B.Sc.H. | Bachelor of Science (Honours) in Psychology

Experience in LGBT2SQ research

Sofia Melendez’s work broadly focuses on enhancing mental health services and higher education systems to be more welcoming towards gender and sexual diversity. Currently, Sofia is completing a Master of Education at Queen’s University where she is researching how to improve the education that mental health professionals receive about transgender-spectrum (trans) health. She has a background in psychology (B.Sc.H ) and will begin her clinical psychology training at Ryerson University in the Fall of 2021.

Thanks to her exposure to the research fields of psychology, education, and gender, she has the capacity to apply the strengths of diverse ways of knowing that enable her to support diverse and marginalized communities through her research. As a queer Mexican-Canadian Mestiza woman and an uninvited first-generation settler on the lands of the Haudenosaunee and Anishinaabe, Sofia leads and supports projects that are gender-transformative, anti-oppressive, and collaborative. She draws from critical pedagogy, intersectionality, and decolonial approaches in her work.

Interest in LGBT2SQ research

Across North America, mental health professionals and trainees are ill-equipped to work with transgender-spectrum (trans) communities (Heng et al., 2018; McCann & Sharek, 2016; O’Hara et al., 2013). The aim of this study is to develop a tool that tests and supports trans health education for mental health professionals. This trans health educational tool contains clinical situations with (1) multiple-choice questions to test the knowledge, skills, and reflexivity of mental health professionals (Lievens et al., 2008) and (2) educational feedback about the situation. We hope this tool can be used in clinical courses, self-assessments, and research.

Through the development of this tool, trans voices will steer the transformation of mental health training. The tool may promote social accountability in mental health professionals who may be in a better position to support trans people.

Published Work

• How do Bisexual individuals navigate sexual issues? [Conference Abstract]
• From reactive to proactive support of transgender and/or gender non-conforming students in teacher education: Update on initial findings and action steps [Paper presentation]