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.

Dr. Londoño has also created an asynchronous training on inclusive, trauma-informed practices with immigrants alongside the Center on Immigration and Child Welfare that can be found here. 

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

You can follow Dr. Londoño on Twitter: @TatianaL924

Courtney Demko

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Dr. Demko’s research focuses on older adult health and well-being. She is particularly interested in Alzheimer’s caregiver burden. Her research involves using national survey data and focuses on the multidimensional factors associated with caregiver burden among young adult caregivers.

Dr. Demko’s research experience includes both quantitative and qualitative methodologies and she has used her research skills on several grant-funded research projects at UCLA including grants from the Ford Foundation and Archstone Foundation. She was a member of the UCLA Latino Economic Security (LES) team, which researches the economic impact of a nation growing older and more diverse. Dr. Demko served as the Project Director for the team’s latest project which included conducting focus groups and surveying older white conservative adults to understand their attitudes and beliefs toward immigration and immigration policy. She has published her work in peer-reviewed journals such as The Journal of the American Society on Aging.  She also gained administrative and managerial experience as the Assistant Director for the Center for Policy Research on Aging at UCLA’s Department of Social Welfare and Public Policy.

Dr. Demko also has several years of teaching experience. She is currently teaching 211A Human Behavior in the Social Environment and 260A Research Capstone at UCLA’s Luskin School of Public Affairs Department of Social Welfare. She has also taught at California State University Los Angeles School of Social Work teaching both graduate and undergraduate Social Work Research Methods and Statistics courses.  Her teaching philosophy includes using a variety of teaching modalities to be inclusive of students’ varying learning styles.

She earned her B.A. in Political Science from Davidson College (2005), and an M.S.W (2013) and PhD (2021) from UCLA’s Luskin School of Public Affairs, Department of Social Welfare with a specialization in Gerontology.

Erin Nakamura

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Education:

M.S.W., University of California, Los Angeles

B.A.. California State University, Long Beach

 

Publications:

Katz, L. S., Cojucar, G., Beheshti, S., Nakamura, E., & Murray, M. (2012). Military sexual trauma during deployment to Iraq and Afghanistan: Prevalence, readjustment, and gender differences. Violence and Victims, 27(4), 487–499. https://doi.org/10.1891/0886-6708.27.4.487

Keri Lintz

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Keri Lintz is a third-year PhD student at the UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs, Department of Social Welfare. Her research addresses structural disadvantage by examining the ways in which public policies shape early foundations for healthy lifetime outcomes. Broadly, she studies how social policies support families and attend to factors that drive disparities in early childhood.

Keri is keenly interested in the careful and purposeful application of causal inference methods to child and family policy and serves as the manager for the UCLA Practical Causal Inference Lab. She is currently engaged in studies evaluating the effects of policies and programs on family financial stability, early childhood mental health, and access to healthcare.

Keri draws on almost two decades of experience and expertise in research, public policy administration, and social service delivery. Her first professional experiences were as a child welfare consultant and crisis intervention specialist. Subsequently, she worked for state government administering five federal grant programs designed to foster child and family well-being. Before joining UCLA, she was the executive director of the Center for Human Potential and Public Policy and The Behavioral Insights and Parenting Lab at The University of Chicago where she gained a deep appreciation for the capacity of rigorous research to inform sound policy, programs and practice. In this role, she provided leadership in the implementation of large-scale field experiments and evaluation of promising programs dedicated to reducing social and economic inequality.

Stephanie Patton

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Stephanie Patton is an incoming first year doctoral student in the Department of Social Welfare at the UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs. She brings with her more than 10 years of practical social work experience in nonprofit administration and social policy. Prior to starting the PHD program at UCLA, she held positions with U.S. Soccer Federation, the American Red Cross, Michigan state Senator Jeff Irwin, and U.S. Senator Gary Peters. Most recently she served as a Project Manager for Cincinnati Children’s Hospital, helping them develop a learning health network for hospitals to share best care practices and conduct innovative research for individuals with single ventricle heart disease.

