CWB FACULTY PROFILES
CWB core and affiliated faculty conduct research in local community organizations, schools, networks and coalitions, neighborhoods and other national and international settings. Examples of current community-‐engaged research include adaptation and acculturation among immigration and refugee populations, cultural coping strategies in Black and Latino communities, organizational change in CBO’s, mobile gaming applications for individual and relational wellness, social justice and environmental sustainability, dimensions of human flourishing and character strengths, the effectiveness of a heritage-‐based mentoring and tutoring program, and the development of mental health services for Haitian
populations. CWB doctoral student will work with one of these faculty members as their primary research mentor.
Etiony Aldarondo, Ph.D.
Associate Dean for Research, School of Education; Associate Professor, Department of Educational and Psychological Studies
Ph.D. University of Massachusetts, Clinical Psychology, 1992
Dr. Etiony Aldarondo is Associate Dean for Research and Director of the Dunspaugh-‐Dalton Community and Educational Well-‐Being Research Center in the School of Education at the University of Miami. The recipient of various recognitions for academic excellence and community involvement, his scholarship focuses on positive development of ethnic minority and immigrant youth, domestic violence, and social justice-‐oriented clinical practices. His publications include the books Advancing Social Justice through Clinical Practice and Programs for men who batter: Intervention and prevention strategies in a diverse society (with Fernando Mederos, Ed.D.) Dr. Aldarondo has a long history of
involvement with grass root advocacy organizations, foundations, and federal government agencies such as CDC, HHS, NIJ, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, and the Domestic Violence Prevention Fund. He currently serves on the boards of directors for the National Latino Alliance for the Elimination of Domestic Violence, The Council on Contemporary Families, Project Hope, and Profunda.
Research: The recipient of various recognitions for academic excellence and community involvement, his scholarship focuses on positive development of ethnic minority and immigrant youth, domestic violence, and social justice-‐oriented clinical practices. Dina Birman, Ph.D.
Associate Professor, Department of Educational and Psychological Studies Director, Community Well Being Program
Ph.D. University of Maryland, College Park, Clinical/Community Psychology, 1991.
Dr. Birman will be joining the University of Miami faculty in January 2014. Previously she was Associate Professor in the Community and Prevention Research Division in the
Department of Psychology at the University of Illinois at Chicago, where she joined the faculty in 2003. Dr. Birman is an expert on immigrant and refugee adaptation, acculturation and mental health. She provides consultation and technical assistance to refugee
resettlement and mental health programs funded by the Office of Refugee Resettlement. She is a Fellow of the Society for Community Research and Action and the American Psychological Association, and the International Academy of Intercultural Research. In 2010 was appointed to serve on APA’s Immigration Taskforce, and co-‐authored the
Crossroads: The Psychology of Immigration in the New Century (2012). She serves on the Editorial Boards of American Journal of Community Psychology, the International Journal of Intercultural Relations, and the Journal of Community and Applied Social Psychology.
Research: Dr. Birman’s research focuses on understanding and supporting the process of adaptation and acculturation of immigrants and refugees. She has studied a number of groups including refugees from the former Soviet Union, Central America, Somalia, and Vietnam, documenting the process of acculturation and adaptation of adolescents, adults, elderly, and families. She has worked with community-‐based refugee resettlement and mental health agencies to collaboratively develop and study the effectiveness of mental health interventions for refugee children. She has also conducted research in schools where there are large numbers of newly arrived refugees to understand the experience of the students, their parents, teachers and administrators in this mutual accommodation
process. This work has been conducted with funding from NIMH, SAMHSA, and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.
Scot Evans, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor, Department of Education and Psychological Studies Ph.D. Peabody College of Vanderbilt University, Community Research and Action, 2005
Dr. Scot Evans is an assistant professor in the Department of Educational and Psychological Studies in the School of Education and the Faculty Master at Eaton Residential College. He teaches in the undergraduate major in Human and Social Development (HSD) as well as the new master’s program in Community and Social Change. He received his Ph.D. in
Community Research and Action at Peabody College of Vanderbilt University. He has a master¹s degree in Human Development Counseling also from Vanderbilt. Dr. Evans also has extensive practical experience in community-‐based organizations as a youth
development worker, crisis worker, family counselor, youth program developer, program evaluator, and organizational consultant.
Research: Dr. Evans’s current scholarly interests include researching and promoting the role of community-‐based human service organizations in the promotion of wellbeing, social change, and social justice.
Blaine Fowers, Ph.D.
Professor, Department of Educational and Psychological Studies Ph.D. University of Texas, Ph.D. Counseling Psychology, 1987
Blaine Fowers joined the University of Miami faculty in 1990, and has served as the
Director of Training of the doctoral program in Counseling Psychology from 1997 to 2005, and as Department Chairperson since 2005. Dr. Fowers received a Ph.D. in Counseling Psychology from the University of Texas at Austin. In his role as a teacher, Fowers provides instruction in research methods, preparing future faculty social bases of human activity, and character development. Fowers is the author of the books, Virtue and Psychology and Beyond the Myth of Marital Happiness and co-‐author of Re-‐envisioning Psychology. Dr. Fowers is a licensed psychologist and member of the American
Psychological Association’s Division 17 (Counseling Psychology) and Division 24
(Theoretical and Philosophical Psychology). He is an editorial board member of the Journal of Theoretical and Philosophical Psychology and has co-‐edited two issues of the American Behavioral Scientist.
