Meet The Team

We are always looking for individuals and organizations who share our commitment to social justice and our dedication to enhancing cultural identities and promoting health and wellbeing amongst ethnic minority and immigrant individuals and communities.

Guerda Nicolas

Dr. Guerda Nicolas is a Professor in the Educational and Psychological Studies department at the University of Miami, School of Education and Human Development. She obtained her doctoral degree in clinical psychology from Boston University. She completed her pre-doctoral training at Columbia University Medical Center and her postdoctoral training the New York State Psychiatric Institute/Columbia University, Department of Child Psychiatry.As a multicultural (Haitian American) and multilingual psychologist (Spanish, French, and Haitian Creole), her research is reflective of her background and interests.Her current research focus on the integration of race and culture and well-being for ethnically diverse and immigrant communities. Some of the projects that she is currently working on includes: promoting academic excellence among ethnically diverse youth, identify development of Black youths, and empowering ethnically diverse parents to be effective parents. In addition, she conducts research on social support networks of Caribbean populations with a specific focus on Haitians.She has published several articles and book chapters and delivered numerous invited presentations at the national and international conferences in the areas of women issues, depression and intervention among Haitians, social support networks of ethnic minorities, and spirituality.

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Her recent books includes:

Contemporary Parenting: A Global Perspective,
by Routledge Press.

Through a global, multidisciplinary perspective, this book describes how four factors influence parenting practices: a countries historical and political background, the parent’s educational history, the economy and the parent’s financial standing, and advances in technology.

Building Mental Health Capacity in Haiti through Collaborative Partnerships,
by Nova Publishers.

This monograph is a guidebook focusing on how to implement mental health training programs internationally. The book is structure in a way that utilizes Haiti as an example of what scholars who are interested in global mental health can do to effectively implement a training program internationally.

Social Networks and the Mental Health of Haitian Immigrants,
by Caribbean Studies Press.

The book provides information regardingthe lives of Haitian immigrants through research at the intersection of culture, social networks, and mental health. In addition, recommendations for providing culturally sensitive and effective services are included in the book.

Monique McKenny

Dr. Monique McKenny is a Postdoctoral Fellow in Integrated Primary Care at Nemours Children’s Health and completed her doctoral training in Counseling Psychology at the University of Miami. Dr. McKenny has devoted her research, training, and clinical practice to the wellness of youth with experience in prominent clinics and programs across the U.S. For her research and service efforts, she was selected as a 2021 McKnight Dissertation Fellow, inducted into the Bouchet Graduate Honor Society, and earned the 2022 Outstanding Doctoral Student in Counseling Psychology Award from the School of Education and Human Development at the University of Miami.

Her dissertation entitled, “A Spectrum of Health: Investigating the Role of Parental Racial Socialization Practices for Black Adolescent Health Outcomes” explores racial socialization as a tool for Black youth’s social, emotional, and physical wellness. More broadly, Dr. McKenny studies how racial stressors like discrimination impact Black youth and how cultural strengths can be incorporated into community-based programs to promote healing among children and their families. Born and raised in Philadelphia, PA, she enjoys engaging with researchers, clinicians, and communities on topics of race, culture, and health equity.

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Melissa Gutierrez

Melissa Gutierrez is a third-year doctoral student in the Counseling Psychology Program at the University of Miami. She completed her undergraduate degree at the University of Miami with a major in biology and minor in psychology. After diving into research on early childhood social-emotional readiness at the University of Miami psychology department, Melissa completed her Master of Science in Education at the University of Miami majoring in Mental Health Counseling.

Melissa led the Day of Dialogue event for two years collaborating with CRECER partners in the community. She is also currently serving on Dr. Mena and Dr. Santisteban’s team as a graduate assistant in the Culturally Informed Flexible Family Based Treatment for Adolescents (CIFFTA) program and a project coordinator for Screening, Brief Intervention and Referral to Treatment (SBIRT) project in Miami Gardens. Her primary research interests focus on researching interventions that would be effective in equipping parents with skills to develop and maintain positive self-esteem for children and adolescents in high risk environments. She is particularly interested in the development of interventions to build and maintain high quality parent-adolescent relationships for minority groups, specifically Hispanic families.

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Gabrielle M del Rey

Gabrielle was born and raised in Miami, Florida to a Cuban and Guatemalan family. She is currently a fourth-year doctoral student in the Counseling Psychology program at the University of Miami. She completed her undergraduate studies in Psychology with a minor in Sociology at the University of Texas at Austin with Psychology departmental honors. She then completed her master’s in Marriage and Family Therapy at the University of Southern California where she practiced as a therapist at a local Los Angeles high school for under privileged, high achieving Latino adolescents. As a doctoral student, Gabrielle has served as a therapist at the Institute for Individual and Family Counseling, for self-harming youth providing Culturally Informed and Flexible Family-Based Treatment for Adolescents (CIFFTA) and is currently completing her second year as an out-placement student therapist at Nicklaus Children’s Hospital. Gabrielle’s broad research interests center on Latino family systems and self-harming behaviors in Latina adolescents. She is currently working on her dissertation which is a qualitative study exploring the phenomenon of familismo in the context of self-harm for Latina adolescents and their families.

