Richard Southee’s path less traveled

When Richard Southee enrolled as a first-year college student at Cochise College in 2011, he was fresh out of high school and admittedly unsure of what path his life would take. After a disastrous first semester, he decided to take another path and enlisted in the U.S. Army. 

“Transitioning from being a community college dropout to the military, it conditions you to work in high-stress environments to manage stress in a different way and to be focused,” Southee said.

After basic training, Southee was stationed at Fort Hood in Texas with the 69th ADA (Air Defense Artillery). Within two years, Southee found himself stationed as a field medic in Bahrain. For 10 months, Southee was the sole medical provider for up to 100 on duty soldiers and worked as field medic for acute clinical care, traumatic injury and preventive care.

By the time Southee completed his service, his path was clear — he was going to make an impact in health care.

While pursuing his bachelor’s degrees in linguistics and Arabic at the University of Arizona, Southee worked as a patient care technician at several Tucson facilities. He continued similar work through completing his master’s degree at ASU in linguistics and applied linguistics.

Southee was inspired by work Matthew Prior, an associate professor of English, was doing as a discourse analyst with the ASU Department of English.

Southee’s master’s thesis, “Language in Trauma: A Pilot Study of Pause Frequency as a Predictor of Cognitive Change Due to Post Traumatic Stress Disorder,” examined the cognitive burden of PTSD in veterans using speech patterns.

His thesis sparked the interest of Cindi SturtzSreetharan, a professor in ASU’s School of Human Evolution and Social Change, who encouraged him to apply to PhD programs that could incorporate his work in health care, linguistics and trauma.

“I really enjoyed working with Professor SturtzSreetharan and she provided a lot of really valuable insight into some of the projects I was working on. My decision to apply at ASU was almost entirely based on wanting to continue to work with her,” said Southee. “I feel my trajectory has been a little atypical and she has been a huge supporter and helped me along every step of the way.”

Southee enrolled into the School of Human Evolution and Social Change global health doctoral program in 2021. Throughout his doctoral studies, Southee has maintained full time employment at Central Arizona Shelter Services (CASS) — a feat that is rarely achieved.

Southee began with CASS as a rapid re-housing case coordinator during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic. In his role, he helped people experiencing homelessness move into temporary housing. He then moved on to being a behavioral health case manager, and eventually secured his current position as the assistant director of programs where he manages and trains program staff.

His work with CASS, coupled with his time as a field medic, was the catalyst for his doctoral studies.

“The Venn diagram of my professional and academic work is basically a circle. One of my strongest core beliefs is that we have an obligation to help people around us when we are able to,” said Southee. “All of the research I do is intended to be applied, and is really driven by challenges and barriers I faced as a case manager. The research I did for my dissertation was done at CASS, and we used the findings to make decisions about our program design.”

On Feb. 12, Southee successfully defended his doctoral dissertation, “Implementation of a Life Experiences Checklist to Understand Distribution of Life Experiences Among the Sheltered Homeless Population.” It was the final step in Southee’s academic journey from community college to PhD.

ASU News caught up with the 2023 Knowledge Exchange for Resilience Fellow to talk about his research and future plans.

Question: What was your “aha” moment when you realized you wanted to study global health?

Answer: I don't know if I had an “aha” moment for global health specifically. Homelessness is certainly a global problem, and is a health problem. The program aligned with what I was intending to accomplish, and so it worked out well. I really can't emphasize this enough - Professor SturtzSreetharan was such an incredible mentor that I was almost entirely applying to the program to work under her.

Q: Do you have any personal ties to the subject that inspired you to pursue studying mental health in the unsheltered?

A: I grew up in a single-parent home and my mom worked a lot to keep us afloat. There were occasions where I could see the struggle as a kid, but we never went hungry, and the lights stayed on. My relationship to my work is almost entirely one as a staff member and researcher. But my clients were certainly inspiring to me.

Q: I know it's a big ask to distill down your thesis into a quick sound bite, but can you tell us a little bit about your research area and findings?

A: My project surveyed for 16 traumatic life experiences and I tied that to five years of professional observation of homeless service environments. I identified that every single response had at least 10% endorsement of those 16 life experiences, and some even had over 50% endorsement  which highlights how extremely prevalent trauma is among people experiencing homelessness. I believe that services for people experiencing homelessness should be informed by clients and responsive to their trauma.

Q: What’s something you learned while at ASU — in the classroom or otherwise — that surprised you or changed your perspective?

A: I took a class with Clinical Associate Professor Jennifer Pereira where we talked about the neurobiology behind trauma, and really what happens in our bodies during and after traumatic events. What was taught in that class was legitimately life altering for me.

Q: What’s the best piece of advice you’d give to those still in school?

A: There are times to chase perfection, and there are times to do what is necessary to get it done. Knowing when the time is for each is important.

Q: What was your favorite spot on campus, whether for studying, meeting friends or just thinking about life?

A: I'm a people watcher and an eavesdropper. I think it comes with being a linguist, we're a very nosy group of people. So I loved going to sit outside the Memorial Union and just watching everyone move around.

Q: What are your plans after graduation?

A: Homelessness is a national problem, and I would love to work with some national organizations that are addressing homelessness or doing research on challenges in the homelessness and housing space. So if you know anyone who's hiring, let them know I'm interested!

Q: If someone gave you $40 million to solve one problem on our planet, what would you tackle?

A: I'd love to say homelessness but unfortunately I don't know if $40 million would solve it. We're an increasingly global society, and the truth is I don't know if $40 million would solve any problems. However, one of the challenges in homelessness is that resources are thin, so piloting novel solutions is becoming increasingly difficult. Providers don't want to risk already limited resources on a new project that might not work. But there are a lot of great ideas or theoretical solutions to homelessness that would almost certainly be effective if they could get funding.