Raquel Sosa ’25G selected for the AAHHE Graduate Student Fellowship Program 2023

Raquel Sosa, a doctoral student in the COE’s counseling psychology program, was recently selected for the Graduate Student Fellowship Program of the American Association of Hispanics in Higher Education (AAHHE). As a first generation college student and daughter of Mexican immigrants, Sosa credits her family and mentors for her presence at Lehigh, “Without them, my journey would not have been the same” she said.

"I chose the Lehigh University College of Education because of the counseling psychology program’s strong social justice focus. I always knew I wanted to mentor other children of immigrants and provide bilingual services to the Latinx community. I saw the research being done in this program, specifically in the ALIVE lab (Lab for Advocacy, Liberation, Immigration, Vocational Psychology, and Education), as an avenue to do that.”

The AAHHE Fellowship Program provides strategies for Latina/o/x doctoral students in order to prepare them for successful careers in academia. The program also supports Latina/o/x scholars interested in pursuing careers within administration and policy in postsecondary education. In addition, the AAHHE provides constructive research feedback and looks to build community among these amazing scholars. Raquel Sosa was chosen based on a number of criteria, and as a new member of the prestigious Fellowship, she will receive the support mentioned above and represent Lehigh University at the national level. 

Sosa currently works at the Jefferson Center City for Behavioral Health in Philadelphia, PA. The center is an outpatient community mental health clinic that provides dialectical behavioral therapy (DBT) counseling to adults 18 and up who are Medicaid recipients. “The clients I have the opportunity to work with have so much resilience,” and added, “I truly enjoy working with folks from the community.” In the past, she has worked at the Community Voices Clinic in Bethlehem and Tower Health in Philadelphia.

In addition to her studies and work, Sosa enjoys trying new places to eat in the Lehigh Valley. “I've been in the area for about three years but there's so many places I have not tried yet,” she added, “ I recently tried a Colombian restaurant in North Bethlehem and it was delicious.”