Alejandro L. Vázquez, PhD

Chart showing the U.S. Hispanic population grew from 9.6 million in 1970 to 68 million in 2024.

In 2024, 68 million Hispanics made up 20% of the U.S. population.
www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/...

First day of NLPA Summit at the U.S. Mexico border hosted by UTRGV. Grateful to have Michelle Silva as co-chair in organizing this event. 🎉🎊

NIH races to spend its 2025 grant money — but fewer projects win funding Despite political obstacles, officials are on track to disburse all of the research funds allocated to US biomedical behemoth.

Staff members at the NIH seem to have done the impossible: spend the agency's $48 billion budget.

“Everyone has been rallying together to clean up the mess, but it’s a mess that did not need to be made,” an NIH program officer told me.

www.nature.com/articles/d41...

We hope to see you at the NLPA 2025 Summit in Texas. This year, you can choose to attend in-person or virtual. Register through the following link: ow.ly/nzsO50WWagM

Please share widely! Review starts 9/19. 🟧⬜️ 🟧⬜️

Accepting Clinical or Counselling Psychology Grad Student?

Its counseling and clinical psych Ph.D. program application season! If you are looking for potential mentors to apply to, check out the following resource:

docs.google.com/spreadsheets...

Cynthia Navarro Flores and I will be reviewing applications for the counseling psychology PhD program @ UTKPsychNeuro (2026-2027 academic year).

Lab webpage: tiny.utk.edu/thrivelab
Apply: tiny.utk.edu/psycapply

Apps are due by Dec 1st. Please help spread the word! 🙏🏼

Bridging Traditional-Statistics and Machine-Learning Approaches in Psychology: Navigating Small Samples, Measurement Error, Nonindependent Observations, and Missing Data - Rosa Lavelle-Hill, Gavin Smi... In recent years, machine learning has propagated into different aspects of psychological research, and supervised machine-learning methods have increasingly bee...

Outstanding new paper on machine learning at AMPPS-- hit the virtual stands this summer. journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10....

a man with a beard is smiling for the camera . ALT: a man with a beard is smiling for the camera .

Reading the first round of discussion questions for my class and they are all criticizing the PHQ-9 as an outcome measure and talking about the weaknesses of ignoring individual symptoms when analyzing data

📢 We are hiring!

The Department of Psychology & Neuroscience at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville is inviting applications for two tenure-track positions in

Counseling Psychology:
Assistant Professor
Assistant or Associate Professor

Apply here 👉 apply.interfolio.com/172545

Models as Prediction Machines: How to Convert Confusing Coefficients into Clear Quantities Abstract Psychological researchers usually make sense of regression models by interpreting coefficient estimates directly. This works well enough for simple linear models, but is more challenging for more complex models with, for example, categorical variables, interactions, non-linearities, and hierarchical structures. Here, we introduce an alternative approach to making sense of statistical models. The central idea is to abstract away from the mechanics of estimation, and to treat models as “counterfactual prediction machines,” which are subsequently queried to estimate quantities and conduct tests that matter substantively. This workflow is model-agnostic; it can be applied in a consistent fashion to draw causal or descriptive inference from a wide range of models. We illustrate how to implement this workflow with the marginaleffects package, which supports over 100 different classes of models in R and Python, and present two worked examples. These examples show how the workflow can be applied across designs (e.g., observational study, randomized experiment) to answer different research questions (e.g., associations, causal effects, effect heterogeneity) while facing various challenges (e.g., controlling for confounders in a flexible manner, modelling ordinal outcomes, and interpreting non-linear models).

Figure illustrating model predictions. On the X-axis the predictor, annual gross income in Euro. On the Y-axis the outcome, predicted life satisfaction. A solid line marks the curve of predictions on which individual data points are marked as model-implied outcomes at incomes of interest. Comparing two such predictions gives us a comparison. We can also fit a tangent to the line of predictions, which illustrates the slope at any given point of the curve.

A figure illustrating various ways to include age as a predictor in a model. On the x-axis age (predictor), on the y-axis the outcome (model-implied importance of friends, including confidence intervals). Illustrated are 1. age as a categorical predictor, resultings in the predictions bouncing around a lot with wide confidence intervals 2. age as a linear predictor, which forces a straight line through the data points that has a very tight confidence band and 3. age splines, which lies somewhere in between as it smoothly follows the data but has more uncertainty than the straight line.

