Dr. Sydney Tran’s extraordinary path from College of Liberal Arts student to mixed-methods researcher and Oregon State instructor
Dr. Sydney Tran
By Selene Lawrence, CLA Student Writer - October 30, 2024
All it took was an introductory course during Dr. Sydney Tran’s, M.S. ‘21, Ph.D. ‘24, undergraduate studies for her to fall in love with psychology. “I just selected psychology out on a whim and then really enjoyed it,” Tran recalled of her time at the University of La Verne in Southern California. “I got lucky. I had a few professors who sparked my interest in psychological research.” Upon the completion of her bachelor’s degree, Tran knew she was committed to continuing her education and exploring her full potential. In 2018, she visited Oregon State University and found that the welcoming community and the research conducted within the School of Psychological Science made it a perfect fit. She began her Ph.D. program there one year later, and set off on a journey that she would truly make her own.
While in her doctoral program, Tran decided to focus her dissertation on how disability is regarded in the Asian-American community. Her interest in the subject was partially influenced by her coursework, but had deeply personal roots. “I have a great-aunt who has schizophrenia, and it was something that our family and our culture in general just didn’t talk about,” Tran said, “I didn’t understand what she had until I had studied psychology.” Tran’s family experiences shaped not only her approach to studying the cultural influences on disability beliefs, but also her work ethic. From the very start, Tran’s work has been anchored in her commitment to empathy, something that she has found to be indispensable in her studies.
Apart from her background, Tran cites coursework around disability and stigma taught by Dr. Kathleen Bogart as being central to the development of her dissertation. After taking Dr. Bogart’s Special Topics in Psychology: Ableism graduate course, Tran’s passion for the subject soared, and she made the decision to join the Disability and Social Interaction Lab after the third year in her degree program. “It was fun,” she said, “it was incredible. I feel like I had a lot of guidance and mentorship, and a good mentor fit really makes all the difference in grad school.” Tran became close not only to Dr. Bogart, but also to her fellow labmates. Together, they grew into a collaborative and encouraging community. “I really felt support from all of my labmates,” said Tran. “We had this mutual understanding that all ideas that are shared are valued. All of the voices in the lab matter.”
Tran proposed her dissertation in the fourth year of her studies, and began her research by conducting a literature review focusing on stigma and disability in the Asian-American community. The project presented its own unique challenges, as she found Asian-Americans to be underrepresented in disability research, and often homogenized as a monolithic group. “My thought was that there are probably misrepresentations of health outcomes and disability beliefs if you lump everyone together, so my initial goal was to disentangle that and figure out if there are differences of beliefs by different regions,” Tran explained.
From there, she designed and developed an online survey to quantitatively gauge different beliefs about disabilities. After completing the quantitative phase, Tran gathered a group of participants for a qualitative interview-based study, which Tran regarded as the most rewarding part of her dissertation. The participants shared about their experiences living with a disability and how that part of their identity had been impacted by their community.
“Some of them expressed that they appreciated the space to share because I don’t think that they typically get to share very much about their experiences. Being able to uplift their voices was really empowering. Overall, it was a project that felt really meaningful to me. It was a lot of work,” she admitted, “but it didn’t feel like work for most of it because I enjoyed it so much.”
Tran may have only just completed her Ph.D. program in the spring of 2024, but her empathetic and innovative contributions to the field of psychology are just beginning. Soon after completing her doctorate, Tran began working as a research investigator conducting health economics and outcomes research—a position she attributes to landing because of her dissertation. “When I was designing my dissertation, I really wanted it to be both quantitative and qualitative,” Tran said. “I wanted to be marketable when I graduated school.” In a field mostly populated by strictly quantitative researchers, Tran’s knowledge and experience in mixed methods made her stand out from the crowd.
In addition to her new research position, Dr. Tran officially joined the School of Psychological Science as an instructor in fall 2024. While pursuing her doctorate degree, she succeeded as an in-person and online instructor teaching General Psychology. Now, Tran will be teaching a range of psychology courses, including General Psychology, Psychology of Race and Racism, and Thinking Like a Psychological Scientist. As her teaching career begins, Tran wants her students to know just one thing: “Be curious, be confident, and be open. We all bring value to the classroom, and we all have something to learn from one another.”