Meet the Summit Invited Program

José M. Causadias is an Associate Professor of Family and Human Development at the School of Social and Family Dynamics at Arizona State University. He earned a Ph.D. in Child Psychology at the Institute of Child Development of the University of Minnesota. His research focuses on the role of cultural rituals, such as funerals and graduations, on the mental health and wellbeing of Latinx children, youth, and families.

Kaysha Corinealdi, Ph.D., is a historian, author, and educator whose work connects community histories, imperial legacies, questions of citizenship and belonging, and the causes of transformational change. Her book Panama in Black: Afro-Caribbean World Making in the Twentieth Century (Duke University Press, 2022), centers on the activism of Afro-Caribbean migrants and their descendants as they navigated practices and policies of anti-Blackness, xenophobia, denationalization, and white supremacy in Panama and the United States. Her writing can also be found in Radical History Review, Public Books, Social Text, the Washington Post, and Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society, among other publications. Dr. Corinealdi has presented her work nationally and internationally on themes such as Black feminist internationalism, Afro-Latinx educators in New York City, and anti-Blackness in the Americas.

Ezemenari M. Obasi, Ph.D. is the Vice President for Research at Wayne State University. Dr. Obasi’s research focuses on the neurobiology of stress, addictions, and cancer prevention within the context of health-equity science. While at the University of Houston, he served as the director of a national center, HEALTH Center for Addictions Research and Cancer Prevention and the Founder/Director of UH’s HEALTH Research Institute. Ultimately, he is committed to bringing about positive change to underserved and minoritized communities where he is actively involved in the community while disseminating cutting-edge research designed to improve their quality and length of life. Dr. Obasi earned a Ph.D. in Counseling Psychology at The Ohio State University, while also obtaining a minor in Quantitative Psychology in the area of psychometrics and data analysis. He completed his pre-doctoral internship at Harvard Medical School: McLean Hospital.

Kimber Bogard, Ph.D., is the Deputy Executive Officer and Director for Programs at the National Academy of Medicine. In this role, Dr. Bogard aligns programmatic priorities with strategic impact. She oversees several national and international programs with a mission to improve health for all by advancing science, accelerating health equity, and catalyzing innovation. Previously, Dr. Bogard was the Sr. Vice President for Programs and Strategy at the New York Academy of Medicine. She oversaw three centers that worked to achieve health equity through building integrative community partnerships and policy solutions, participatory evaluation, and applied research, and centering older adults in program and policy development. Dr. Bogard is a developmental psychologist by training who brings a life-course perspective to her work.

Kristine J. Ajrouch, Ph.D., is a Professor of Sociology at Eastern Michigan University and an Adjunct Research Professor at the Institute for Social Research at the University of Michigan, where she co-directs the Michigan Center for Contextual Factors in Alzheimer’s Disease. A Fellow of the International Society for the Study of Behavioral Development, she adopts a life course perspective to the study of social relations and health. Her research has focused, for over 25 years, on Middle Eastern/Arab American populations (MENA), beginning with ethnic identity formation among adolescent children of immigrants, followed by the study of aging and health disparities. Dr. Ajrouch’s current work is funded by the National Institute of Aging, where she addresses social aspects of Alzheimer’s disease (AD). She has been the recipient of a Fulbright award, where she taught and conducted research in Lebanon. Dr. Ajrouch is the Past President of the Society for the Study of Human Development. 

Jacob “Jake” Fitisemanu Jr., MPH, was born in New Zealand/Aotearoa to Karen Dang (Kaimukī, Oʻahu, Hawaiʻi) and Jacob Fitisemanu Sr. (Falefā, ʻUpolu, Sāmoa) and raised in Hawaiʻi and Utah. Jake holds a master’s degree in Public Health from Westminster College and works for Intermountain Healthcare as a Community Health Program Manager. He was appointed by President Obama to the President’s Advisory Commission on Asian Americans & Pacific Islanders in 2015 and was also appointed to the U.S. Census National Advisory Committee for two terms. Jake co-founded the Utah Pacific Islander Health Coalition (which he has chaired since 2011), serves on the Huntsman Cancer Institute Community Advisory Board, and teaches community health dynamics as an associate instructor at the University of Utah. He lives with his wife and two daughters in West Valley City where he founded the Healthy West Valley Initiative and was recently re-elected as a member of the City Council. 

