Our Faculty

Many faculty in Critical Psychology at the Graduate Center also serve as faculty at other CUNY campuses (e.g., Hunter, Queens, Brooklyn, College of Staten Island, Kingsborough Community College, and John Jay College of Criminal Justice). They draw from a number of disciplines and interdisciplinary programs (e.g., anthropology, sociology, education, social work, geography, American studies, gender/women’s studies, and Africana studies). In addition, our program often benefits from visiting faculty from other universities in the USA and abroad. All doctoral and visiting faculty are encouraged to participate fully in the life of the program as advisors, teachers, and research supervisors for Ph.D. students.

Photo of Michelle Fine and Brett Stoudt in the CUNY GC City University of New York Graduate Center, critical psychology faculty
Black and white photo of Michelle Fine, Maria Torre and graduates of the critical psychology program at the CUNY GC, City University of New York Graduate Center
Maria Torre and Michelle Fine, critical psychology faculty, CUNY GC, City University of New York Graduate Center

Core Faculty

Affiliated Faculty

Our Students

  • Beatriz A. Torre, Critical Psychology student at the CUNY GC, City University of New York Graduate Center

    Beatriz A. Torre

    she/her/siya

    Beatriz A. Torre (Bea) is an international student from the Philippines, where she first became interested in social psychology and feminist and LGBTQ psychology. Bea holds a master’s degree in psychology from the University of the Philippines where she has also worked as an assistant professor. Bea was a founding member and former chair of the LGBT Psychology Special Interest Group of the Psychological Association of the Philippines. Her past work includes research, public education, and organizing on issues ranging from LGBTQ+ rights and well-being; Filipino women’s experiences of everyday sexism, gender-based violence, and seeking help for reproductive and sexual health concerns; and physical activity participation and motivation in Filipino communities. Bea’s current research interests include Filipino migrant women’s migration journeys and how these shape their sexual subjectivities; as well as Filipino migrants’ experiences of solidarity-building within and beyond movements for migrant justice.

    Research Interests: feminist psychology; queer psychology; participatory action research; decolonial psychology; critical health psychology

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  • Carlyn Wright-Eakes, Critical Psychology student at the CUNY GC, City University of New York Graduate Center

    Carlyn Wright-Eakes

    she/her

    Carlyn is an artist and educator from Durham, North Carolina. Carlyn’s research is centered on integrating psychology, education, arts and social justice. Her previous work experiences range from theater with women in prison in Connecticut, youth work across Central America, portraiture with women in prison in Chile, art and storytelling with survivors of interpersonal violence across North Carolina, to creative mapmaking with men on death row in the United States. She has experience working in international NGO’s, higher education institutions and non-profit management. Carlyn maintains her individual art practice and enjoys a variety of mediums from ink, wax, collage, book making, jewelry, and mixed media sculpture.

    Research Interests: participatory action research, visual and creative methodologies, intersectional critical analysis, trauma-informed practices, ethical research, Interpersonal violence and experiences of survival, resistance and healing

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  • Christopher Jackson, Critical Psychology student at the CUNY GC, City University of New York Graduate Center

    Christopher Jackson

    he/him/his

    Christopher is a passionate and experienced scholar with over ten years of experience in Counseling and Diversion Prevention, Programming, Policing Alternatives, Data Analytics, Trauma-Informed Care, and Harm Reduction,with a distinct and peculiar expertise in social work and divinity background. Christopher is a second-year Critical psychology Ph.D. student. Concentrating on developing research that explores and examines the needs of persons of marginalized experiences at the intersections of race, religion, mental health, and queer studies; while remaining committed to cultivating safe spaces on a macro-level or micro-level; developing partnerships between the academy, pulpits, and public square. Utilizing creative and cooperative collaboration with outsourcing resources to implement holistic and therapeutic exercises with clients or persons who may wrestle with the intersectional complexities of identity, race, and gender.

    Research Interests: Participatory Research, Critical Consciousness, Race, Religion, Queer Studies, Trauma-informed Care

  • Carla Gonzalez Paul, Critical Psychology student at the CUNY GC, City University of New York Graduate Center

    Carla González Paul

    she/her

    Carla was born and raised in Chile. She holds a bachelor's in psychology from Universidad de Chile and a master's in Gender Studies from Central European University. Carla's interests include feminist and queer activism, as well as the relationship between social movements and memory. She has conducted research on intersectional practices within feminist activism during the 2018 social movement in Chile. Her current work involves archival research on how queer activists resisted the Pinochet dictatorship and challenged the transition to democracy.

