Attention Magazine October 2023

CHADD is excited to announce that Zoe R. Smith, PhD, and Jess N. Smith, MS, are the recipients of the 2023 Young Scientist Research Awards. Every year this program attracts stellar candidates conducting research on a wide array of topics in ADHD.

Applicants select an example of their research for review. Postdoctoral awardee Zoe Smith submitted, “Trauma experiences and associations with functional outcomes for Black and/or Latine adolescents with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder.” Predoctoral awardee Jess Smith submitted, “Transdiagnostic Mechanisms of Youth Externalizing Psychopathology from Childhood to Adolescence: A Longitudinal Person-Centered Approach.”

Experts from CHADD’s professional advisory board evaluated and selected the top applications. The awards are currently supported by individual donations. Winners will receive their awards at the 2023 Annual International Conference on ADHD in Baltimore, Maryland, November 30–December 2, 2023.

Zoe R. Smith, PhD

Zoe R. Smith, PhD, is an assistant professor in the department of psychology at Loyola University Chicago. She earned her PhD in clinical psychology, with a concentration in child and adolescent psychology, from Virginia Commonwealth University in 2020, under the mentorship of Joshua Langberg, PhD. She completed her clinical internship at University of Chicago Medicine and postdoctoral fellowship with Grayson Holmbeck, PhD. Dr. Smith is part of the inaugural class of the Health Equity Scholars for Action, and her research focuses on creating and providing culturally responsive mental health services for Black and/or Latina/e/o (Latine) adolescents with ADHD. Her current Robert Wood Johnson-funded project, Culturally Responsive Assessments for Teens (CRAFT), provides free psychodiagnostic assessments for Black and/or Latine adolescents with suspected ADHD in the Chicagoland area. This project includes teen and parent advisory boards, where one learns about the intersectionality of having ADHD and discrimination experienced by families. Dr. Smith’s team, along with community partners, focuses on increasing awareness of bias in ADHD diagnosis, increasing health equity models of mental health services, creating culturally responsive assessments and interventions, and serving Black and/or Latine families with ADHD. This work also seeks to increase public mental health services in the Chicagoland area through advocacy-based research.

Jess N. Smith, MS

Jess N. Smith, MS, is a doctoral candidate in the clinical science in child and adolescent psychology program at Florida International University. She received her bachelor’s degree in psychology from Ohio University and her master’s degree in psychology from FIU. Her dissertation and research submission for this award is funded by an NIH National Research Service Award fellowship. The project will consider the symptoms of ADHD and disruptive behavior problems that tend to co-occur and how these symptomatic groups change over time. It will also consider predictors (such as cognitive and emotional functioning) and outcomes (such as academic/social impairment, substance use) of these groups and common pathways between groups over time. More broadly, her program of research is focused on the measurement of cognitive functioning as well as the potential causes of ADHD’s diverse presentation and its high rate of co-occurrence with related disorders in youth. The long-term goal is that this work may improve assessment and intervention efforts.