Micere Keels, Ph.D., is a Professor in the Department of Comparative Human Development at the University of Chicago. She is also the Policy and Practice Leader for the North Carolina Early Childhood Foundation. Her research focuses on understanding how race, ethnicity, and poverty structure the supports and challenges that children and youth experience. She is particularly invested in systems-change interventions that can narrow intergenerational inequities. The Fight for Black Lives documentary film is her first attempt at using popular narrative forms to influence how people understand persistent inequities.

Allison Kelliher, M.D., is an Alaska Native physician and traditional healer originally from Nome, Alaska. She is Koyukon Athabascan or Dena’ and is board-certified in Family and Integrative Medicine.  She is a Research Associate at Johns Hopkins University School of Nursing and the Bloomberg School of Public Health, Center for Indigenous Health, where she teaches and performs community-based research while maintaining connection to her culture.  She serves as the secretary for the Association of American Indian Physicians, as well as on the board for Rosebud Sioux Tribe’s Sicangu Oyate Health System.

Matt Wray, Ph.D., is an Associate Professor of Sociology at Temple University. He holds an M.A. and a Ph.D. from the University of California, Berkeley. He has also been a Postdoctoral Fellow at the National Museum of American History at the Smithsonian Institution and a Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Health and Society Scholar at Harvard University. Wray is the author of Not Quite White: White Trash and the Boundaries of Whiteness (Duke, 2006) and the editor of Cultural Sociology: An Introductory Reader (WW Norton 2013). add He has authored and edited over 65 scholarly publications and has given more than 75 scholarly presentations, along with dozens of media appearances and commentaries.

Ruth Enid Zambrana, Ph.D., is a Distinguished University Professor at the University of Maryland Harriet Tubman Department of Women, Gender and Sexuality Studies, Director of the Consortium on Race, Gender and Ethnicity and has a secondary appointment as Professor of Family Medicine at the University of Maryland, Baltimore, School of Medicine. Her scholarship applies a critical intersectional lens to structural inequality and racial, Hispanic ethnicity, and gender inequities in population health and higher education trajectories. She is the recipient of numerous awards, including the 2011 Julian Samora Distinguished Career Award by the American Sociological Association, Sociology of Latinos/as Section, the 2013 American Public Health Association Latino Caucus, Founding Member Award for Vision and Leadership, the 2021 APHA Lyndon Haviland Public Health Mentoring Award, the 2021-22 Distinguished Research Fellow at the Latino Research Institute University of Texas, Austin and the 2023 John P. McGovern Endowed Lecturer Award, University of Houston College of Liberal Arts and Social Sciences.

Gabriela Livas Stein, Ph.D., is Professor and Chair of Human Development and Family Sciences at The University of Texas at Austin. Her program of research identifies individual and familial risk and protective processes for racial and ethnic minoritized youth when facing cultural stressors (e.g., discrimination, acculturative stress). Her work also focuses on mental health prevention and intervention using community-engaged approaches. Her research has been funded by the William T. Grant Foundation, the National Institute of Mental Health, the National Institute on Drug Abuse, and the Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute. She has served as the Vice President of Programming for the Society for Research on Adolescence, a co-chair of the Ethnic Racial Issues Committee of the Society for Research in Child Development, and past chair of the Latinx Caucus of the Society for Research in Child Development. 

