Gabriela Nagy, UWM assistant professor of psychology and principal investigator, EQUITY Research Group, has been chosen for the 2025 Morris Fromkin Memorial Grant and Lecture.
Her proposal is titled “Resilience, Resistance, and Rhetoric: What Latino/a Immigrants Teach Us About Health and Humanity.”
The primary goal of Nagy’s project, she writes, is “to develop a popular press book that . . . [focuses] on how Latino/a immigrants resist oppressive systems and rebound from chronic stress and trauma in the US.”
Her book will “challenge the pervasive deficit lens through which Latino/a immigrants are often viewed, focusing instead on their remarkable resilience and the protective factors that safeguard their mental and physical health despite chronic stressors, trauma, and systemic oppression.”
“The book,” she continues, “will target the general public, offering insights into how Latino/a cultural values and practices can inform healthier, more resilient ways of living for all people in the US.”
Nagy has published extensively in journals including Psychological Services, Ethnicity & Health, Hispanic Journal of Behavioral Sciences, and Nursing Research, and is associate editor for Journal for Health Services Psychology.
Before her appointment in 2022 to UWM’s Department of Psychology, Nagy served as assistant professor in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavorial Sciences at the Duke University School of Medicine and assistant clinical professor in the Duke School of Nursing. She received her PhD in Clinical Psychology from UWM in 2017.
She will present the results of her research at the Morris Fromkin Memorial Lecture in fall 2025.
The amount of the grant is $5,000. This year’s Fromkin committee members were Michael Doylen, Nan Kim, Kumkum Sangari, Anne Widmayer, and Max Yela.
Established by Morris Fromkin’s family and supported by an endowment from Fromkin’s grandson, Daniel Soyer, the lecture series, dedicated to social justice, is the longest running lecture series on campus. The program is administered by the UWM Libraries.