This past week Psyc Insight conducted an interview with Professor Dr. Shifren on her career, what she studied as an undergraduate student, and how it helped propel her to where she currently is at in her career. Recorded below is information about Dr.Shifren’s background, her research interests, as well as tips she provided for undergraduate psychology students.
As an undergrad, Dr. Shifren attended UMBC and graduated with a degree in Psychology, with a Biopsychology concentration and a Minor in Sociology. While studying at UMBC, Dr. Shifren had a remarkable resume of experiences. The two experiences that impacted her the most were working at the National Institute On Aging (NIA) (thanks to advice from the UMBC Career Center) and with Dr. Teti on an infant attachment experiment (using the Strange Situation). Dr.Teti is a distinguished professor at PennState who specializes in human development and family development . While working at the NIA, her passion for the field of psychology of aging was sparked, because the elder’s cognitive functions and behaviors fascinated her. However, working on Dr. Teti’s infant attachment experiment was also quite influential because it helped her realize that she did not want to work with children after one interaction where an infant punched her in the nose. Despite this, she stated it was a very educational experience, because she oversaw and ran the whole experiment while Dr. Teti was out of town.
The experiences at UMBC and at the NIA helped her to get accepted to graduate school at Syracuse University where she earned her doctoral degree in Lifespan Developmental Psychology. After graduate school, she worked as a Visiting Assistant Professor at the University of Florida for three years. Then, she did a two-year post-doctoral position at the University of Michigan at the Institute of Gerontology and Institute for Social Research focused on research on aging.. Finally, she settled into her current position at Towson University.
At Towson University, Dr. Shifren regularly teaches Human Development (PSYC 203), Adolescent Psychology (PSYC404), and the Psychology of Aging (PSYC 405). These two topics align similarly to her own personal areas of study: the role of personality in mental and physical health in caregivers and those living with chronic illness. Dr. Shifren has studied early caregiving and includes a lifespan approach to the work. She is currently conducting a study on living with heart disease across the lifespan.
- “What inspired you to work in the Psychology field? Did you always want to?”
Dr. Shifren’s response: “ It all happened by accident. I was originally on the pre-med track as an undergraduate, and I changed my major halfway through college. This is because when I had recently received my CPR certification, my friend and I noticed someone choking in the dining hall. At this moment, I froze. I did not get up to help when I was qualified to, and I felt that if I did not intervene in a low-scale scenario then when there were more intense situations I would not do well under pressure. I could not in good conscience continue my major. I spent time trying to figure out how to use all of my pre-med coursework in a new major. I decided on the Biopsychology concentration as a good fit for my health psychology focus. This allowed me to graduate on a similar timeline so I thought I’d give it a chance.”
- “What advice would you give to students who don’t know what they want to do with their psychology degree after they graduate?”
Dr. Shifren’s response: “The best advice I can give any student is to get hands-on experience. Getting an internship or working on a research project is very crucial. This way you can see what you like and dislike. Many companies and graduate programs want to see evidence of experience in the field, and students can obtain excellent recommendations and skills in their area of interest. Having a good professor is helpful when learning the content, but a class will not tell you if you want to pursue a career in a specific discipline.“
- “What is a good way for students to get involved in their preferred area of research?”
Dr. Shifren’s response: “I recommend working with faculty at Towson University on their research projects. I also recommend going online to the Johns Hopkins’ website and searching for research opportunities. They have many internships as well as full/part-time jobs. This is a great way to network within the community. The National Institutes of Health is another great source for local opportunities, right here at the Johns Hopkins Bayview campus.”
- “How did you first get involved in the research field?”
Dr. Shifren’s response: “I became a research assistant in a Developmental lab at UMBC to get some research experience. I was trained to set up interviews, do a Q-sort task, tape the vignettes of the Strange Situation for a study on attachment by Dr. Teti. However, when Dr. Teti was out of town, the graduate student (who was the Stranger in the Strange Situation) got sick. I had to run the whole experiment and record it as well.”
- “Was there a key moment in the research field that helped you get to work in the current field that you wanted?”
Dr. Shifren’s response: “I think a pivotal movement for me what the work I did for the National Institute on Aging (NIA) because it helped me get a strong recommendation and grab the attention of my personal dissertation advisor”. Dr. Hooker was studying the correlation between mental, and physical health, and personality in caregivers for spouses with probably Alzheimer’s Disease. My personal statement discussed my own experiences as a caregiver for my mom beginning at age 14 when my mom had her first heart attack. Dr. Hooker’s interest aligned with mine and the work I had conducted at NIA. One thing I realized is that grades are important but they are not everything. The work experience and what you’re passionate about matter just as much if not more.“
- “ Have you ever had a great idea but been told that you could not implement it? How did you react and what did you do?”
Dr. Shifren’s response: “I was interested in conducting research on young caregivers under the age of 18 and how being a caregiver that young affected their long-term development. At this time there was no prior research being done in the U.S. on this topic besides a small group of Nurse Practitioners in Missouri. Everyone kept telling me that this demographic of caregivers under 18 did not exist, which I knew was not true, because I, myself, was a caregiver for my mother when I was under the age of 18. However, a group in New York was interested in this topic as well and they somehow heard about me and contacted me. I went to the first U.S. conference on early caregiving including colleagues from the U.K. and was on the advisory panel for the first national study about early caregiving. The first study estimated that there are 1.4 million individuals under the age of 18 caring for adults in the U.S. I began my work on this subject in 1998, and, to my knowledge, I had been the first psychologist in the U.S. to study and publish about the early caregiving concept.”
- “What is your proudest career moment?”
Dr. Shifren’s response: “My proudest moment is probably when I was crying at my doctoral hooding ceremony. When I was younger, I was terrified of public speaking, and I was feeling so many different emotions. I was proud of my achievements and that I was able to learn to do public presentations and teach courses. I was so proud of how far I had come. My dad has an Associates Degree in Electrical Engineering, and my mom had a high school diploma. I was the first member of my family to earn a Bachelor’s degree, and then I just kept going for a Master’s degree and Doctoral degree.“
- “What research are you currently working on?”
Dr. Shifren’s response: “Right now, I am working on a few different projects. One of them is an analysis and a paper write-up on a pre-pandemic caregiving study on caregivers across the lifespan and how the relationship between personality and identity correlates with mental and physical health. I have recently begun a study on living with heart disease (began during the pandemic), and this study examines heart related experiences, impact on identity, and the relation of personality and identity to mental and physical health of those living with heart disease.“
Grace Pagano