    Research Interests: queer studies, social movements, collective memory, qualitative methods

  • Hiji Nam, Critical Psychology student at the CUNY GC, City University of New York Graduate Center

    Hiji Nam

    she/her

    History of psychoanalysis, translation, and post-monolingualism; the social reproductive labor of mothers and children; transitional objects and transitional spaces.

    Research Interests: Free Associative Narrative Inquiry, qualitative methods, oral history and interview

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  • Joao Carvalho, Critical Psychology student at the CUNY GC, City University of New York Graduate Center

    João Carvalho

    he/him/his

    João is an international student from Brazil. He holds a bachelor's degree in Psychology from PUC-Campinas (Brazil) and a Masters' degree in Family and Gender Studies from the University of Lisbon (Portugal). He is interested in the intersections between queer diaspora, politics of belonging, and systems of support and solidarity. 

    Research Interests: Qualitative Research, Queer Migrations, Network Analysis, Queer Theory, Belonging and Diaspora, Networks of Support and Transnational Research.

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  • Yasmeen El Gerbi, Critical Psychology student at the CUNY GC, City University of New York Graduate Center

    Yasmeen El Gerbi

    she/her

    I grew up in Tripoli, Libya. I am currently interested in how people navigate/make sense of rapid social and political change in post-revolution contexts in the Middle East. I am studying this topic from a qualitative, temporal, and dynamic narrative perspectives. In the near future, I am looking to explore a different related topic or angle.

    Research Interests: Qualitative methods, Participatory action research

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  • Aiyana Le Porter-Cash, Critical Psychology student at the CUNY GC, City University of New York Graduate Center

    Aiyana Le Porter-Cash

    she/her

    Aiyana's research centers and seeks participation from people that have served long sentences behind bars. She's interested in how people cultivate joy, envision liberation, and practice solidarity after their release from carceral facilities. Her recent research focused on grassroots activists' experiences and wisdoms regarding the parole application process in New York State, and challenging traditional research approaches to understanding dehumanization. In non-profit contexts, Aiyana has supported the development, execution, and communication of (Y)PAR and community-based research on public/youth safety. Aiyana also participates in local grassroots campaigns dedicated to decarceration and family reunification through parole and clemency. In 2020, Aiyana earned a double B.A. in political science and psychology, and an honors concentration in Africana Studies from Williams College. In 2024, Aiyana earned a M.A. and a M.Phil in Psychology from the Graduate Center at City University of New York.

    Research Interests: participatory action research, critical race studies, collective memory, qualitative methods, intergenerational storytelling, autoethnography

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  • Josh G Adler, Critical Psychology student at the CUNY GC, City University of New York Graduate Center

    Josh G. Adler

    he/him/his

    Josh’s work explores the deep, insidious impacts of the legal system, tensions and challenges in justice reform efforts, and how individuals and community groups are advancing alternative approaches to care and safety. He has worked on numerous campaigns between reform and abolition, bridging activism and research. Through his work, he strives to transform research into an accessible, useful, and collaborative practice with those impacted.

    Research Interests: PAR, mixed-methods, abolition, legal systems, justice

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  • Amour Castillo, Critical Psychology student at the CUNY GC, City University of New York Graduate Center

    Amour Castillo

    she/her/hers/ella

    Amour Castillo is a passionate advocate for prison abolition and a dedicated researcher focused on the experiences of incarcerated individuals and their loved ones. With a bachelor’s degree in psychology from Hamilton College, Amour employs a mixed-methods approach—combining qualitative and quantitative research—to explore the intricate ways connections are forged across bars. Currently serving as a project manager at The Fortune Society, Amour leads two collaborative projects with Einstein and Montefiore, driving efforts to improve the lives of those affected by the criminal justice system. A poet, fantasy-novelist, and vegetarian, she believes in creating a more compassionate and fun world. Through research and advocacy, Amour seeks to work with marginalized communities and foster meaningful change and envision a future where everyone has the opportunity for connection and healing.

    Research Interests: connections, incarcerated individuals and their loved ones, qualitative and quantitative methods, participatory action research, social connections across incarceration, prison abolition, and the impact of systemic inequalities on communities.

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  • Natalia Lara, Critical Psychology student at the CUNY GC, City University of New York Graduate Center

    Natalia Lara

    she/her

    Natalia was born and raised in northern Mexico. She earned a BA in Psychology at the University of New Mexico in 2015. She originally trained in clinical psychology researching trauma disorders. She transitioned to Critical Social Personality Psychology to explore qualitative methods and ontological questions of bodily experience. Currently, she teaches psychology courses at Hunter College and an advanced seminar at John Jay College. Her research interests include embodied knowledge, affect theory, queering, restorative justice, and innovative critical pedagogical approaches to teaching.