Wendy Cervantes is the Director of the Immigration and Immigrant Families team at the Center for Law and Social Policy (CLASP). She is a co-founder of the Protecting Immigrant Families Coalition and the Children Thrive Action Network and has served in an advisory capacity on several other immigrant rights and child rights campaigns. Prior to joining CLASP, Ms. Cervantes was Vice President of Immigration and Child Rights at First Focus on Children where she led a comprehensive federal advocacy agenda on immigration and children’s issues. She also served as Director of Programs at La Plaza, a Latino community-based organization in central Indiana. The proud daughter of Mexican immigrants and the mother of two daughters, Ms. Cervantes holds an M.A. in Latin American Studies and Political Science from the University of New Mexico and a B.A. in Communications from the University of Southern California.

Lorie Davidson is a licensed clinical social worker with over twenty years of child welfare experience. At Global Refuge, she is responsible for overseeing a national network of providers of residential care and family reunification services for Unaccompanied Children and Unaccompanied Refugee Minors. Lorie also oversees International Programming including Global Refuge’s office in Guatemala and program development in Mexico. Prior to joining Global Refuge, she served as the Associate Director of Children’s Services and the Trafficking Victims Assistance Program at the U.S. Committee for Refugees and Immigrants (USCRI).

Jane Liu, J.D., is the Director of Policy and Litigation at the Young Center for Immigrant Children’s Rights, a national organization dedicated to advancing the rights and best interests of immigrant children. The Young Center is the only nonprofit in the United States providing independent Child Advocates—similar to guardians ad litem in state courts—for unaccompanied and separated immigrant children in deportation proceedings. Ms. Liu co-directs the Young Center’s Policy Program, which advocates with Congress, federal agencies, and the courts to transform the way the immigration system treats children, pushing for a reimagined system centered on child health and wellbeing and family unity. Ms. Liu leads the Young Center’s involvement in impact litigation and brings over 15 years of public interest litigation experience to her advocacy work at the Young Center.  Ms. Liu received her J.D. from the University of Pennsylvania Law School and her undergraduate degree from Princeton University.

Suzanne Le Menestrel, Ph.D., CAE is the Director of Science Affairs at the Society for Research in Child Development (SRCD).  Previously, Dr. Le Menestrel was a Senior Planning, Strategy, and Impact Officer at the National CASA/GAL Association for Children and a Senior Program Officer in the Board on Children, Youth, and Families, at the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. Prior to her tenure with the National Academies, she was the founding national program leader for youth development research at 4-H National Headquarters, U.S. Department of Agriculture; served as the research director at the Academy for Educational Development’s Center for Youth Development and Policy Research; and was a research associate at Child Trends. She holds a B.S. in psychology from St. Lawrence University and an M.S. and Ph.D. in human development and family studies from the Pennsylvania State University. Dr. Le Menestrel is also a certified association executive.

Valerie N. Adams-Bass, Ph.D., is an applied researcher seeking to advance scholarship that provides meaningful contributions to the lives of Black youth and their families. Dr. Adams-Bass is a Developmental Psychologist, earning her Interdisciplinary Studies in Human Development doctorate from the University of Pennsylvania and a Master of Education in Urban Education from Temple University. Dr. Adams-Bass regularly trains youth development professionals to use culturally relevant practices when working with African American children and youth. She is a faculty affiliate of the Youth-Nex Center to Promote Effective Youth Development at the University of Virginia, and an affiliate faculty member of the Racial Empowerment Collaborative at the University of Pennsylvania.  Dr. Adams-Bass currently serves as a Member-At-Large of the Society for Research on Child Development (SRCD) Black Caucus Executive Board and is a member of the Research Advisory Board for the National CASA/GAL Association for Children.

Kim DuMont, Ph.D., is Senior Vice President of Programs at the William T. Grant Foundation. She previously worked from 2011-2020 as program officer and then senior program officer and was instrumental in the reshaping the Foundation's focus on the use of research evidence, the launch of our focus on reducing inequality, and the development and implementation of the Institutional Challenge Grant program. Before returning to the Foundation in 2022, Kim was the inaugural Vice President and Managing Director of the Equity Initiative at the American Institutes for Research. Earlier in her career, Dr. DuMont worked as a research scientist at New York State Office of Children and Family Services and on the research faculty at New Jersey Medical School. She received her Ph.D. in community psychology from New York University in 2001.

