Dr. Debrielle T. Jacques

Assistant Professor and Lab Director

Dr. Debrielle T. Jacques (she/her/hers) is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Psychology at the University of Washington, working and advising in the Child Clinical Psychology area. A developmental psychologist by training, she also works closely with UW's Developmental Psychology area. Broadly speaking, her work examines the effects of parental (particularly maternal) addiction and substance use on child development and family processes. Her work utilizes and integrates developmental, family science, and other disciplinary theories to examine these effects and processes across multiple levels of analyses (e.g., individual and dynamic family, parent, and child factors). Aside from her substantive empirical work, she also studies different theoretical and metatheoretical approaches used to study intersections between parental addiction and family and child functioning. She holds a B.S. in psychology from The Pennsylvania State University, an M.A. in psychology from Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, and a PhD in developmental psychology from the University of Rochester. She joined the University of Washington's Child Clinical Psychology area in 2022.

Dr. Jacques' Approach to Advising and Mentoring

I am deeply committed to scaffolding students' development and supporting students' professional and academic success. I strongly believes that success in academia is not antithetical to health and well-being, and that students' lived experiences are important assets to their training and success in graduate school. Thus, my advising approach is inherently student-centered and student-driven. All students have unique, individual needs, skills, interests, capabilities, goals, challenges, and growth areas. So mentoring and advising cannot be a universal, one-size-fits-all approach, and I try hard to tailor and calibrate my advising and support for students based on each individual student. I also believes that advising is and should be a collaborative venture with the student. That said, these are some of my perceived and externally noted strengths:

I...

...love deep, intentional, theoretically-driven, and integrative science. This manifests in advising as:
- Encouraging and pushing students to think more deeply, critically, and intentionally about the utility and use of theory in empirical work.
- Encouraging students to critically match or connect theories and concepts with hypotheses and aims, methodology, and analytical approaches for all projects.
- Encouraging students to approach analytical interpretations from complex theoretical lens.
...love nuance, complexity, abstract and dynamic concepts, ideas, and projects. All of my work (and work on which I collaborate) embraces these principles and attempts to advance the field through forward-thinking, integrative work.
...encourage students to think and develop independence. This includes independent critical thinking, creativity, and problem-solving.
...expect mentees to be deeply curious and take their time to understand complex phenomena and develop studies that uniquely capture real-world complexity. In my lab and work, "doing things for the sake of doing them" (e.g., rushing into a study to get a publication), and without intentional apriori thought is not encouraged.
...am deeply committed to my students, and only admits students when I can fully support them throughout and beyond their doctoral training.
...have high expectations and standards for all work generating in her lab. BUT, I scaffold and support students to develop the skills and capabilities to meet (and even exceed) those expectations.
...value training that creates thoughtful, intentional scholars who operate with scientific integrity, inclusivity, and respect.
...love working with students who know what they want, hold themselves accountable, work diligently, and work collaboratively. I believe students should play an active role in shaping their learning and training experiences. And this requires communication, consistency, respect, and more.
...love students who are happy to take direction, guidance, input and feedback from professors, teammates, advisors, and collaborators.
...love students who are deeply curious and seek to apply diverse skills to a depth of topics.
...enjoy demystifying academia, particularly for first-generation students and others who have not been exposed to academia's idiosyncrasies.
...value and try to model work-life balance, and human-centered scientific processes, and encourage all students to do what is best for them, even if (and especially when) those decisions are hard.

Not all advisors are perfect. We all possess many strengths that make us unique and capable advisors and mentors, while also having key areas of growth or improvement. Some areas I am actively working to improve:

Not overwhelming mentees. I am very passionate and committed to my research, team, community, and science in general. This passion often translates to or manifests as me throwing a lot of complex, high level ideas, theories, or opportunities on my students. And they can get and have gotten overwhelmed at times. Sometimes, I struggle to separate my degree of interests, understanding, and passion for this work from my students. Even though they all note feeling immensely supported and value the work-life balance I encourage and model, I can still forget that "not everyone thinks like me" or will be receptive to my approach. The good thing is that I both recognize and acknowledge this, and am working to be less intimidating and overwhelming.
Juggling high standards with students' needs and experiences. I care deeply about rigorous, high quality science and have specific ideas and approaches I believe work to produce this work. However, students may enter with or be exposed to alternative approaches and may struggle adjusting to some of my expectations and standards. One recent example involves learning, integrating, and subsequently writing about theoretical frameworks; there are many knowledge gaps (since theory is often not taught in undergraduate programs) and consequently, lack of experience working with theories, particularly for new students. While I refuse to lower standards for the quality of research I and my students produce, I can do a better job scaffolding early learning and experiential opportunities for students to develop familiarity and comfort with theoretical and other models.
Advising in the clinical program. While my background and training as a developmental and family scientists presents nuanced and interdisciplinary opportunities for students, it also means there are gaps in my knowledge of and experience with clinical program requirements. This means I do not have lived experience navigating clinical training, juggling clinical training with research and other program responsibilities (e.g., TAing), and advising through administrative and logistical processes, like clinical internships and practicum opportunities. While this is a gap in my background and knowledge base, I know when I need support and have secured program and faculty support for my students in the clinical area. So, for example, while I may be less helpful than an advisor with a clinical PhD, I believe good mentoring and advising is a true collaborative effort that can be amplified by other clinical faculty and training staff. Just know that there might be times when you are experiencing program-specific stress (e.g., around client sessions, internship applications, learning and deploying a therapy technique) and may have "up mentor" (aka mentor me) in some of these experiences.

I am sure I have many other strengths AND many other growth areas. And I only get better when students and team members share feedback and support with me. Therefore, I work hard to build psychologically safe environments where constructive but supportive and encouraging feedback are natural, common, and expected. Mentoring and advising are deeply important to me, and being part of students' journeys is one of the most rewarding aspects of my job.