Tatiana Londoño

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Dr. Tatiana Londoño is a first-generation Latina born in Colombia and raised in Miami, Florida. Dr. Londoño graduated from Vassar College with a B.A. in Neuroscience and Behavior and from The University of Texas at Austin with an M.S.S.W. and then her Ph.D. Throughout her career, she has received funding from various sources such as OLLI NOVA Diversity Scholarship, St. David’s Foundation, Integrated Behavioral Health Scholars Program, and QuestBridge.

Tatiana Londoño’s scholarship focuses on the mental health and psychosocial wellbeing of Latine/x immigrant youth and their families, with an emphasis on the experiences and impact of migration. Specifically, her work explores how Latine/x immigrant youth and families navigate and adapt to the psychosocial consequences of migration and resettlement. She is particularly interested in how these experiences contribute to various outcomes, such as distress and post-traumatic growth, and how family processes can mitigate some of these outcomes. Her long-term goal is to incorporate her research into brief preventative interventions accessible to Latine/x immigrant populations in the U.S. Her work is published in Family Process, The American Journal of Drug and Alcohol Abuse, Health Psychology, Journal of Adolescent Research, Child and Adolescent Social Work Journal, and Social Work in Mental Health. She has also published policy and research briefs with the Children’s Defense Fund and the Center on Immigration and Child Welfare.

Dr. Londoño is currently involved in several National Institutes of Health (NIH)-funded studies concerning the mental health and psychosocial well-being of Latine/x youth and their families. She is using a mixed-method approach to explore the effects of migration and immigration detention on asylum-seeking children and families from Central America. Specifically, she is analyzing 1) migration trauma exposure and mental health outcomes among immigrant youth; 2) how migration shapes parent-child relationships; and 3) different trajectories of wellbeing among youth in the U.S. resettlement context and environmental contexts (e.g., neighborhood, school, immigration enforcement) that contribute to these trajectories. In addition to this project, she is currently investigating the cultural adaptation and implementation of a parenting intervention that integrates experiences of immigration-related challenges, discrimination, and biculturalism.

Dr. Londoño’s previous research projects include: (1) exploring why adolescent Latinas attempt suicide more than other females;  (2) examining the effects of immigration enforcement on U.S. citizen children of undocumented Mexican parents; (3) investigating service experiences of youth transitioning from child to adult mental health systems; (4) studying depression and suicidality among Mexican-American children and youth; and (5) assessing smoking dependence among Spanish-speaking Latine/x smokers.

Dr. Londoño also engages in needs assessment and evaluation research related to the communities she serves. She led the analysis of a campus-wide survey on assessing the needs of undocumented students at UT Austin and, with the Rooted Collective Task Force, drafted a proposal in support of a center for undocumented students. Dr. Londoño is also evaluating the Mental Health Collaborative at Girasol, a program that serves Texas immigrant children and families and educates service providers working with immigrant populations.

In the community, Dr. Londoño has worked in various settings such as schools, domestic violence agencies, and integrated behavioral health primary care clinics providing counseling, psychoeducation, and case management services to mostly Spanish-speaking families who experienced immigration-related trauma. Tatiana continues to volunteer her time to support immigrant families in detention with their credible fear interviews and orient asylum-seeking families at immigrant resource centers. She is currently the lead consultant on a project with New Mexico State University creating a trauma-informed training series for service providers working with Latine/x immigrant populations. This work is funded by the W.K. Kellogg Foundation.

Professor Londoño teaches the following courses: 211A: Human Behavior in Social Environment.

You can follow Dr. Londoño on Twitter: @TatianaL924

Julia Lesnick

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Julia Lesnick is an emerging scholar of youth justice. Her research agenda aims to shift policy, practice, and public narratives investing in youth to pursue a more just society. She takes a multi-disciplinary approach grounded in social welfare, sociology and developmental psychology to examine the following areas: young people’s experiences with policy advocacy and implementation; the use of evidence to inform juvenile system change; emerging alternative models of youth justice practice; and public and political narratives about youth justice.

As a second-year doctoral student at UCLA, Julia’s research focuses on juvenile legal system change. Some of her recent and ongoing projects include a first-authored critical review of paradigms influencing national trends of juvenile system reform, leading a qualitative study of stakeholders’ visions for the future of youth justice, conducting a comprehensive synthesis of evidence on credible messenger mentoring with youth in the juvenile system, collecting data for evaluation of a youth re-entry program, and serving as a research consultant for the state of California in the implementation of juvenile justice reform legislation.

In addition to her research at UCLA, Julia is a practitioner and advocate for justice. Prior to UCLA, she worked as a program analyst at the NYC Division of Youth and Family Justice and in community-based social services, as a therapist and case manager for youth on probation, and as a teacher in prison-based college degree program. She received her Bachelor’s of Science in Human Development from Cornell University in 2018, and her Master’s of Social Work from UCLA in 2023.

Ultimately, Julia aspires to a career conducting research that advances equitable, youth-centered, and community-led change in youth justice policy and practice. She aims to contribute innovative, applied research that bridges organizing, science, policy, and practice to promote socially just youth policy.

Chaoyue Wu

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Chaoyue Wu is a doctoral student in Social Welfare. She graduated with her LL.B. in social work from Beijing Institute of Technology and her M.A. in social policy from the Chinese University of Hong Kong. Her research interests include school violence, perpetration and victimization, mental and behavioral health, and quantitative research methods.

Before joining the PhD program at the Luskin School of Public Affairs, she worked as a research assistant on diverse projects in different Chinese societies (Mainland China, Hong Kong and Taiwan), examining the risk factors for violence involvement and the negative impacts of victimization experience on mental and behavioral health among marginalized children and adolescents.