The Outstanding Graduate Professional Practice Award recognizes a student who demonstrates excellence in professional activities related to educator preparation including pedagogy, best practices, assessment, and the translation of research to improve practice.

Emi is an exceptional scholar and a skilled and dedicated professional that is licensed as both a mental health counselor and a marriage and family therapist. Currently, Emi practices at the PACE (Practical and Academic Cultural Education) Center for Girls but has also practiced with the Shands Vista Crisis Stabilization Unit for seven years. Emi has demonstrated outstanding professional practice in the field of counseling through service to her clients, continuous professional development, training of counseling professionals, and supervision of counselor education and counseling psychology students. She has dedicated herself to the study of holistic counselor preparation. Emi’s dissertation study is an examination of a mindfulness intervention to improve multicultural competence in counselors.