Metzli Lombera

Metzli Augustina Lombera (she/her) is a sixth-year graduate student in the Child Clinical Psychology program at Penn State. Metzli attended the University of California Berkeley for her undergraduate studies, where she received a bachelor’s degree in psychology. As an undergraduate, Metzli volunteered in a variety of psychology labs focused on child development, ADHD, and sleep. After graduating, she gained clinical experience by working at a halfway house. Metzli also worked as a research coordinator at St. John’s University with Dr. Elissa Brown examining childhood exposure to trauma.

Metzli was drawn to Penn State’s Child Clinical graduate program because of its renowned faculty and training opportunities in the fields of child maltreatment and quantitative methods. Under the mentorship of Drs. Yo Jackson, Martha Wadsworth, and Carlo Panlilio, most of Metzli’s work to date has focused on improving the assessment of childhood trauma. Her master’s project showed that the way child maltreatment is measured, for example, assessing the frequency versus severity of trauma, impacts its relation to mental health outcomes, such as suicidal ideation. Metzli published a separate study with Dr. Elissa Brown showing that different types of maltreatment, such as family violence versus sexual abuse, relate differently to mental health outcomes. She has received numerous awards during her time at Penn State, including the Leadership Education to Advance Diversity (LEAD) Institute’s Fellow Award from the Society of Clinical Child and Adolescent Psychology. Metzli was also awarded a predoctoral fellowship on Penn State’s Child Maltreatment Solutions Network T32 training grant, Training the Next Generation of Scholars in Child Maltreatment.

For her dissertation project, Metzli will develop a supplement to a common trauma measure that assesses the traumatic experiences of transgender and gender diverse adolescents. This measure will be developed through interviews with adolescents aimed at understanding forms of trauma that are not captured by current measures. Following graduation, Metzli would like to extend her research by examining how attending to a child’s identity within trauma-informed therapy can improve treatment outcomes. In the future, Metzli hopes to run her own research lab training future clinical psychologists and studying trauma-informed therapy for diverse youth.