    Research Interests: Natalia is particularly interested in how affect arises in the body, how it is experienced, and how affective ways of knowing can bypass limiting social labels that constrict experience. Her research draws from Deleuze and Guattari's concepts of affect and deterritorialization, aiming to uncover deeper insights into human experience beyond spoken language.

  • Frances Howell, Critical Psychology student at the CUNY GC, City University of New York Graduate Center

    Frances M. Howell

    she/her

    Frances M. Howell, MA current research interests focus primarily on gendered racism in reproductive health care settings, fertility and assisted reproductive technologies, social and political discourses of power and the reproductive body, and the impact these topics have on birthing people’s mental health outcomes. Frances primarily uses qualitative inquiry, arts-based methods for social justice, mixed-methods, and feminist frameworks to explore her research interests. Frances’ primary interest is using research to advocate for reproductive health equity in service of reproductive justice, and is committed to centering intersectionality, feminist principles, and social issues in her research, advocacy, and teaching practices. Frances received her MA in Psychology from The New School for Social Research, and prior to her academic career, Frances worked in the fashion industry specializing in apparel production and manufacturing.

    Research Interests: reproductive and maternal health equity, assisted reproductive technologies, fertility care, Black feminisms, qualitative and mixed methods, arts-based research, stratified reproduction, reproductive and mental health

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  • Varnica Arora, Critical Psychology student at the CUNY GC, City University of New York Graduate Center

    Varnica Arora

    she/her

    Varnica Arora is a doctoral candidate from India whose research explores the intersections of culture, belonging, and suicidal behaviors. Her dissertation uses ethnographic methods to examine the experiences of youth in the aftermath of suicidal behaviors in Chhattisgarh, India—a region with one of the highest suicide rates in the world. Varnica has taught psychology courses at City College of New York and Macalester College, and she is currently a fellow with the Teaching and Learning Center at The Graduate Center, where she leads the Pedagogy-in-Practice program. Her work has been supported by grants from the American Association of University Women, the J.N. Tata Endowment, and the International Inequalities Institute at the London School of Economics. Prior to joining the PhD program, Varnica worked as a community organizer with women's collectives in rural India.

    Research Interests: Critical suicide studies, Mixed methods, Belonging and exclusion, Culture, Gender Inequality

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  • Kim Khánh Nguyễn-Nalpas, Critical Psychology student at the CUNY GC, City University of New York Graduate Center

    Kim Khánh Nguyễn-Nalpas

    she/her

    Kim's research interests are in gender, trauma, and decolonizing healing practices. Kim graduated from the Human Development and Social Intervention Master   s program at New York University (NYU), she was also the project manager for PACH.org, a think-and-do tank based at NYU and the education program coordinator for the Morton Deutsch International Center for Cooperation and Conflict Resolution at Teachers College Columbia University. She currently teaches at Pratt Institute and Hunter College.

    Research Interests: complex systems dynamics, transnational feminist scholarship, refugee mothers' resistance to oppressive parenting practices

  • ghina Abi-Ghannam

    she/her

    Ghina Abi-Ghannam is a researcher currently completing her PhD in Critical Social Psychology at The Graduate Center, City University of New York.  Some of her previous contributions include publishing on the social psychological study of violence in Palestine, the exile of Frantz Fanon from Social/Political Psychology, as well as the psychology of land dispossession. Her forthcoming works include a critical review of the political psychology literature on violence in the Middle East and a project examining the afterlives of psychological research literature in media coverage of war. Broadly, her scholarship orbits around critical science research and the political psychology of violence.

    Research Interests: Social movements, decolonial resistance, liberation psychology 

  • Clairette Atri Mizrahi

    Ciudad de México (1986). Poet and Dramatist. Graduated from Universidad Nacional Autonoma de México  (BS in Psychology) and New York University (MFA in Creative Writing in Spanish). Clairette’s interests include the Arab-Jew as a diasporic-dislocating figure, Madness, theory as encounter, poetic language (beyond language) as a way of knowing and being, materiality of psychological phenomena (questioning the invention of the inner world), spillings & collapsings, shuffling & distraction as a method, and materiality of that which is deemed immaterial / unexisting.

