Sofia Sytniak
By Zoë Eitel
With her degree in psychology, Sofia Sytniak’s goal is to work with underserved communities and help those who haven’t had the same opportunities as she has.
This has led Sofia to work as a research assistant for Dr. Antonio Polo in DePaul’s Clinical Psychology Department and as a Participant Engagement Intern for the Northwestern Institute for Sexual and Gender Minority Health and Wellbeing (ISGMHW).
Sofia has been a research assistant since her sophomore year and she was guided to the opportunity by a graduate student who came to speak to one of her classes when she was a freshman. After learning about the Culture and Evidence-Based Practice Lab from that student, Sofia emailed the professor to see if she could get an unpaid role as an undergraduate, and she’s been there ever since—nearly three years now.
Research Assistant at DePaul in Clinical Psychology Department
Participant Engagement Intern at Northwestern Institute for Sexual and Gender Minority Health and Wellbeing
BS Psychology 2019
“DePaul’s social justice orientation got me interested in working with underserved communities, so that made me interested in working with the Culture and Evidence-Based Practice Lab at DePaul, which does work primarily with racial ethnic minorities and low-income individuals,” Sofia says.
Sofia was also connected to her internship at Northwestern through DePaul when the professor in her lab introduced her to someone who was interning at the ISGMHW. It’s been important to Sofia to take advantage of the opportunities around her, especially while she was at DePaul, and she advises other students to do so as well.
“Take advantage of all the resources that DePaul has, especially finding professors who are interested in the stuff you’re interested in because that’s been really important and helpful for me.”
“Take advantage of all the resources that DePaul has, especially finding professors who are interested in the stuff you’re interested in because that’s been really important and helpful for me,” she says. “My general experience of DePaul professors has been that they’re all really excited about mentorship and really want to help their undergraduate students.”
Sofia found other opportunities through DePaul’s resources. She was able to apply for and receive a fellowship with the Chicago Department of Public Health in their HIV/STI Research Bureau through the College of Science and Health. In that internship, Sofia did data analyses to look at what populations are most at risk of contracting HIV and STIs so the CDPH could inform doctors on how to best prevent it.
She applied for another CSH fellowship position with Rush University’s Autism Research Center but didn’t receive it. However, she was offered a volunteer role as a clinical research assistant with the Autism Research Center, which she accepted. It was important to Sofia to accept the role even in a volunteer capacity because of the experience she could gain through it.
“The volunteer positions were able to provide me with those skills that I knew were important for applying to PhD programs in the future, getting a lot of research skills, experience working with people from different populations,” she says.
Something Sofia has found helpful in her various roles and internships is having different forms of leadership so she could observe what environments she preferred and worked best in. She’s also been able to better understand the type of relationship she wants with a future supervisor.
