open Access Award for use of Digital Scholarship as the UNLV faculty member with the most full-text items for 2020.

Incidentally, Dr. Liboro presented an oral presentation at the Western Psychological Association’s 100th Convention last October 29. His paper was entitled, “Overcoming Barriers to Addressing the Impacts of HIV-Associated Neurocognitive Disorder (HAND) on the Mental Health of People Living with HIV: Service Provider Perspectives and Strategies”.

May 2020 Our research lab team participated in the Spring 2020 Virtual Undergraduate Research Symposium that was organized by UNLV’s Office of Undergraduate Research. The symposium was an asynchronous event that was held from May 1st to 8th. Presented by Aruna Sedere and Trinity Puno, the symposium’s judges chose our poster as the finalist in our category’s session. Kudos to Trinity, Aruna, and Jenna Despres, for a job well done! 

March 2020 The CHAMPION Mental Health Lab has started work on the quantitative analysis of the demographic survey data, and the thematic analysis of the qualitative interview data, of its most recent research project on the resilience of older adult long term survivors to HIV/AIDS. The findings and lessons learned from the analyses of the said data will go towards creating the content of a community/technical report that will be shared with all relevant stakeholders across Southern Nevada.

February 2020 Recent UNLV graduate Jenna Despres joins the CHAMPION Mental Health Lab this month after the lab conducted a series of interviews to select a new research assistant to be part of the lab’s team. Jenna graduated from UNLV in 2019 with a double major in Sociology and Psychology. Jenna brings with her abundant experience from other research labs at UNLV. Her research interests are an amazing match to the research focus and agenda of our lab. Welcome to the lab and the team, Jenna! 

December 2019 This month, Dr. Rainier Liboro officially joins the LGBTQ Center of Southern Nevada as its Academic Research Involvement and Engagement Liaison (research liaison, for short!). In this new role, not only will Dr. Liboro collaborate with the Center, and potentially its other community partners (i.e., Southern Nevada Health District, Affirmations LGBTQ Community Counselling Center, and the Huntridge Family Clinic) in developing and conducting research relevant to the clients and relevant stakeholders of the Center, but he will also be able to safeguard and promote the interests of the Center in future research work with UNLV and other research agencies and institutions. Next year, a plan to conduct an examination and evaluation of the Center’s services and programs, particularly those related to LGBTQ and client sexual and mental health, will be initiated and implemented in close collaboration with the Center and other community partners. Featured in the photo are Dr. Liboro, and Executive Director of the Center, Dr. John Waldron. 

November 2019 Just last week, undergraduate research assistants Aruna Sedere and Trinity Puno, represented the CHAMPION Mental Health Lab at the Undergrad Research Matching Event, which was sponsored by the UNLV Outreach Undergraduate Mentoring Program (OUMP), Psi Chi, and the Psychology Club. Trinity and Aruna talked about the lab, its research agenda, and plans for the year to undergraduate students who attended the event. They were able to gain a lot of interest and get an amazing response.

Great work, Aruna and Trinity! 

August 2019 Data collection for the “Older, Wiser, Fiercer: Racially Diverse, Middle-Aged and Older Men Who Have Sex With Men’s Resilience to HIV/AIDS” research project has recently wrapped up in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Fifty-five confidential, semi-structured, qualitative interviews were conducted across Southwestern and Central Ontario, Canada, from February to June, 2019, to examine the perspectives of middle-aged and older men who have sex with men on factors that have kept them resilient to HIV/AIDS since the beginning of the epidemic roughly 40 years ago. Demographic survey data were also collected from all 55 participants. Included in the photos are members of the Toronto research project team and the Toronto Community Advisory Board.