About
Kyaien O. Conner
When Kyaien O. Conner came to the School of Social Work as a master’s degree student interested in therapy and mental health and began her first field placement, she was surprised to meet resistance from potential clients in Pittsburgh’s neighborhoods. “There’s a lot of mistrust of mental health clinics and mental health providers among the African American population, and older people in particular,” she says.
Currently a post-doctoral fellow in the Clinical Training in Geriatric Psychiatry program at Western Psychiatric Institute and clinic, University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, Conner is focused on attaining grant funding, multiple publications and advanced training in clinical interventions research. “This post-doc will help me to be prepared to go onto the academic job market in two years, and to attain an assistant professorship in a school of social work.”, says Conner, who as a student was named a Hartford Doctoral Fellow by the Gerontological Society of America and won the Graduate Student Research Award from the American Society on Aging.