Advisory Board

Alvin N. Alvarez is the Dean of the College of Health & Social Sciences At San Francisco State University. Alvarez’s academic work has focused on Asian Americans, racial identity and the psychological impact of racism. His scholarship has been supported by the National Institute of Mental Health and has been awarded the Janet E. Helms Award for Mentoring and Scholarship, the Asian Pacific American Network Research Award from the American College Personnel Association, the Best Paper for 2011 from the Asian American Journal of Psychology and the Tanaka Memorial Dissertation Award from APA. Alvarez has served as director of the Leadership Development Institute for the Council of National Psychological Associations for the Advancement of Ethnic Minority Interests, for which he was awarded the Lifetime Achievement in Mentoring Award from the Society of Counseling Psychology. He is a former president of the Asian American Psychological Association, from which he received Early Career Award and the Distinguished Contributions Award.

Alvarez received bachelor's degrees in psychology and biological sciences from the University of California, Irvine, and earned his master's degree and doctorate in counseling psychology from the University of Maryland.

Dr. Yara Mekawi is an assistant professor in the Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences at the University of Louisville. She is the director of the Challenging Ongoing Legacies Of Racism (COLOR) lab and her research focuses on examining racial discrimination and racial prejudice at the intersection of affect and cognition. Using interdisciplinary and multi-method approaches, she pursues three main lines of inquiry: (a) What are the cognitive and affective mechanisms through which race-related stress is associated with psychopathology in racially marginalized groups? (b) What are the cognitive and affective factors that maintain racially-prejudiced behavior and attitudes among White individuals? and (c) What are the most effective strategies to reduce racial prejudice and ameliorate its effects on the mental health of individuals from racially marginalized groups? Dr. Mekawi is interested in the assessment and integration of meaningful DEI practices within organizations and the implementation of interventions designed to increase access for historically excluded racial groups.

Dr. Onnie Rogers, Principal Investigator of the Development of Identities in Cultural Environments (DICE) Lab at Northwestern University, is a developmental psychologist and identity scholar whose research curiosities converge at the intersection of human development, diversity and equity, and education. Dr. Rogers is interested in social and educational inequities and the mechanisms through which macro-level disparities are both perpetuated and disrupted at the micro-level of identities and relationships. Her research centers on the perspectives and experiences of racially/ethnically diverse children and adolescents. As a professor and a researcher, Dr. Rogers advocates for equity with an intersectional lens and does research on race and gender, and their role in identity development among youth in urban contexts. When not in the office, Dr. Rogers enjoys practicing yoga, eating chocolate, or shuttling her daughters (ages 6 and 10) to various activities. 

Scott Seider is an applied developmental psychologist whose research focuses on the role that educators can play in fostering young people's civic development and critical consciousness. He is the author of three books and numerous articles that report on the promising practices of educators committed to supporting their students' positive development in these areas. At Boston College, Dr. Seider teaches undergraduate and graduate courses focused on adolescent development, transformative teaching and learning, qualitative research methods, and social oppression and transformation. He previously worked as an English teacher in the Boston Public Schools and as a teacher educator at Boston University. Dr. Seider also currently serves on advisory boards for a number of different youth-serving organizations including Expeditionary Learning (EL) Education, the Journal of Adolescent Research, Character.org, and the Center for Parent & Teen Communication.

Leo Wilton, Ph.D., MPH, is Professor in the Department of Human Development in the College of Community and Public Affairs (CCPA) at the State University of New York at Binghamton.

His research interests include health disparities and inequities (HIV and AIDS); Black psychological development and mental health; critical community-based participatory research; and mixed- and multi-methods research. His scholarly research on the HIV epidemic focuses on the intersectionality of race, gender and sexuality, as situated in macro- and micro-level inequities in Black communities, both nationally and internationally. His research engages the complexities of how socio-structural and–cultural contexts influence people's development and well-being within African and African diaspora communities. In this context, the overall objective of his scholarly research program has been to examine socio-structural and -cultural factors that provide the basis for the development of culturally congruent HIV prevention and care interventions in Black communities. He has served as Principal Investigator (PI) or Co-Investigator on several National Institutes of Health (NIH)-funded research studies. He teaches courses on psychology of racism, Black child and adolescent development, Black families, psychology of HIV and AIDS, and research methods.