Jamae Morris, Ph.D., M.A., serves as a Research-Evaluation-Learning Officer at the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. She brings 10+ years of experience as a researcher and university professor specializing in reproductive health and global WASH (water, sanitation, & hygiene). Before joining RWJF, Dr. Morris served as an assistant professor in the Department of Africana Studies at Georgia State University where her responsibilities included developing and teaching courses on race and health and redesigning undergraduate research methods instruction. Prior to her transition into the professoriate, she completed a postdoc in applied epidemiology at the Centers for Disease Control & Prevention where she primarily led and supported mixed-methods research projects designed to evaluate the effectiveness of new WASH technologies. Dr. Morris holds both a Doctor of Philosophy and a Master of Arts in applied anthropology.

Parisa Parsafar, Ph.D., is a Program Officer with the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD) Office of Health Equity (OHE) at the National Institutes of Health (NIH). In this role, she is responsible for working across NICHD’s extramural division to advance scientific workforce diversity and health equity research, as well as leading OHE’s outreach and engagement efforts to increase inclusion and representation in research. Dr. Parsafar initially joined the NIH in 2020 as an SRCD Federal Executive Branch Policy Fellow in NICHD’s extramural division and was heavily involved in launching NICHD’s STrategies to enRich Inclusion and achieVe Equity (STRIVE) Initiative. Prior to joining NIH, Dr. Parsafar completed an SRCD Federal Congressional Policy Fellowship where she worked in the Office of Senator Chris Coons to promote health equity for children and families. Dr. Parsafar has a Ph.D. in developmental psychology from the University of California, Riverside.

Vivian Tseng, Ph.D., is president and chief executive officer of the Foundation for Child Development. Prior to joining the Foundation, Dr. Tseng served as senior vice president, programs, at the William T. Grant Foundation where she pioneered initiatives to advance evidence-informed policy and practice. She is widely recognized for her leadership role in building an interdisciplinary field of research use in policy and practice, expanding research-practice partnerships, and supporting a broader movement to democratize evidence. Her research on racial, cultural, and immigration influences on child development have been published in Child Development and her research on promoting social change through research and philanthropy have appeared in the American Journal of Community Psychology, American Psychologist, and Humanities and Social Sciences Communications. Dr. Tseng received her Ph.D. from New York University and her B.A. from University of California, Los Angeles.

Miranda Yates, Ph.D., is a Senior Program Officer for Research-Evaluation-Learning at the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF). With a background in developmental psychology, youth civic engagement, and community-based participatory research and evaluation, she is also a member of RWJF’s Healthy Children and Families strategic portfolio. Prior to joining RWJF, Dr. Yates was Assistant Executive Director of Strategy, Evaluation, and Learning at Good Shepherd Services (GSS). Before GSS, she was a Regional Director at the Covenant House Institute. For nearly a decade, Dr. Yates also held senior management positions at Covenant House California, including Director of Quality Assurance and Special Projects and Director of Transitional Living Programs, overseeing supportive housing, employment, and educational programs. Dr. Yates has a B.A. in History from Georgetown University and a Ph.D. in Developmental Psychology from The Catholic University of America. She completed a postdoctoral fellowship at Brown University’s Center for the Study of Race and Ethnicity in America. 

Alaina Brenick is a white, queer, disabled, Jewish, ciswoman scholar-activist and an Associate Professor of Human Development and Family Sciences at the University of Connecticut. She received a pre-doctoral traineeship from the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development to obtain her Ph.D. (University of Maryland) prior to her postdoctoral fellowship at Friedrich Schiller University of Jena, Germany. Through a social justice lens, she analyzes how diverse social groups—sometimes with vastly different societal structures, norms, and expectations—experience, reason about, and respond to intergroup relations, group-based victimization, and systemic discrimination. Dr. Brenick prioritizes service that drives anti-bias, diversity, equity, inclusion, and social justice in the field. Presently, she serves on the Inclusion, Equity, and Social Justice Committee (SRA) and the Sociocultural Data Tracking Initiative Advisory Board (SRCD), and she was a founding member of the SRCD Antiracism Ally/White Working Group. 

