Meet the Speakers
Event
Applied and Interdisciplinary Perspectives to Support Ethnic and Racial Issues within Child Development | Webinar
Speakers
Lauren Mims
Lauren Christine Mims, Ph.D. is an assistant professor in the Department of Applied Psychology at New York University's Steinhardt School of Culture, Education, and Human Development. Dr. Mims earned her doctorate in Educational Psychology: Applied Developmental Science at the University of Virginia School of Education. Dr. Mims was formerly Assistant Director of the White House Initiative on Educational Excellence for African Americans during the Obama Administration. She was a member of the White House Council on Women and Girls, the U.S. Department of Education Policy Committee, the U.S. Department of Education Socioeconomic Diversity Working Group, as well as a member of First Lady Michelle Obama's Reach Higher Working Group.
Dr. Mims’ current research focuses on Black children and adolescents’ (extra)ordinary learning and development amidst the normativity of racial discrimination in their everyday life experiences. Specifically, she explores how Black children’s interactions within their families, peer groups, communities, and schools may buffer the deleterious impacts of experiences of racism and discrimination by providing agentic, adaptive coping strategies that, in turn, lead to positive development. The ultimate goal of her research is to “freedom dream” (Kelley, 2002) with Black children and their families, and then use that brilliance to guide the development of new research, policies, practices, and narratives.
Cecilia Frometa
Dr. Cecilia Frometa is a Licensed Clinical Psychologist and Assistant Professor at Yale University School of Medicine. She is a core faculty member within the Psychology Section at the Child Study Center and is the Director of the Yale Family Based Recovery Program. She has been in the mental health field for over 25 years and has extensive therapy, teaching, program development and public policy experience. Her work has been published in several issue briefs in the area of social determinants of health.
She led the public health team In 2020, she assisted YASC in developing a curriculum for students, parents and professionals focused on the impact of chronic trauma and psychosocial stressors on learning and emotional functioning. She has been a keynote speaker, expert panelist, and presenter at several national and state-wide mental health forums. Most recently, she was featured on NBC Nightly News on a segment on ‘helping parents identify depression in children during the COVID pandemic.
Dr. Frometa obtained her Ph.D. in Counseling Psychology from Northeastern University and completed her pre-doctoral clinical internship at Harvard Medical School with a clinical focus on trauma related disorders. She additionally completed her post-doctoral fellowship at Yale University School of Medicine.
Joyce Javier
Joyce Javier MD, MPH, MS is an Associate Professor of Clinical Pediatrics at Children's Hospital Los Angeles, Keck School of Medicine of the University of Southern California in the Departments of Pediatrics and Population and Public Health Sciences. She completed pediatrics residency and a postdoctoral fellowship in general academic pediatrics at Stanford University. She is a physician scientist whose research has focused on using community based participatory research to preventing behavioral health disparities among Filipino youth. Her work has been funded by the National Institutes of Health NCATS KL2, NICHD K23, and NIMHD R01 awards, American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP), the SC Clinical and Translational Science Institute (CTSI), and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Clinical Scholars Program. She currently serves as an Executive Committee Member on the American Academy of Pediatrics Council on Community Pediatrics, the Co-chair of the Society for Pediatric Research Advocacy Committee, and a member of the Pediatric Policy Council. She teaches trainees in the general pediatrics clinic at Alta Med Health Services, a federally qualified community health center and as a faculty instructor in USC’s MPH program and the SC CTSI. Dr. Javier has received several awards for her work including the Local Hero Award from the AAP Council on Community Pediatrics, the Filipina Women’s Network 100 Most Influential Filipina Women in the World Award, and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Award for Health Equity presented by the Asian & Pacific Islander Caucus for Public Health of the American Public Health Association.
Catherine Hoyt
Catherine Hoyt is an early intervention (0-3 years) occupational therapist and Assistant Professor at Washington University School of Medicine. A native of Silver Spring, MD, she earned her doctorate in occupational therapy in 2010 and Ph.D. in rehabilitation and participation science in 2019 from Washington University in St. Louis. She completed a postdoctoral externship at the University of Groningen, The Netherlands, and a postdoctoral fellowship at Washington University School of Medicine. Dr. Hoyt is a co-founder of the Coalition of Occupational Therapy Advocates for Diversity (COTAD) and served as its chair from its inception in 2014 through 2020.
As a clinician, Dr. Hoyt recognized the gaps in assessment, particularly for early identification of disability among children with sickle cell disease, and the real and devastating impact delayed identification of disability can have on long-term outcomes for children, leading to the development of the Infant Toddler Activity Card Sort (ITACS). She completed training in the Mentored Training in Implementation Science K12 Training Program and currently serves as the PI on a study funded by NHLBI focused on early identification and intervention of developmental delay among young children with sickle cell disease and as site Co-PI for the I-ACQUIRE trial of constraint-induced movement therapy for children 8-36 months of age.
Moderator
Melissa Lucas
Melissa Lucas, Ph.D. is currently a postdoctoral associate at the Education Collaboratory at Yale and an Institute of Mixture Modeling for Equity-Oriented Researchers, Scholars, and Educators (IMMERSE) Fellow through the University of California, Santa Barbara. Dr. Lucas earned her doctorate in Educational Psychology-Applied Developmental Science from the University of Virginia School of Education, where she was an Institute of Education Sciences predoctoral fellow. She received her bachelor’s in Psychology and Sociology from Virginia Commonwealth University and her associate's in Social Sciences from Northern Virginia Community College, where she was the 2023 commencement speaker. Dr. Lucas has received various mentored/travel awards through the Society for Prevention Research, Society for Research on Educational Effectiveness, National Science Foundation, Society of Multivariate Experimental Psychology, Yale Alumni Service Corps, and Yale Child Study Center. She has also appeared in multiple interviews through Univision Contigo.
Dr. Lucas is a mixed-methods researcher, focused on creating culturally and linguistically affirming and emotionally supportive spaces in schools and communities. She is particularly committed to amplifying the assets and voices of Latinx and multilingual students, their families, and educators. Through her current role at Yale, Dr. Lucas uses a critical and assets-based lens to manage and lead both qualitative and quantitative data analysis efforts, while also collaborating with partner organizations and providing/coordinating social and emotional learning (SEL)-specific technical assistance (in both Spanish & English) across schools in California, New York, and Puerto Rico.