#AISSLobo
The American Indian Student Services’ #AISSLobo highlights students from across the UNM community on the AISS social media platforms, including Facebook, Instagram, and Snapchat.
Krystal Lapahie (Diné) will be walking across the UNM Commencement stage this week! This #AISSLobo is a senior majoring in Psychology and minoring in Statistics. She’s plans to continue her education and pursue a PhD in Educational Psychology and focus her research on cognitive and emotional development in children and adolescents. Through her research she plans to address disparities that Indigenous populations, herself included, face when seeking support and pinpoint how this may affect performance and wellbeing in educational settings. Krystal selected psychology as a major because she was interested in working with people; over the years, she’s explored jobs, internships, and research opportunities that fostered her aspirations to develop evidence-based interventions to support learning and behavioral needs for underrepresented youth. Her higher education journey began in high school as part of the San Juan College High School where she was able to earn an associate’s degree in Liberal Arts. At UNM, she took part in the 2023 AISB Fall Experience Program; served as an AISS Ambassador; joined many students organizations, including Diné Club; has been recognized a McNair Scholar; and is a part of UNM Honor’s College. Her volunteer/internship/research experience is vast! She’s been a Registered Behavior Technician at the JumpStart Autism Collective, a research assistant under Dr. Jeremy Hogeveen at the Cognitive & Affective Neuroscience of Psychopathology (CANoPY) Lab, an Occupational Therapy Volunteer for Climbing Tree Therapy, to name a few. When she’s not busy rocking it in the classroom or the lab, she’s having a great time skateboarding and roller-skating, doing karaoke, playing the guitar and piano, drawing, and journaling. This Shiprock, NM local has a Diné and Filipino background – she takes pride in listening to & learning from Diné stories and taking part in Filipino traditions like throwing coins on the floor on New Year’s Eve to symbolize good fortune for the upcoming year. Krystal shares that her proudest UNM moment has been finally getting into a lab, where she conducted research on how psychotic symptoms in adolescents affected their decision-making abilities, which shaped her perception of the field of psychology, drew her towards a potential career in academia. She offers these words to the Lobo community, “It's okay to start over. You learned something, and that's progress.” It’s been amazing to have seen Krystal achieve so much during her time at UNM, she’s set herself up for success and has never wavered from being a positive & caring person. Congratulations on this huge accomplishment and we look forward to all you will do in service of others & Indigenous peoples.