Leoandra Onnie Rogers, Ph.D., is an Associate Professor of Psychology and Faculty Fellow with the Institute for Policy Research at Northwestern University, where she also directs the DICE lab (Development of Identities in Cultural Environments). A developmental psychologist and identity scholar, Rogers is interested in social and educational inequities and how macro-level disparities are perpetuated and disrupted at the micro-level of identities and relationships. Her projects focus on how children and adolescents make sense of their racial, ethnic, and gender identities, how cultural stereotypes shape the development and intersectionality of these identities, and the ways in which multiple identities influence adolescents’ social-emotional and academic well-being. She is an action editor for the Journal of Adolescent Research. She serves on editorial boards for Developmental Psychology, Personality and Social Psychology Review, Cultural Diversity and Ethnic Minority Psychology, and Qualitative Psychology. Rogers earned her PhD in developmental psychology from New York University and holds a BA in psychology and educational studies from the University of California, Los Angeles.

Alexandrea R. Golden, Ph.D., is an Assistant Professor of Clinical Psychology at the University of Memphis. She earned her doctorate in Clinical-Community Psychology at the University of South Carolina and completed her postdoctoral fellowship at Cleveland State University in the Center for Urban Education. Dr. Golden’s scholarship focuses on the resilience and positive development of racially-minoritized youth who experience racism with a focus on Black adolescents. Her work focuses on three interdisciplinary lines of research including: (1) school racial climate, (2) peer racial socialization, and (3) critical consciousness. Dr. Golden is committed to empowering marginalized youth and amplifying their voices and experiences through her translation and community-engaged research and practice.

Shawn Jones, Ph.D., is an Assistant Professor in the Counseling Program at Virginia Commonwealth University. Before that, Dr. Jones was a National Science Foundation Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Pennsylvania’s Graduate School of Education. He received his doctorate in Clinical Psychology from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and was a Child Clinical Psychology Predoctoral intern at University of California, Los Angeles. He also holds a Master of Health Science in Mental Health from Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health and a Bachelor of Science in Psychology from Duke University. Dr. Jones is rooted in cultivating the holistic wellbeing of Black youth and their families. He executes this vision by exploring mechanisms undergirding culturally relevant protective and promotive factors such as racial socialization; translating basic research with an eye towards application; and disseminating this research to be consumed, critiqued and enhanced by the communities the work intends to serve. 
 

Richard M. Lee, Ph.D., is a Distinguished McKnight University Professor in the Department of Psychology and Director of the Asian American Studies Program at the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities. He received a B.A. in Psychology and Philosophy from Boston College and a Ph.D. in Psychology from Virginia Commonwealth University. Dr. Lee has held a variety of leadership positions including President of the Asian American Psychological Association, Chair of the SRCD Asian Caucus, and Editor-in-Chief of Cultural Diversity and Ethnic Minority Psychology. He is internationally known for his research on culture-specific risk and protective factors in racially diverse populations with a specific focus on diverse Asian American communities, including Korean adoptees and their families. Since 2020, he has co-created and published a daily comic strip, The Other Ones by Lee, with his artist brother Martin. The comic strip touches upon the everyday lived experiences of kids of color from diverse backgrounds.  

