Assessment of Depression Symptoms: Self-report Paper-and-Pencil and Computerized Questionnaires

I was one of nine children from a migrant farm-working family in central California. My experiences as a farm-worker and as a member of an ethnic minority roused a strong interest for seeking social and economic justice for Latinos. While at California State University, Fresno, I was a student and community activist involved in several causes, including increasing access to higher education for ethnic minority students and supporting the United Farm Workers union. As a psychology major, I was disturbed by the lack of valid research on Latino populations. After graduating college, I worked for several years as union organizer for the Service Employees International Union Local 250. I entered graduate school to study clinical psychology. At first, I aspired to become a clinician to provide bilingual services but over time my interest in research grew.While completing a clinical post-doctoral fellowship at the University of California, San Francisco, I collaborated with Dr. Ricardo Muoz. We conducted research on computerized speech recognition for assessing depression symptoms in Englishand Spanish-speaking patients. After this fellowship, I became an assistant professor in the department of psychology at California State University, San Marcos. I am the former director of the National Latino Research Center at that school. I am the former director of the NLRC. Currently the Dean of Graduate Studies and Associate Vice President for Research at CSUSM. The emphasis of the NLRC is to promote research on Latino populations in the areas of health, education, and community development; however, my research interest remains the bilingual computerized assessment of depression.