Ph.D. student Samuel Ochinang’s finds spot at intersection of military service, social work
VCU School of Social Work Ph.D. student Samuel Ochinang grew up in a military family and has found his calling at the intersection of social work and serving as an active-duty Army major with the Medical Service Corps.
“My journey in the Ph.D. program, along with my position, will improve my technical and managerial skills to influence organizations and future leaders,” he says.
“As I moved into my adult life and had experiences in and around the military, I started to read about what social workers do and the profession itself, and it clicked with some of the values that I’ve maintained. I just didn’t know it was a profession.”
Ochinang was recently recognized at the annual U.S. Army Medical Center of Excellence Graduate School Research and Education Symposium, where his presentation on impulsivity and suicide among first-year college students won the Best Research Abstract award.
“When I became a social worker, what brought me into wanting to study suicide was, unfortunately, experiencing multiple suicides with some of the Army units I was serving with,” he says. “Seeing the effects of those suicides on the units, the families and the behavioral health providers of whom I was in charge – it was tough. I see my research as a tribute or an ode to the individual struggling with suicide, and the families, friends, the community in general. I just want to do my part.”
» See the full story at VCU News.
Categories Education, Research, Students