Email: mnb387@nyu.edu
Program: PhD in Counseling Psychology
Year entered Program: 2018
Research Interests: (i) The implementation and evaluation of transformative efforts across child serving systems including education, child welfare, and juvenile legal (ii) The impact that structural drivers (e.g., poverty, incarceration) have on the well-being of adolescents and how indicators of empowerment can mitigate their impact globally
Principal Advisor(s): Dr. Shabnam Javdani
Research Description/Bio:
McKenzie Berezin is a doctoral fellow under the mentorship of Dr. Shabnam Javdani. Her research interests lie in the implementation and evaluation of efforts that seek to change how child welfare, juvenile legal, and education systems respond to youth, with attention to girls and TGNC+ youth. As a graduate student researcher, McKenzie supports local, state-wide, and national efforts to disrupt the systemic pathways criminalizing girls, through the implementation of gender and trauma-responsive programs and policies that meet girls’ needs, in partnership with local courts and community-based, grassroots organizations. McKenzie also supports the work of local and international programming that aims to investigate the structural drivers of physical, mental, and sexual health disparities among adolescents and, how they can be bolstered through community-based programming and policy change.