Abdullah Alam: Understanding Psychiatric Treatment Response

A digital badge is a new type of credential that allows you to show the specific skills you've gained through learning experiences. It's a clickable icon that can digitally display your work and accomplishments to key audiences, like future employers or graduate schools, when embedded on your digital resume, UB Portfolio or LinkedIn.

Learn more about micro-credentials and digital badges from UB's Office of Micro-Credentials.

In this project, Abdullah explored the validity of the Alternative Model of Personality Disorders in predicting outcomes and symptom change for individuals undergoing psychiatric treatment. Here is what Abdullah had to say about the experience:

What I Did:

"For my project, I analyzed clinical data from a local outpatient psychiatric clinic to see how personality dysfunction and traits affect treatment outcomes for depression and anxiety. I worked with real de-identified data, and spent weeks cleaning, organizing, and preparing it for statistical analysis. I used this data and the insights gained from it to create a research poster titled The Alternative Model of Personality Disorders and Treatment Outcomes for Depression and Anxiety Disorders, which I presented at the Society for Personality Assessment (SPA) conference in Denver, CO."

What I Learned:

"One of my proudest accomplishments was learning how to manage such a large and sensitive dataset independently. I was entrusted to handle sensitive clinical data which meant that I had to identify and remove confidential information and make sure that the data met ethical research criteria. This helped increase my attention to detail and accountability. This allowed me to become more confident when it comes to manage responsibilities and to also communicate with my research mentor, Dr. Lowmaster, more effectively. I developed key skills in data cleaning, statistical reasoning, and communicating my research. This was important when it came to translating technical results into a poster format meant to be accessible to all. I was able to grow both academically and professionally from this experience. It helped me hone in on my plans for graduate school to study data analytics."