I am a doctoral candidate in educational psychology at The University of Texas at Austin working under the supervision of Dr. Kristin Neff. I previously completed a masters degree in education with an emphasis in quantitative methods at UT-Austin. While playing on the womens basketball team at Fort Lewis College, I received a bachelors degree in Psychology. My academic and sport experiences have led me to the field of sport psychology. My research primarily focuses on developing athlete resilience in the face of stress and adversity through mindfulness and self-compassion. Within the next few years, I hope to become a Certified Mental Performance Consultant to help athletes navigate the challenges they encounter both in and out of sport.
In broad terms, my research interests include understanding factors that influence resilience in the face of adversity and failure. More specifically, I'm interested in self-compassion as it relates to motivation and performance for academic and athletic populations.
Kristin Neff (Supervisor)
Researches the psychological health benefits of self-compassion, drawing from fields of social and personality psychology, developmental psychology, and clinical psychology; developed an empirically supported training program called Mindful Self-Compassion that is taught worldwide.
Kristin Neff is not currently accepting new graduate students.
NCAA Graduate Student Research Grant
Bouncing back from failure: A self-compassion intervention with NCAA student-athletes.
Fail Better: A brief self-compassion intervention with NCAA student-athletes, Association for Applied Sport Psychology, Virtual Conference (2020)
What would a positive coach say? Enhancing goal-directed self-talk through self-compassion, Association for Applied Sport Psychology, Virtual Conference (2020)
Positive Coaches: A new perspective for self-compassion in sport, Association for Applied Sport Psychology, Virtual Conference (2020)
Self-compassion in sports: Athletes may benefit more from taking a coachs perspective than a friends, North American Society for the Psychology of Sport and Physical Activity, Baltimore, MD (2019)
Self-compassion as a moderator between fear of failure and academic motivation for undergraduate student-athletes, American Educational Research Association, New York City, NY (2018)
Insights into common athlete mistakes and the role of sport motivation on goal commitment, Canadian Society for Psychomotor Learning and Sport Psychology, Toronto, Canada (2018)
Overcoming fear of failure: Self-compassion in sport psychology, Rocky Mountain Psychological Association, Salt Lake City, UT (2015)
PerformHappy with Rebecca Smith
How to build resilience and to stop being so hard on yourself without becoming a slacker, so you can see how being kind to yourself can actually massively improve your performance.
Athletes and Self-Compassion: A Better Alternative to Beating Yourself Up
Fail Better Training: Building Resilience in Sport and Performance
