She received her Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology from Arizona State University and completed a post-doctoral fellowship in prevention science at the University of Illinois at Chicago. She uses community-based participatory research methods to better understand risk and protective factors that shape youth development across settings (e.g., families, schools, neighborhoods), and especially how poverty, stress, acculturation, and cultural values shape family life and child mental health. Ultimately, this work informs the development of culturally-competent and contextually-relevant mental health interventions for low-income, ethnic minority and immigrant families.