Ava Keating (MAP '23) is the recipient of this year’s Wallace Loh Award for Academic Excellence. Given to the outstanding graduating student in the College of Arts & Sciences Graduate Programs, Ava is the 3rd MAP student to receive this award. Rarely does our therapeutically oriented program in psychology encounter a student who is so successfully and simultaneously committed to the scholarly, clinical, and sociopolitical dimensions of this most difficult work. Ava’s scholarship, in the context of clinical and liberatory psychology has tremendous potential to alter the way clients, clinicians, and the public at large think about what being therapeutic means, and for whom.
"I didn't just learn how to do therapy, I learned a way of being - a way of turning towards others - that has provided an essential foundation for my career as a play therapist. Throughout the program, I was immersed in stimulating readings and vibrant class discussions that inspired a complex way of thinking about the human experience."