    Research Interests: Arab-Jews, poetic language, madness, theory as encounter, collapsings & spillings 

  • Joanna Beltran Giron

    she/they

    Joanna is a Salvadoran queer poet, feminista comunitaria, organizer, activist, and educator. Joanna received a B.A. in Psychology from UC Santa Cruz; an M.A. from Latin American Studies at UT Austin; and is currently pursuing an Interactive Technology and Pedagogy certificate in addition to an en route M.phil and a Ph.D. in Critical Social-Personality Psychology at The Graduate Center. As a daughter and granddaughter of healers, she is also trained in ancestral medicine as well as in energetic and psychosomatic healing modalities such as Reiki and EMDR therapy. Joanna was a 2014 recipient of a distinguished Chicana/Latina Foundation scholarship; served as the Student Representative (2017-2019) for the Central America Section of the Latin American Studies Association (LASA); and is a member of the Committee in Solidarity with the People of El Salvador (CISPES). Joanna likes to play chess, talk to plants, paint, and wear colorful handmade earrings.

    Research Interests: I am interested in decolonial feminisms, liberation psychology, state violence, intergenerational trauma healing, science fiction and metaphysics.

  • Britney Moreira

    she/her

    Britney's research interests vary from mass incarceration to spirituality/faith, juvenile (in)justice, and Black adolescent development. They are all rooted in her desire to highlight the power, altruism, and solidarity that lives within the Black community while also using her work to fight oppressive systems that threaten it, such as the juvenile (in)justice system. She holds a BA from the University of Michigan where she studied Biopsychology, Cognition, & Neuroscience and Creative Writing & Literature. Her studies and involvement in organizations such as the Prison Creative Arts Project has sparked her interest and advocacy for arts-based alternatives to youth incarceration. Britney is a part of the Facilitator Team with the Youth Justice Research Collaborative and a Research Associate for the Public Science Project. She is Ford Fellow and a Mellon Humanities PublicsLab Fellow.

    Research Interests: juvenile (in)justice and its impact on Black adolescent development, arts-based alternatives to youth incarceration, power, altruism and solidarity within the Black community

  • Cristina Onea

    she/her

    Cristina is a Doctoral Candidate studying intergenerational trauma and surveillance. She is a mixed methods researcher who prioritizes participatory and reflexive methodologies. Drawing on her history as a Romanian immigrant, Cristina's dissertation theorizes Civilian Surveillance as a multidirectional method of surveillance which reinforces domination through civilian deputization.  As a member of the Public Science Project, Cristina has worked with multiple non-profit organizations researching surveillance and policing in New York City. Cristina has also lectured at Hunter College and John Jay College of Criminal Justice.

    Research Interests: intergenerational trauma from surveillance, as well as the dignity of resulting methods of subversion

  • Christine O'Toole

    she/her

    Christine holds an EdM in Counseling Psychology from Rutgers University and an MSW from New York University. In addition, Christine is a psychoanalyst in private practice in NYC.  Christine's interests include the role of the social/other in queer embodiment as well as the social construction of psychoanalytic space and time.  She is interested in focusing her research on how the social world informs psychoanalytic notions and uses of spatiality and temporality and how such constructs can serve to shift psychoanalysis both conceptually and clinically toward a more inclusive anti-oppressive stance.  

    Research Interests: social construction of psychoanalytic space and time

  • Katia Henrys

    she/her/hers

    Bio: After getting a master's in Clinical Psychology from the University of Paris 7, France, Katia Henrys went back to her home country Haiti, where she practiced as a clinician and as a trainer in different settings: Research centers, International NGOs, local NGOs, the State University. As a Fulbright recipient, Katia came to the Graduate Center, CUNY, and obtained a master's in Women's and Gender Studies. Her master was focused on the discourses on abortion rights in Haiti. For her a Ph.D. in Critical Social-Personality Psychology is interested in trauma and healing in medical settings for women who are sexually assaulted. Currently, this aspect of her work is centered on partnerships with nurses in Haiti. Katia's interest on qualitative inquiries is also being sharpen with the work she does with oral histories and transnational work with feminist activists with strong attention to ethics. 

    Research Interests: Feminist approach in qualitative research 

“It is necessary to involve ourselves in a new praxis, an activity that transforms reality, allowing us to know it not just in what it is but in what it is not, so thereby we can try to shift it towards what it should be.”
— Ignacio Martín Baró, ‘Towards a Liberation Psychology” (1986/1996)

Our Alumni

Standing on the shoulders of Martín Baró, our alumni carry commitments to research for the collective good through their powerful and diverse trajectories in colleges and universities, community-based organizations, policy positions, think tanks, museums and social movements, across the U.S. and transnationally.