Award Recipients
Life Paths Research Center offered eight travel scholarships for scholars and advocates for presentations that focus on under-served or disadvantaged communities.
Four Life Paths Promising Scholars and three Promising Advocates were named for ResilienceCon 2026. We are proud to announce the 2026 recipients of the Life Paths Promising Scholar & Advocate Awards!
Life Paths Promising Scholars
Zohra Asad
Zohra Asad is an ABD, PhD candidate at Indiana University School of Social Work and an assistant professor at Grand Valley State University. She has an MA with honors, a gold medal, a Presidential Award, and an MSW. With experience as a lecturer and teacher in Pakistan, she has collaborated with organizations like Save the Children USA and Catholic Relief Services. Her research focuses on child abuse, street children, and social entrepreneurship, emphasizing trauma-informed support and culturally responsive engagement. Zohra is dedicated to community advocacy, reducing stigma, and advancing strength-based strategies to help individuals thrive.
Auriel Jasper-Morris
Auriel Jasper-Morris is a Counseling Psychology doctoral candidate whose clinical and research interests focus on trauma, resilience, and health disparities in marginalized communities. She is particularly committed to understanding how Black women navigate stress, healing, and care-work, and to advancing culturally grounded, trauma-informed approaches to well-being.
Rajanya Nandi
Rajanya Nandi is a fourth-year Doctoral Candidate in the School of Social Work at Indiana University, Indianapolis. Her research explores healthcare experiences of sex workers and survivors of sexual trafficking in the U.S. Midwest, focusing on stigma, structural inequities, and system-level barriers. She also examines childhood abuse and cardiovascular disease, geographic variation in help-seeking behavior, Black men’s cultural trauma, and caste-based ritualized prostitution in India through a reparative justice lens. Her scholarship integrates public health and social work frameworks, emphasizing trauma-informed, community-driven approaches to health equity, and teaching on research, mental health, human rights, justice, and policy.
Guiying (Angel) Zhong
Guiying (Angel) Zhong is based in Ann Arbor, Michigan, and serves as a Research Associate at the University of Michigan Institute for Social Research. A youth mental health advocate and scholar-activist, Angel’s lived experience profoundly shapes her research focus. Angel centers her work on uplifting the self-determination of communities and youth, believing that research should amplify voices rather than prescribe solutions. Currently, Angel is engaged with the Promoting Community Conversations About Research for Effective Solutions (PC CARES) team, contributing to curriculum development aimed at expanding their community health education model to new topics and audiences.
Life Paths Promising Advocate
Renaldo Wilson
Renaldo Wilson brings over 20 years of health sector experience across private and public organizations, driven by his passion for equity and anti-oppression. He holds degrees in Jazz Performance, Exercise Physiology, Nutrition, and Comparative Near Eastern Religions and Philosophies, with certifications including Functional Nutrition, Diabetes Education, and Corrective Exercise Techniques. His career spans roles as Program Director for New Mexico’s NUPAC, National Equity Engagement Officer for the Tobacco Control Network, and Health Education Manager for LA County Public Health. He formerly worked with Kaiser Permanente and taught nutrition and exercise physiology at Pacific Oaks College.