Carola Suárez-Orozco publishes widely in the areas of cultural psychology, immigrant families and youth, academic trajectories of engagement and performance among immigrant adolescents, the role of the “social mirror” in identity formation, immigrant family separations, the role of mentors in facilitating positive development in immigrant youth, the gendered experiences of immigrant youth among many others. (Read more)
Marcelo Suárez-Orozco’s work is interdisciplinary, comparative, and longitudinal. His basic research is on conceptual and empirical problems in the areas of cultural psychology and psychological anthropology with a focus on the study of immigration and globalization. (Read more)
Robert Teranishi's research is broadly focused on race, ethnicity, and the stratification of college opportunity. His work has been influential to federal, state, and institution policy related to college access and affordabiity. Teranishi has provided congressional testimony regarding the Higher Education Reauthorization Act and No Child Left Behind, informed state policy decisions related to selective college admissions, and his research has been solicited to inform U.S. Supreme Court decisions on affirmative action and school desegregation. (Read more)
María G. Hernández completed her Ph.D. in Social Welfare and a Masters in Social Work from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Her research interests focus on how socio-cultural and contextual factors shape identity, mental health, and educational outcomes for immigrant origin Latino adolescents.
Saskias Casanova is a fellow in the Department of Applied Psychology. Saskias received her PhD in Developmental and Psychological Sciences from Stanford University. Her research explores topics of race, ethnicity, and culture in adolescent development. Saskias focuses on the intra-group differences of Latina/o immigrant students’ identities, acculturation processes, and schooling. She examines the intersections of gender, language, ethnic identity and experiences with discrimination of Indigenous Latina/o youth in the U.S. and Latin America. (Read more)
Research Assistants
Cynthia M. Alcantar is a doctoral student in the Higher and Postsecondary Education program at NYU Steinhardt’s School of Culture, Education, and Human Development. Cynthia earned her Master’s degree in Higher Education from Claremont Graduate University in 2009. Her research interests include higher education access, persistence, attainment, and post-baccalaureate decisions of first-generation college students.
Stacey Alicea is a doctoral student in the Psychology and Social Intervention program. Her research interests include strength-based approaches to adolescent development and emergent adulthood in the context of families, schools, and communities as they relate to mental health, identity, like skills, and academic outcomes for at-risk youth. She is particularly interested in conducting community participatory and collaborative research. She also works with a research team at NYU’s Center for Research on Culture, Development, and Education.
Israel Cruz was born and raised in Southern California. He graduated from the University of California, Irvine in ’11 with a B.A. in Psychology and Social Behavior. He is second generation Latino and the first in his family to attend graduate school. Israel is in his first year Masters program in the department of applied psychology at NYU-Steinhardt, studying Bilingual School Counseling and Guidance. He has worked with immigrant students and parents for years now; his goal is to assist these students and families to obtain a higher education. He is very passionate about helping his Latino community and creating a better image for them as well.
Tasha Darbes is a doctoral candidate in Applied Linguistics at NYU Steinhardt’s School of Culture, Education, and Human Development. . Tasha's research will focus on how language acquisition and belonging affect the transitions of adolescent immigrant college students. She is also interested in language ideologies and language education in plurilingual and transnational contexts. She previously worked as an interviewer for research on immigration and welfare reform conducted by the Urban Institute.
Sandra Isabel Dias, M.Ed. received her Master of Education from The University of Texas at Austin, after receiving her B.A. in Anthropology and History with a minor in Archeology from Montclair State University. She is currently a Counseling Psychology doctoral student in Applied Psychology in Steinhardt’s School of Culture, Education, and Human Development. Her research interests are interdisciplinary with a focus on immigration, cultural and social contexts, the role of settings, and its effects on immigrants and their help-seeking behaviors as well as mental health and well-being.
Edwin Hernandez is originally from South Los Angeles, California. He obtained his B.A. at California State University Northridge (CSUN) in Sociology with a minor in Chicana/o Studies. He is currently in his 1st year of his Master’s Program in Bilingual School Counseling at NYU Steinhardt’s School of Culture, Education, and Human Development. His goal is to work as a School Counselor in the low-income communitiesof Los Angeles and empower the youth by promoting higher education. Being an innocent victim of gang violence in his community and having to loose a family member and several friends to violence led to his research interest on the identity development of gang members and helping them understand and make meaning of their lives by making positive decisions that will better themselves, their family, and their community.
Heather Herrera is a Ph.D. candidate in English Education at NYU Steinhardt’s School of Culture, Education, and Human Development. Her interests include Latinos in higher education, higher education access, language and literacy, developmental writing, and curriculum development. She has taught undergraduate composition and literature courses as well as graduate education methods courses for New York University, The City University of New York, Fordham University, and The College of New Rochelle, School of New Resources. She is currently the Assistant Director for Curriculum Development at NYU Steinhardt’s School of Culture, Education, and Human Development.
Dalal Katsiaficas is a doctoral student in Developmental Psychology at NYU's Steinhardt School of Culture, Education and Human Development. Her research interests include identity development and negotiation in socio-political context for immigrant-origin adolescents and emerging adults.
Lizzy Kim is a second year master’s student at New York University’s Graduate School of Arts and Sciences studying psychology and sociology with a focus on immigrants and diaspora. She has a background in education and English literature, and her research interests are on immigrants and cultural identity development across the lifespan.
Diana Lee is in the Media, Culture, and Communication program at New York University. She is interested in social and cultural influences on identity development, representations of gender, race, ethnicity, nationality, and immigration in media and popular cultural discourse, transformative learning and development across the lifespan, Asian-American mental health, and social justice and equity. Diana has worked in afterschool programming and development as well as on a variety of mixed-methods, large and small scale education research and evaluation projects. She has an Ed.M.in Learning and Teaching from the Harvard Graduate School of Education and a B.A. in Sociology from the University of California, Berkeley.
Marie Onaga is a doctoral student in Developmental Psychology at New York University. Prior to coming to NYU, Marie completed her Ed.M. and CAS degrees in Risk and Prevention and Adjustment Counseling at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. She has worked as a counselor in public middle- and high schools in Boston, run an afterschool program in a low-income housing development, and as a research coordinator for several projects at Harvard. She is interested in the identity development of immigrant youth, particularly in the contexts of language, ethnicity, and risk and resilience.
Loni Bordoloi Pazich is a doctoral student in the Higher and Postsecondary Education program at the NYU Steinhardt’s School of Culture, Education, and Human Development. Loni earned her Master's degree in Education from the University of Southern California in 2008. Her research interests focus on achieving equitable outcomes for students of color through state and institutional policies, accountability and self-assessment methods, and institutional data practices, particularly in the area of collegiate transfer.
Sukhmani Singh is a doctoral student in Developmental Psychology at NYU Steinhardt’s School of Culture, Education, and Human Development. She is interested in how adolescents and emerging adults understand and make meaning of their lives in the context of the immigrant experience in the United States.
Naila Smith is a doctoral student in the Applied Developmental Psychology program at Fordham University. Broadly, she is interested in the positive development of ethnic minority youth and wishes to become more deeply involved in the design and evaluation of social interventions to support their development. More specifically, her research centers on understanding the resilience processes of immigrant youth and their families.