Yamalis Diaz, PhD
1999
Yamalis Diaz, PhD, started Project L/EARN with an academic track record that might have ruled out acceptance in many internship programs—a grade point average of 2.8 (C+). Accepted into the program on the recommendation of the faculty mentor who had taught her in a sociology course, Diaz took full advantage of the program. Under the direction of a Project L/EARN mentor—Kathleen Pottick (social work)—she wrote her summer paper on “The Effect of Insurance and Facility Ownership on Inpatient Length of Stay of Children and Adolescents with Serious Emotional Disturbance,” co-authored with Pottick and current Project L/EARN co-director Jane Miller. The paper became the basis for a conference presentation and published proceedings at the University of South Florida Research & Training Center for Mental Health Annual Research Conference: A System of Care for Children’s Mental Health.
Diaz then worked as a post-baccalaureate research assistant at the Rutgers Center for State Health Policy, co-authoring numerous papers and reports. She earned her PhD in clinical psychology from the University of Maryland, with full funding from a highly competitive National Research Service Award fellowship from the National Institute of Mental Health. Her dissertation examined cultural values and parenting beliefs among Latino parents as a first step in a program that culturally adapted empirically supported parent training programs to treat disruptive behavior problems in children. Diaz then completed a postdoctoral fellowship at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia before accepting her current position as a clinical assistant professor in the Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry at New York University.