Stephanie holds a BA in Sociology and English from DePauw University. She received her MSW summa cum laude from the University of Michigan with a concentration on children and families and a focus on social policy. She is also a certified Project Management Professional through the Project Management Institute and has earned certificates in quality improvement and data visualization.

Her research interests center on child development, child welfare, abuse and neglect prevention, community networks, poverty, and material hardship.

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/stephaniepatton1/

Irene Valdovinos

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Irene Valdovinos, LCSW, MPH is a third-year doctoral student in the Department of Social Welfare at the UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs. As an emerging scholar, Irene is focused on examining the life experiences of racial and ethnic young adults beginning treatment for substance use disorders to further understand the treatment engagement process.  Irene expects to gather and analyze substance use-related data that informs nuanced methods to ameliorate the substance use treatment gap that exists within communities impacted by health disparities. Specifically, her research has implications for developing novel ways to enhance pathways to treatment for young adults and in shifting narratives to focus on the factors that can better support young adults in their health trajectories.

Irene is well-positioned to carry out this research. She has served as a mental health clinician in integrated care programs. In these settings, she offered individual, family, and group counseling services to individuals impacted by co-occurring mental health and substance use disorders. In witnessing how substance use impacts individuals and families, Irene became motivated in learning how larger systems and system change could lead to broader impacts on improving substance use-related and behavioral health outcomes. While working at Azusa Pacific University (APU), Irene managed multiple workforce development and evaluation projects funded by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA), the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health Substance Abuse Prevention and Control division, and other local-level sponsors. Through this work, she gained insights on substance use-related policies, service continuum, provider perspectives, and program planning, implementation and evaluation processes. Irene continues to collaborate with her APU and UCLA colleagues on substance use-related evaluation and technical assistance projects, including a project with the California Department of Health Care Services, which aims to develop a substance use prevention evidence-based online resource center to support youth substance use prevention providers in California.

Juan J. Nunez

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Juan J. Nunez is a doctoral student in Social Welfare at UCLA’s Luskin School of Public
Affairs. He has previously worked as a Data Analyst and Research Associate at WRMA, Inc., a
research firm dedicated to providing support to health and human services agencies. While at
WRMA, the two main projects he worked on are the National Child Abuse and Neglect Data
System (NCANDS) and the National Adult Maltreatment Reporting System (NAMRS). His
current research focuses on understanding the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on child
maltreatment reporting, analyzing the applicability of machine learning techniques to predict
adult maltreatment, and identifying methods to strengthen community assistance to at-risk
communities (e.g., children, older adults, adults with disabilities, young adults experiencing
inadequate housing). His research informs policy makers and key stakeholders on the
development of prevention programs and on the use of innovative methodologies to identify
community and individual protective factors. He holds a MA in Sociology from Boston College,
where his research focused on analyzing the effects of religion on mental health among older
adults, and a BA in Sociology from the University of San Francisco.

LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/jjnunez1

 

Qianyun Wang

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Qianyun is a third-year PhD student in Social Welfare. She earned her bachelor’s degree in Social Work from Beijing Normal University and her master’s degree in Social Work from the University of Calgary. Her extensive fieldwork and education in community development span diverse contexts, including India, Korea, the Philippines, Canada, and China. These experiences have fueled her commitment to addressing social exclusion, ageism, racism, and migratory injustice through both action and research.

Qianyun’s research focuses on the intersection of aging and immigration, with a particular interest in enhancing the well-being of older immigrants using an intersectional approach. She aims to critically examine grief and bereavement among older Chinese immigrants as part of her work.

In addition to her academic pursuits, Qianyun volunteers at the Chinatown Service Center in Los Angeles, where she assists low-income older immigrants with social services and housing issues. She is passionate about community-based research and believes in the importance of community involvement in addressing social issues.

Her research also encompasses well-being issues among migrant workers and public health challenges within sexual minority communities. She has collaborated with interdisciplinary research teams from the University of Calgary, Tsinghua University, and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill’s Project-China.

ResearchGate: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Qianyun-Wang-3