Though she’s in her last semester at UConn, Kayvona Brown (‘25 CLAS) isn’t slowing down anytime soon. Her research is just too important. 

Brown, who is from Stamford, is a truly interdisciplinary scholar: a psychological sciences major with minors in sociology and women’s, gender, and sexuality studies (WGSS). Over her four years at UConn, she found a way to braid together her interests in psychology and supporting the health and development of women and children of color, especially Black mothers and children.  

Now, she is poised to pursue a Ph.D. in clinical or developmental psychology and “continue to make a difference in my community, with the people around me who don’t often get their voices heard.” 

On Trauma, Pain, and Healing 

Brown’s current research revolves around pain and post-traumatic stress – and ultimately, healing — among sexual assault survivors. 

“Typically, when we study PTSD, we are looking at veterans, survivors of natural disasters; those types of traumas, not necessarily sexual assault,” she says. “For people who do not have this experience, it can be a really taboo topic, and we don’t necessarily do a lot of that research within psychology.” 

She adds, “As a survivor myself, I really wanted to understand the biopsychosocial effects on my whole body.” 

Brown’s research has been supported by the national McNair Scholars program, a prestigious initiative designed to prepare undergraduate students for doctoral studies through involvement in research and other scholarly activities. 

The first research project Brown helped complete investigated how people of various gender identities experienced pain, as well as how they described this pain to male or female clinicians. She worked with Teresa Graziano ’24 Ph.D., and Natalie J. Shook, a professor in the School of Nursing. 

“When it comes to reporting pain, there’s a lack of research on transgender and nonbinary individuals,” Brown says. This project sought to fill this gap, exploring the complex gender dynamics between patients and clinicians, as well as how hormone replacement therapy can affect patients’ physiological experiences of pain. 

In November 2024, Brown was one of just eight students nationwide selected to share her research with the National Science Foundation and the Board of the US Department of Education at the annual McNair conference, hosted at the University of Maryland – Baltimore County. 

The more we learn about these symptom clusters, the more we can make better and improved treatments that are personalized for specific clusters.

She presented her poster “Relations between PTSD Symptoms Clusters and Pain within Recent Sexual Assault Survivors: An Examination of Racial Differences,” which she had previously shared at the Fall Frontiers in Undergraduate Research exhibition at UConn Storrs. 

This work explored how PTSD symptoms impact the experience of pain for sexual assault survivors. Overall, she found that women sexual assault survivors with greater PTSD symptoms tend to have greater reported pain severity and pain interference (the degree to which pain interferes with daily life). Brown also found a significant difference in the experience of pain between white and nonwhite survivors, with survivors of color reporting higher pain levels. 

“Pain and PTSD are highly comorbid – they go hand in hand,” Brown says. 

Brown is specifically intrigued by the way that PTSD symptoms tend to manifest in what are called “symptom clusters.” The DSM-5 defines four distinct clusters: intrusion (intrusive thoughts, nightmares, and flashbacks), avoidance (avoidance of potentially triggering situations), negative alterations in cognition or mood, and hyperarousal (reactivity, hypervigilance, and difficulty relaxing). Each individual with PTSD will experience different symptoms across these categories. 

 “The more we learn about these symptom clusters, the more we can make better and improved treatments that are personalized for specific clusters,” Brown says. 

Brown’s research is part of a growing tradition in the field of psychology that recognizes the interplay between people’s everyday experiences and their psychological and physiological symptoms. For instance, research has shown that experiencing racism can lead to heightened levels of chronic stress, which in turn can cause and exacerbate adverse health outcomes. 

Bringing it Home 

For Brown, just exploring this link through research wasn’t enough – she also wanted to try to help stop the cycle at its source. So she joined the UConn Women’s Center Violence Against Women Prevention Program (VAWPP) and started doing direct outreach in her community. 

With the VAWPP and its associated One Love program, Brown has spoken with students in First-Year Experience (FYE) classrooms and student athletes. She leads presentations on gender-based violence and how it can manifest in different environments, as well as intimate partner violence prevention and healthy relationships. 

Presenting her research on this subject to the Board of Education was a full-circle moment, Brown recalls. 

“We were able to really connect, and I was able to share my story and share the stories of millions of other women,” she says. “And I remember people coming up to me and saying, that was really impactful. I realized that was something that I really wanted to continue to pursue.” 

Currently, Brown is working on a research project entitled “The Impact of Self-Blame on PTSD Symptom Clusters in Interpersonal Trauma-Exposed Violence.” This work is taking with Board of Trustees Distinguished Professor Crystal Park, in her Spirituality, Meaning, and Health Lab. 

She is also working in the lab of Marketa Burnett, an assistant professor of Human Development & Family Sciences and Africana Studies. With Burnett, she’s supporting a one-of-a-kind research initiative dedicated to exploring the hopes and dreams African American parents have for their daughters, as well as how these hopes show up in their parenting styles. The project’s title is “‘Getting her to see herself the way I see her’: Exploring Black Caregivers’ Hopes and Dreams for their Daughters.” 

One variable the research team is investigating is how Black parents are supporting their daughters in dreaming big by encouraging both creative expression and STEM ambitions. 

“A lot of parents don’t teach [girls] that STEM is an option for them,” Brown says, “and if they do, they’re teaching them to do nursing or become a doctor. But there are other types of STEM, like getting your Ph.D. and being a scientist.” 

Soon enough, Brown will be taking the next step in her academic journey to do just that.