Ever stared at a table of regression coefficients & wondered what you're doing with your life?

Very excited to share this gentle introduction to another way of making sense of statistical models (w @vincentab.bsky.social)
Preprint: doi.org/10.31234/osf...
Website: j-rohrer.github.io/marginal-psy...

It’s Not a ‘Mutual-Defense Compact.’ But a New Ad From 18 Universities Aims to Send a Message. The Big Ten’s member institutions have collaborated on a 30-second TV spot that will air during conference football games and other sporting events.

The Big Ten is airing a video advertisement defending higher education at its sporting events and on broadcasting channels. The effort comes after faculty leaders within the conference pushed their institutions to adopt a "mutual-defense compact."

Intersecting identities, different struggles: The effects of demographics on experiences of discrimination and mental health outcomes among college students in Texas Diversity among college students has increased and, yet experiences of discrimination persist and predict mental health symptoms. The role of various overlapping demographics in predicting discriminat...

🚨New pub🚨

Intersecting identities, different struggles: The
effects of demographics on experiences of
discrimination and mental health outcomes
among college students in Texas

doi.org/10.1371/jour...

📢 We are hiring!

The Department of Psychology & Neuroscience at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville is inviting applications for two tenure-track positions in

Counseling Psychology:
Assistant Professor
Assistant or Associate Professor

Apply here 👉 apply.interfolio.com/172545

#NLPA2025 Summit registration is open. Excited to soon learn from and be in community with other Latinx psychologist.
If you haven’t already, consider attending this timely conference. Hope to see you in Texas!

www.nlpa.ws/2025-confere...

Consider supporting the #NLPA2025 Summit, which will expand student access, support culturally grounded programming, and facilitate advocacy for Latinx mental health across the country. Sponsorship opportunities available through the link: www.nlpa.ws/2025-sponsor...

NLPA pre-conference registration now open for two great workshops! Hope to see you there! www.nlpa.ws/2025-pre-con...

Our department has a new name: 🟧⬜️🟧⬜️
artsci.utk.edu/new-name-ref...

Big life event! Nearly two weeks into being a girl dad. Barely slept but grateful that my wife and baby Sofía are healthy. Going to have to learn some new time management techniques. 👶🏻👨🏻‍🍼

🤣🤣

Visitor on the deck today 🦅

🚨 New article with infographic! Kindly retweet! The full article is open-access and available here: doi.org/10.1037/amp0...

🚨New pub🚨

Looking for a caregiver self-report measure of youth mental health support need and utilization? Our new paper evaluates the Caregiver Support Services Questionnaire within a sample of Latinx caregivers. The new measure is open access.🎉🎊

dx.doi.org/10.1371/jour...

Sign The Open Letter to Stand Up For Science Now! Science is under siege. Trump’s latest Executive Order calls for politically appointed science commissars to evaluate research. Join us in adding your name to our open letter condemning Trump’s escala...

Science is under siege. Join us in adding your name to our open letter condemning Trump’s escalated assault on science in America. #StandUpForScience actionnetwork.org/petitions/op...

NLPA is seeking reviewers for conference proposals. Please consider volunteering through the following link: ow.ly/C9zT50W1FGK

NLPA PROPOSAL DEADLINE HAS BEEN EXTENDED! Consider submitting a proposal for this years Summit. 🎉🎊https://www.nlpa.ws/

Appreciate you! 🙏🏼

Thanks! You can keep it. It’s got old copy of my dis but I have back up 🤣

Grateful to @lluaces.bsky.social and the Association for Psychological Science for the invitation to present my work on Latinx caregivers’ beliefs about the causes of youth mental health problems. Survived not loading presenter view and having to do the talk without notes. 🙏🏼🍾

How Trump promotes a radical, unscientific theory about sex and gender in the name of opposing ‘gender ideology extremism’ A gender studies expert explains why the Trump administration’s claim that everyone is male or female defies science and ignores the complexity of human sexuality.

The Trump administration’s claim that everyone is male or female goes against science, according to a researcher who has studied the claims of biological determinists.