Emily J. Ozer, Ph.D. is a clinical/community psychologist and Professor at the UC-Berkeley School of Public Health. She currently serves as the Berkeley Director of the Institute of Human Development (IHD), co-founding Director of Innovations for Youth (I4Y), and Faculty Liaison to the Berkeley Provost for Public Scholarship and Engagement Her multi-method research focuses on adolescent development and mental health; psychological resilience; school-based interventions; and youth participatory action research (YPAR), an equity-focused approach in which youth generate systematic research evidence to address problems they want to improve in their schools and communities. Funded by WT Grant and Doris Duke, she co-leads an initiative to strengthen policies and culture to support community-engaged research at Berkeley and a research-practice partnership (RPP) with San Francisco Unified School (SFUSD) to promote student wellbeing and integrate YPAR in school improvement and equity initiatives. Her research is conducted with SFUSD, SF Peer Resources, and other community partners.

Rachel T. Santiago, Ph.D., is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Educational, School and Counseling Psychology at the University of Missouri and a faculty affiliate at the Missouri Prevention Science Institute. She completed her Ph.D. in School Psychology at the University of Oregon and her postdoctoral training in school mental health at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. Dr. Santiago’s research focuses on social–emotional and mental health outcomes for youth, with an emphasis on culturally responsive practices, implementation science, family–school–community partnerships, and community-engaged scholarship. She is the principal investigator on two grant-funded projects exploring trauma-informed school practices. Dr. Santiago worked as a school psychologist prior to entering academia and is a licensed school psychologist (MO) and Nationally Certified School Psychologist.

Vivian Tseng, Ph.D., is president and chief executive officer of the Foundation for Child Development. Read full bio above!

Raisa Banfield es la cofundadora y directora del Centro de Incidencia Ambiental-CIAM, orientado a la defensa del ambiente y participación ciudadana. De igual forma, es la fundadora y directora de la Fundación Panamá Sostenible, cuyo objetivo es promover prácticas y proyectos enfocados en la sostenibilidad de un desarrollo orientado a la protección de la naturaleza. Raisa es también profesora invitada para talleres de urbanismo y ambiente de la Escuela de Arquitectura y Diseño de las Américas, ISTHMUS, Ciudad del Saber, Panamá-México. En el 2014-2019, Raisa fue electa como Vicealcaldesa de la Ciudad de Panamá. En este rol, Raisa fue la responsable del Plan de Desarrollo de la Ciudad y la coordinación con las instancias municipales relacionadas a la gestión del territorio. En adición, Raisa es es parte del Consejo Asesor de la Fundación TECHO, mentora de la organización de jóvenes profesionales “Global Shapers” en Panamá, y funge como perito técnico para el Órgano Judicial en el Circuito Administrativo.

Juard M. Barnes is the Principal and Founder of The Rehoboth Project. He has nearly 40 years of experience as a community organizer and violence prevention specialist, helping organizations and cities worldwide to achieve community safety. Mr. Barnes formerly served as Deputy Director of Faith In Indiana, Midwest Regional Director of Faith In Action, and Convener for the Black Church PAC. As Senior Advisor for Communities of Practice at The Health Alliance for Violence Intervention, specializing in advocacy, training, and Technical Assistance in the Community Violence Intervention Ecosystem, Mr. Barnes recently served as project lead for the White House Community Violence Intervention Collaborative (CVIC), helping to create powerful CVIC leadership for 16 jurisdictions nationwide. Mr. Barnes and his wife, Larita Rice-Barnes, are the proud parents of four amazing and contributing adults and grandparents of six beautiful additions to the world.

Mary Pattillo, Ph.D., is the Harold Washington Professor of Sociology and Black Studies, and Chair of the Black Studies Department, at Northwestern University. Her areas of research include race and inequality, housing, urban politics, education reform, criminal legal studies, and stratification within the Black community. She is the author of two award-winning books – Black Picket Fences: Privilege and Peril among the Black Middle Class and Black on the Block: The Politics of Race and Class in the City. Dr. Pattillo is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the American Academy of Political & Social Science. She sits on the Board of Trustees of the W.T. Grant Foundation and Chicago Appleseed Center for Fair Courts and was a founding board member of Urban Prep Charter Academies in Chicago. Dr. Pattillo holds a B.A. in Urban Studies from Columbia University and an M.A. and Ph.D. in Sociology from the University of Chicago.