Where are they now: Zeb Gibb

Zebbedia G Gibb, received his Ph.D. in social psychology on Dec. 10, from the University of Nevada in Reno. While this is the acme of his formal education, Zeb looks forward to lifelong learning through his research.

He graduated from Kimball High School in 2000 and attended Western Nebraska Community College to get his general education credits.

Zeb said he attended the nearest community college, "mainly because I wasn't sure what I wanted to do with my life. This let me stay close to the area and help my grandpa out at his farm during the summers."

While using his downtime from college to help on the family farm, Zeb also took the chance to travel.

"I was also able to go to Europe for a two-week whirlwind tour, which was an amazing and eye opening experience," he said.

Following graduation at WNCC, he chose to continue his education at the University of Wyoming, though he was still unsure about his career path.

He graduated from UW after three years, but in his final semester he met with a professor to talk about his future.

"At that time, I wanted to be a college professor (I mean, who wouldn't want a job where you set your own hours?) and knew that my passion was in psychology," he said. "He suggested that I look into Masters programs just to make sure that was what I wanted to do, but also supported the idea that I apply for a Ph.D. Program."

As a product of Zeb's search for a master's program, he was accepted to the University of Northern Iowa for a terminal master's program with a teaching internship.

Zeb continued coming home when time allowed to help his grandfather and work at Pizza Hut. He earned his masters from that institution, and began researching Ph.D. Programs. He found the right program at the University of Nevada Reno, though his search for higher education came with struggle.

"Once that program really became intense and the studies I was running required more time, I stopped coming home for the summers and just really dedicated myself to the process, although I was still able to visit for a couple of weeks every year," he said. "There really isn't much time for 'life' when you are pursuing an advanced degree so you can get burned out pretty fast. I lost several family members during the time period that I was getting my degree, so trying to cope with that and still make progress was hard as well."

Many mentors helped Zeb shape his future, beginning at home here in Kimball.

"I would consider myself lucky to say that I've always had mentors along the way. From my dad, throughout all of my primary and secondary years I've always been able to find one or two teachers that really seemed to push me in different ways," he said. "Some that stick in my mind are of course my dad, who always encouraged me to figure things out on my own, and always pushed me to do the best I could. Mrs. Eleanor Larson, Mrs. Cain in fifth grade, as well as Mrs. Gerner in sixth, seventh and eighth all come to mind. I remember Mrs. Gerner encouraging me to just write – even though I am sure it wasn't even readable at that point. In my undergrad, Dr. Matt Gray was really the first college professor that suggested I look at other fields besides clinical (psychology) which really opened my eyes to different possibilities. In my master's program, it was Dr. Helen Harton, who always pushed me to do even better than I had previously, and always supported my ideas (even when she wasn't quite sure that the IRB would approve them). In my Ph.D. program, it was my advisor, Dr. Paul Devereux, who supported me in exploring my own way even though it wasn't necessarily his specific area of study."

In his senior year of high school Zeb enrolled in Mr. Don Meyer's introduction to psychology course, and it was there that his passion for this science, research and education was ignited.

"I think that class was the first time that I really got excited about a course, and really discovered psychology as a field," he said.

"I didn't think that psychologists really did anything but study people who were depressed or anxious, and my idea of a psychologist was an old man who sat on a chair smoking a cigar and asking about your mom," he said.

Instead, he found that the sheer number of topics covered by psychology was mind blowing, and the fact that there was always some new discovery to be made really fired his curiosity.

"It was an undergrad professor that suggested that I look into the other disciplines in psychology, especially after I told him that I really didn't want to be a therapist and wasn't quite sure what to do besides that," he said.

Eventually, Zeb would narrow his focus down to social psychology, which he describes as a sub-specialty that focuses on the social aspects of being human – how we think about others, what we believe about others, how we interpret others behaviors, what we think others are thinking about us, how we experience emotion in relation to others, how we function in a society and how that society then shapes what we think, believe, and feel.

Currently he is working at a specialty geriatric clinic that focuses on the individual and their very specific needs. Zeb's role is program evaluation – he sees the clients first and establishes physical, social, and overall quality of life benchmarks.

"The goal of the clinic is to improve the client's overall life – and it is my job to determine if these goals are being met," he said. "We are still in the early stages, but will be seeing some return clients within the next couple of months so it is exciting to see if the services provided by the clinic have had a positive impact on the people we are seeing."

He successfully published two articles on cyberbullying in college.

"Most researchers still suggest that cyberbullying behaviors don't occur much after high school, and suggest that most funding should focus on high school and younger. Getting my research published and recognized by others has been amazing," he said. "And seeing a citation count grow every year is also satisfying (this means that people are paying attention to your work and are suggesting that be included in the general pool of knowledge surrounding that subject)."

Zeb hopes to continue his personal research focused on the acceptance of aggressive behaviors and the consequences thereof, both on the targets of aggression and the aggressors.

"I would also like to continue evaluation of programs, as I think a lot of programs are started with the intent to really change the lives of people but don't have the tools to evaluate their impact," he said. "I think that if programs could understand what impact, if any, their program is having on their target population, then it would be easier to change the program as necessary to provide the best possible experience for their targets."