Research: Dr. Fowers is particularly interested in the interplay of virtues, cultural ideals, and historicity in psychological practices and the good life for human beings (eudaimonia). In a series of articles, chapters, and books, he has applied his framework to the study of goal pursuit, marriage, and other topics by investigating the relationships among the goods people seek in their lives and the ways they seek them. He is currently directing the Goal Orientations and Life Success (GOALS) project, which is focused on documenting the existence and functioning of higher order goals and investigating the links between
pursuing choiceworthy good and human flourishing. His current scholarly projects focus on elaborating and investigating the virtue ethics proposition that the pursuit of
characteristically human goods such as knowledge, justice, friendship, and artistic beauty are central activities in human flourishing.
Laura Kohn-‐Wood, Ph.D.
Associate Chair and Associate Professor, Department of Educational and Psychological Studies
Ph.D. University of Virginia, Clinical Psychology, 1996
Dr. Kohn-‐Wood received a B.S. in Psychology from Howard University in 1990 and a Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology, with a specialization in Community Psychology, from the University of Virginia in 1996. She completed a two-‐year clinical internship/fellowship in Clinical Psychology at the University of California, San Francisco Medical School, specializing in serving ethnic minority and underserved populations at the Psychosocial Outpatient Clinic at San Francisco General Hospital and the Langley Porter Psychiatric Institute. Following her internship, Dr. Kohn-‐Wood completed a two-‐year Primary Care Research Post-‐doctoral Fellowship at Georgetown University School of Medicine in the Clinical Economics
Research Unit and the Department of Psychiatry. Dr. Kohn-‐Wood was on the faculty in the Department of Psychology at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, Michigan from 1999 -‐ 2008, achieving tenure in 2005. She joined the EPS faculty in January 2009.
Research: Dr. Kohn-‐Wood’s research program focuses on race, ethnicity and culture in relation to the development and expression of psychological distress among diverse populations, with an emphasis on race-‐based protective factors for mental health among
African Americans. She has also studied the relationship between mental health and violent behavior among youth, and ethnic and gender differences in the experience of illness and mental health service utilization. In addition, Dr. Kohn-‐Wood has done extensive
community-‐based research, including the development of a successful collaborative service-‐learning program for undergraduates and the development of an after-‐school and summer camp program for youth in an under-‐resourced urban community.
Guerda Nicolas, Ph.D.
Chair and Associate Professor, Department of Educational and Psychological Studies Ph. D. Boston University, Clinical Psychology, 1997
Marie Guerda Nicolas joined the EPS faculty in August 2008. She was an associate professor at Boston College in the Department of Counseling, Developmental, and Educational
Psychology prior to joining the EPS faculty. As a multicultural (Haitian American) and multilingual psychologist (Spanish, French, and Haitian Creole), her research is reflective of her background and interests.
Research: Dr. Nicolas’ current research centers on partnering with ethnically diverse and immigrant communities to develop culturally effective mental health interventions to combat depression, address issues of racism and racial discrimination stress, enhance the racial and ethnic identity development of children and adolescents, and promote
individual, family, and community well-‐being.
Isaac Prilleltensky, Ph.D. Dean, School of Education
Professor of Educational and Psychological Studies Ph.D., University of Manitoba, Psychology, 1989
Dr. Isaac Prilleltensky was born in Argentina and has lived in Israel, Canada, Australia and the United States. He holds a doctorate in psychology. Prior to his current appointment as Dean of the School of Education at the University of Miami he was Director of the PhD program in Community Research and Action at Peabody College of Vanderbilt University. He is the inaugural Erwin and Barbara Mautner Chair in Community Well-‐Being. Before becoming an academic he was a school psychologist in Canada for seven years. He has published seven books and over 120 articles and chapters. He has presented keynote addresses in international conferences in twenty three countries in five continents. Dean Prilleltensky is a Fellow of the American Psychological Association, the American Educational Research Association, and of the Society for Community Research and Action. In 2002 he was a visiting fellow of the British Psychological Society. He is the recipient of the 2011 "Distinguished Contribution to Theory and Research Award" of the Community Psychology Division of the American Psychological Association. He is also the recipient of the 2010 John Kalafat Applied Community Psychology Award from the same division of
APA and the recipient of the 2010 Educator Catalyst Award from the Human Services Coalition of Miami. He is a board member of the Children’s Trust of Miami Dade County.
Research: Dean Prilleltensky’s interests are in community psychology, the prevention of psychosocial problems and the promotion of well-‐being in individuals, organizations, and communities. For several years he was the principal investigator of the SPEC project, which aims to promote Strengths, Prevention, Empowerment and Community Change with not for profit organizations in diverse locations. He is currently leading an interdisciplinary team that is developing a multiplayer online game to promote wellness in diverse domains of life.
Courte Voorhees, Ph.D.
Clinical Assistant Professor, Department of Educational & Psychological Studies Director, Community & Social Change Master's Program
Ph.D. Peabody College of Vanderbilt University, 2012
Research. Dr. Voorhees’ research focuses on the physical and social contexts of community well-‐being. He primarily conducts community-‐based participatory action research to promote social justice, environmental justice, and sustainability. This applied, collaborative research is driven by the needs, voices, and actions of the community. Current Research:
• Youth Leading Environmental Change. I am currently working on an international project for promoting sustainability by engaging youth in environmental activism. This project spans six countries where students, community partners, and faculty are engaging in curricula and action projects for promoting environmental justice. • Measuring ecological validity: An assessment of fidelity to ecological theory in
community psychology research . I am using an instrument based on ecological tenets from community psychology (CP) to determine fidelity to those tenets in CP research. This project will also provide tools for increasing ecological validity for CP and other ecologically minded fields.
• Does a Rising Ocean Lift All Boats? This project will determine differences in effects of sea level rise on people in South Florida – based on economic class, social class, rage, gender, age, and other demographic factors. This will culminate in action and
actionable plans to reduce disparities in preparedness for effects of sea level rise from global climate change.
