Erica Figueroa, 2015

Local Community Coordinator at Center for Public Partnership and Research, University of Kansas

Professional Background

I am currently serving as the Local Community Coordinator at the Center for Public Partnership and Research at the University of Kansas. I am currently the Local Community Coordinator on a Early Childhood Coordination Systems Grant. This is a federal grant awarded to the state of Kansas to build a comprehensive early childhood system of care, with the goal of raising the number of three year old children meeting developmental milestone by 25%.

How has being a P&N graduate helped shape your professional success?

Being a graduate of the Psychology and Neuroscience department at Duke greatly helped me achieve professional success. What I learned about human interactions during my coursework helped me to be a successful operation manager leading the top packing team in the country within the Target corporation. My experience with qualitative and quantitative research and early childhood development at the WILD (Wilbourn Infant Lab at Duke) helped me be a competitive candidate and be able to jump in head first into helping create a comprehensive system for early childhood in Kansas. Those professors I had in the department of Psychology and Neuroscience have inspired me to continue learning and my ultimate career goal is to get a PHD in clinical psychology.

 
 Erica Figueroa, 2015