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Marisol Meyer

Marisol Meyer is a fifth-year doctoral student in Counseling Psychology at the University of Miami. She completed her undergraduate studies at Dartmouth College in 2018 and graduated with honors for bachelor’s degrees in psychology and anthropology

During her time as a doctoral student, Marisol has been a proud member of the Challenging Racism and Empowering Communities through Ethnocultural Research (CRECER) lab in which she has conducted research related to community-based, culturally responsive mental health interventions. Marisol’s research specifically focuses on how unique community strengths and evidence-informed/evidence-based practice can be coalesced and leveraged to promote psychological wellness. She has coordinated and co-designed interventions and curricula addressing community-selected topics such as trauma-informed mental health support, ethnic- racial identity development, and transformative social and emotional learning. These programs have reached community-leaders, teachers, healthcare professionals, caregivers, and youth. Marisol has shared her findings with community and academic audiences via digital media, executive summaries, and peer-reviewed journal articles. Moreover, Marisol has also led workshops, seminars, and skills-building sessions related to best practices in centering equity in community-based research and in clinical settings.

Marisol’s clinical work has focused on the implementation of culturally responsive, empirically- based intervention with ethnically, racially, and socioeconomically diverse clients across the lifespan in community-based mental health centers, academic health centers, and forensic settings. Essentially, she is passionate about doing research and clinical work that identify how people can use internal and external resources to pursue individual, family, and community psychological wellness.

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Ceewin N. Louder

Ceewin is a fourth-year doctoral student in the Counseling Psychology program at the University of Miami. She completed her undergraduate studies at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill with a dual-major in Psychology and Biology. After two years working as a Global Mission Fellow in Oklahoma City and one year working as a bookseller in Raleigh, NC, she decided to go back to school for psychology. She completed her master's degree in Clinical Psychology at Teachers College, Columbia University in May 2019 and began working with CRECER in August 2019.

Broadly, Ceewin's research interests center around racial stress, emotion, and community- based interventions. Specifically, she is interested in how the stress and emotional toll of racism impact the physiological health (e.g., heart rate variability) of Black folx in America, perpetuating racial-ethnic health disparities in health and wellness. In CRECER, she is in her second year as a co-coordinator for the Strong Roots Parenting and Caregiver Program with Marie.

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Alexis Franklin

Alexis Franklin is a third year PhD student at the University of Miami within the School of Education and Human Development. She earned her bachelor’s degree in Psychology at Rhodes College in Memphis, Tennessee in 2018. After completing her undergraduate degree, Alexis spent two years learning and researching as a Psychology Intern at George Washington University’s Clinical Psychology clinic and as a Psychology Research Fellow at the National Cancer Institute within the National Institute of Health.

Alexis joined the CRECER team in 2020 where she is a co-coordinator for the Kulula Project. Broadly, her primary research interest is the mental wellness of Black university students. Ultimately, she is interested in researching culturally-informed interventions aimed at promoting mental health wellness and academic outcomes for marginalized populations, specifically Black women.

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Joelle Dorsett

Joelle Dorsett is a second-year Counseling Psychology Ph.D. student at the University of Miami within the School of Education and Human Development. She completed her undergraduate studies at the University of Florida, where she majored in Psychology and minored in Spanish. Joelle’s primary research interests center on the intersection of environmental justice and mental health in Black and Afro-Caribbean communities. Within CRECER, Joelle serves as the co-coordinator of the Kulula Project, an empirically supported, community-based intervention in partnership with Coconut Groves Cares that aims to enhance ethnic identity, socialization skills, and adaptive coping among Black youth living in the West Grove. Joelle also serves as the Graduate Research Fellow for the University of Miami Laboratory for Integrative Knowledge (U-LINK) Climate Gentrification project investigating how climate issues are contributing to the displacement of residents in historically under-resourced neighborhoods. Joelle’s personal research focuses on the mental health of Black and Afro-Caribbean communities experiencing environmental injustice.

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Regine Thermy Jean Baptiste

Regine recently earned a Master’s Degree. in Mental Health Counseling with a concentration in Marriage and Family Therapy from the University of Miami. She completed her undergraduate studies at Université d’Etat D’Haïti, where she majored in Psychology at Faculté des Sciences Humaines (FASCH) and Public Administration at Institut National d’Administration, de Gestion et des Hautes Etudes Internationales (INAGHEI). She also earned a certificate in American Sign Language at the Institut Haitien de Langues de Signes (IHLS).

As a member of the CRECER team, Regine will serve as the co-coordinator in the Haïti Mental Health Project. Her research interests center around family systems, parenting, and attachment in the Black Community. She is interested in working with Haitian families, children, and communities to promote positive parenting, self-esteem, and mental health outcomes. She is also interested in promoting inclusion and mental health among the deaf community in Haiti.

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Marie Boursiquot White

Marie Boursiquot White is a Registered Mental Health Counselor Intern in private practice. She has a M.S. in Counseling with a concentration in Clinical Mental Health Counseling from Nova Southeastern University. Marie has counseled children and adolescents with various diagnoses such as Reactive Attachment Disorder, Oppositional Defiant Disorder, Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder, and Autism Spectrum Disorder. In addition to clinical outreach, she has worked on a number of research projects as a research assistant at the University of Miami including a 4-year childcare research study with the Early Learning Coalition studying the developmental progress of children in the foster care system.

Marie is currently interested in researching maladaptive child and adolescent behaviors, anxiety, and the connection with parent-child attachment relationships. She aspires to continue her education and pursue her PhD. She is excited and honored to be a part of the CRECER research team. Marie is currently working with Strong Roots, COVID-19 and Mental Health Utilization of Black Higher Ed, and the Haitian Mental Health Research Task Force Projects.

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Marie Boursiquot White

Tiana Alexander joined the CRECER lab in 2022 as an undergraduate research assistant. She is currently in her senior year at the University of Miami and will be earning her bachelor’s degree in psychology in December.

Tiana plans to pursue her master’s degree in mental health counseling with an emphasis on marriage and family therapy. She is passionate about working with children and families and currently assists with CRECER’s Kulula Project. She has also worked for University of Miami’s Center for Autism and Related disabilities and serves as a research assistant in the Autism Spectrum Assessment Clinic.