The Carolyn and Stephen Schroeder Practice-Informed Research Award

Drs. Carolyn and Stephen Schroeder

The Carolyn and Stephen Schroeder Practice-Informed Research Award was established in 2016 by Drs. Carolyn and Stephen Schroeder.  Carolyn is an Adjunct Faculty member of the Clinical Child Psychology Program; Steve was a former Director of the Schiefelbusch Institute for Life Span Studies (LSI). Carolyn has provided supervision, support, and mentorship to a great number of CCPP students and faculty for many years. Prior to her work here in Kansas, Carolyn was instrumental to the development of the specialty area of Pediatric Psychology, primarily through her work in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. Specifically, she established one of the first primary care pediatric psychology clinics in the country (1973), which continues to serve as a model for the field.

Interest from this endowed fund will facilitate and encourage innovative research that is informed by clinical work. Eligible recipients are limited to graduate students enrolled in the Clinical Child Psychology Program (CCPP) at the University of Kansas. The award will be used to fund new research leading to the completion of the master’s thesis, research task, or dissertation, or another research project of publishable quality. The award will be in the amount of approximately $5000*. Applications will be considered annually, with a submission deadline of April 1.

Eligible research projects are practice-informed and may include a range of topics, including, but not limited to:

  • Issues pertinent to integrated services and primary care
  • Evaluation of the implementation of psychological services, including screening assessment and brief therapeutic services, in a clinical setting
  • Service satisfaction and treatment outcomes in efforts to improve clinical service

Past Award Recipients

  • 2023 Ali Zax

  • The Mediating Effects of Cognitive Flexibility on the Relation Between Trauma Exposure, Bilingualism, and Mental Health Symptoms in Latinx Youth

  • 2020 Adrian Ortega

  • Understanding States of Receptivity for Adolescent Physical Activity and Digital Health Engagement: A Temporally Augmented Goal Setting Intervention

  • 2019 Jessica Guler

  • Physical and Mental Health Concerns of Refugee Parent-Child Dyads Exposed to Trauma

  • 2018 Tiffany Kichline

  • Feasibility of an mHealth Physical Activity Intervention for Pediatric Chronic Pain

  • 2017 Amy Noser

  • Relationship between Physical Activity and Glycemic Variability in Adolescents with Type 1 Diabetes

Application Procedures

Application materials will be provided to the Administrative Associate of the CCPP in electronic format by 5:00pm on April 1 (or the following Monday, if the 1st falls on a weekend). Applications that do not conform to the specification (below) will be returned to the applicant without review.  The application should be accompanied by a brief letter of support from the faculty supervisor(s).  To maintain the anonymity of the review process, the letter of support will not be sent with the application to the reviewers. 

Complete applications will include

  •  a 150-word abstract of the proposal
  •  a 15-page APA-formatted proposal (i.e., double spaced, 1-inch margins, APA-style referencing) with masking of the student's identity
    • The 15-page limit includes the following: Background/Literature Review, Method, Plan for Data Analysis, Importance/Innovation, andReferences.
  • a detailed budget of proposed expenses (including sources of additional funding already dedicated to the proposed project)
  • a description of Institutional Review Board (IRB) approval status, and
  • a list of 5 potential outside expert reviewers who are (a) qualified to evaluate the study design and impact, and (b) unacquainted with the applicant.

Applications will be evaluated by an external committee chosen by the Director of the Clinical Child Psychology Program, and made up of one former student of the CCPP and two external reviewers (possibly including those proposed by the applicant). Committee members will evaluate the masked proposals based on the following characteristics: innovation, potential to impact clinical/developmental literature or practice (i.e., potential for publication), methodological rigor, feasibility, and appropriateness of budget to scope of project.  Each committee member will score the proposals in terms of the characteristics noted above. Applications with a mean total score of less than 35 will be considered "below threshold." The CCPP faculty will review the evaluations and scores provided by the committee members, and will grant the award to the student with the highest mean score. If only one proposal is submitted in a given year, funding will be granted if the committee determines that the proposal meets minimum criteria for acceptability (mean total score > 35).

The grantee/student will submit annual reports of research progress to the CCPP faculty, detailing expenditure of funds, and any significant deviations from the proposed budget. A final report and copy of the resulting manuscript(s) will be submitted to the CCPP faculty at the conclusion of the project.

*based on performance of the KUEA fund in which the principal is held. Specific award amount will be determined on February 1 of each year.