GRADUATE ALUMNI PROFILES

Mariely Hernandez, Ph.D.

Mariely's dissertation examined how impulsivity interacts with childhood ADHD severity to affect alcohol use outcomes in college students.

Rachel Tayler, Ph.D.

Rachel received her BA in Political Science from Haverford College in Pennsylvania. Afterwards, she completed an MSc in Health, Community, and Development from The London School of Economics and Political Science. She spent the early part of her career working in consulting, healthcare research, and clinical trial administration. She received her MA and PhD in Clinical Psychology from The City College of New York, CUNY. Her research, which focused on the intersection of diagnostic accuracy of childhood ADHD and minority group membership, was funded by a Colin Powell Graduate Fellowship, and won the Kenneth and Mamie Clark Psychology Department Award for furthering our understanding of psychology and race in America. She recently completed her predoctoral internship at New York University, New York City Health and Hospitals / Bellevue Hospital. Rachel is currently a postdoctoral fellow at SoHo CBT and Mindfulness Center, a private practice in Manhattan.

Cherise White, Ph.D., LMSW

Dr. Cherise White is a graduate of City College’s Clinical Psychology Ph.D. program. Dr. White has ten years of research experience. Prior to CUNY, she earned a bachelor’s degree in Psychology from Hampton University, a Master of Science degree in Industrial-Organizational Psychology from the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga, and a Master of Social Work degree from the University of Michigan.

Dr. White was a part of the ATTEND! Lab for two years. She completed her doctoral dissertation on the effect of object relations and defense mechanisms on interpersonal relations in adults with ADHD symptoms. While in this lab, she was trained to administer the Kiddie Schedule for Affective Disorders and Schizophrenia and the MINI. Prior to joining the ATTEND! Lab, she worked in the S.N.A.P. lab with Dr. Eric Fertuck at City College. Dr. White was trained in the Structured Clinical Interview for DSM (SCID), and she explored racial and ethnic differences in the expression of borderline personality disorder features and organization. Further, while at CCNY, Dr. White worked with the Hispanic- Alliance for the Graduate Education and the Professoriate (H-AGEP), conducting research on the career progression of Engineering students at City College and the University of Texas, El Paso.

Before her doctoral studies, Dr. White worked with Dr. Spencer Baker at Hampton University, where they examined the relations among the academic achievement of Black college students, conscientiousness, stress, and ADHD. Also, at Hampton University, she was a scholar in the Career Opportunities in Research program funded by NIMH. In this program, she trained under Dr. Zina McGee and researched incarcerated mothers’ coping patterns, adjustment processes, and availability and effectiveness of reentry programs for newly released female inmates. During an internship at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, under the direction of Dr. Aparna Joshi, she explored the workforce needs of employees with high functioning Autism Spectrum Disorder and ways to better support them in the workplace. While obtaining her Social Work master’s degree at the University of Michigan in the department of Social Work, she worked in Dr. Brad Zebrack’s lab as the study coordinator for the validation of the distress thermometer for adolescents and young adults with cancer project and on the Association for Oncology Social Workers national project to assure quality cancer care (APAQCC) research. At Michigan, she was also a part of Dr. Maria Muzik’s study investigating neurobehavioral assessments of RDoC domains to detect preschool mood disorders. Simultaneously, she worked in Dr. Israel Liberzon’s lab under the direction of Dr. Elizabeth Duval, investigating the neural underpinnings of attention training in social anxiety disorder and its influence on social threat bias.

Collectively, Dr. White has shared a passion for research that explores the connections between the brain and mental illness, and the merger of theory and clinical application.