Dr. Stephanie Cook’s research examines the relationship between stress, health, and social determinants of health across the lifespan, with a focus on vulnerable populations. She studies how structural and individual stressors shape mental and physical health, and how close relationship factors –p articularly attachment patterns – can either buffer or intensify stress effects. Her current work explores how daily stress experiences relate to biological markers such as cortisol and C-reactive protein, as well as health behaviors including substance use and sexual risk-taking, especially among young adults in key life transitions. Using advanced longitudinal and intensive methods, she tracks how stress exposure influences health trajectories over time. As Director of the Attachment and Health Disparities Research Lab, Dr. Cook leads research integrating attachment theory and stress science to develop sustainable interventions that reduce health disparities and promote health equity.

Dr. Cheri Fancsali is Executive Director of the Research Alliance for New York City Schools, where she leads strategic planning and advances partnerships with the New York City Department of Education, local stakeholders, and researchers nationwide. She has overseen major studies, including evaluations of NYC’s Computer Science for All initiative, STEM and computer science equity initiatives, and research on students with disabilities and the ASD Nest model.

With over 25 years of experience, Dr. Fancsali has led large-scale evaluations focused on underserved youth, teacher effectiveness, school reform, STEM, and socio-emotional learning, with support from funders such as the National Science Foundation and the Institute of Education Sciences. Prior to joining the Research Alliance, she held senior research leadership roles at IMPAQ International and AED’s Center for School and Community Services.

Her work emphasizes helping educators and policymakers use evidence to strengthen programs and improve outcomes. Dr. Fancsali began her career as an early childhood and special education teacher in New York City and holds a Ph.D. in Sociology and Education from Columbia University.

Dr. Erin Godfrey directs NYU’s Institute of Human Development and Social Change and is an Associate Professor of Applied Psychology in the Psychology and Social Intervention program at NYU Steinhardt. She earned her BA from Oberlin College and her PhD from New York University, and previously conducted policy research at The Urban Institute. Her research examines how people understand, justify, or challenge systems of oppression and inequity. Drawing on developmental, community, and social psychology, she studies how systemic injustice operates in settings such as schools, community programs, and juvenile legal systems, and how it can be disrupted. Taking an intersectional approach, she explores how power and marginalization shape development and well-being. Her work has been widely funded, published in leading journals, and featured in outlets including The Atlantic.

Mindy Tarlow is a Senior Fellow and Research Professor at NYU’s Marron Institute of Urban Management and Director of the SCALE + Lab, which advances safety, health, and economic mobility through sustained, high-impact interventions.Previously, she was a Managing Director at Blue Meridian Partners, w here she created and led the Justice and Mobility Fund, committing nearly $400 million to expand opportunities for justice-impacted individuals. She also led New York City’s Mayor’s Office of Operations, overseeing citywide performance management and service improvement initiatives. Earlier, Mindy served for nearly two decades as founding CEO of the Center for Employment Opportunities, scaling it nationally, and held senior roles in New York City’s Office of Management and Budget.

This project brings together New York City youth, education researchers, and district leaders to identify research priorities related to educational equity. Building on decades of data showing disparities in academic outcomes by race, ethnicity, and socioeconomic status, the Research Alliance’s Equity Indicators project examines differences in resources and opportunities that shape student success. Recognizing that students have historically been excluded from the research process, this initiative centers youth voices through Youth Participatory Action Research (YPAR). Members of the Youth Advisory Council will receive mentorship and support to develop research proposals addressing equity issues in their communities. These proposals will be shared at a Summit event, helping inform district-level decision-making and future research. The project will generate student-informed equity indicators and share best practices for youth engagement with the national research community.

This project transforms eco-anxiety into agency by engaging students in hands-on biodiversity research within New York City’s urban tree canopy. As environmental studies students grapple with the scale of climate challenges, many feel overwhelmed and disconnected from nature in an urban setting. Through partnerships with municipal agencies, students conduct policy-relevant research on street trees, analyzing biodiversity using acoustic monitoring, GIS mapping, and environmental DNA methods. They generate data to inform NYC’s 30% canopy goal while gaining career-ready research skills and co-authoring peer-reviewed work. By contributing to real-world decision-making, students replace helplessness with purpose, resilience, and civic engagement.

This project is the first rigorous, longitudinal investigation into the power of popular non-fiction to shape moral and political attitudes, addressing a significant gap in research where non-fiction remains under-examined compared to fiction. Drawing on the idea that reading helps young people expand their “circle of care,” the study explores how widely accessible books can foster empathy, belonging, and civic purpose. By identifying themes and titles that activate shared human identity, the project aims to develop low-cost, scalable interventions for schools and community settings. Targeting educators, youth development specialists, policymakers, and authors, the research seeks to integrate effective non-fiction into curricula and youth programs.

This project addresses the eroding public trust in higher education, which disproportionately impacts Black, Latinx, and low-income students. By partnering with NYU pre-college programs, the team will conduct focus groups and pilot surveys to understand how marginalized youth navigate shifting college value propositions. The goal is to co-construct an asset-based "counter-narrative" intervention to combat information inequality and skepticism. Seed funding will support participant incentives and research coordination, laying the groundwork for a larger mixed-methods study designed to reduce postsecondary attainment gaps and challenge deficit-based narratives in college advising.
Co-leads:
Kate Lan, Undergraduate Co-researcher, NYU Metro Center
Anderly Burgos, Undergraduate Co-researcher, NYU Metro Center

A proposal to expand the NYU–NYC Public Schools Path Program into high schools to address the adolescent mental health crisis. Building on existing success in inclusive practices, this initiative aims to create a trauma-informed, research-based model that fosters academic engagement and equitable outcomes for diverse learners. Through a sustained research-practice partnership, the team will develop a healing-centered framework specifically tailored to the needs of high schoolers. The project focuses on transforming school environments into supportive spaces that prioritize emotional well-being alongside academic success, ensuring that trauma-responsive care is integrated into the daily high school experience.

The project explores how Chinese diasporic youth at New York Chinese School (NYCS) develop cultural identity and civic agency through photovoice, archival storywork, and intergenerational dialogue. Against a backdrop of gentrification, economic precarity, and intensified immigration enforcement, the project centers youth as knowledge producers, examining the histories and futures of Manhattan’s Chinatown. Through intergenerational storytelling mediated by archives, the project centers youth as knowledge producers and supports them to develop civic agency and envision collective responses to policing, displacement, and racialized precarity.  The project generates timely insights into how youth experience and respond to neighborhood change, while creating a scalable toolkit for other Asian American organizations and heritage programs. Outcomes include a youth-curated exhibition, accessible digital reports, and scholarly publications, offering a model for empowering diaspora youth to imagine and advocate for their communities’ futures.

This project uses a mixed-method approach to examine  the mechanisms and impact of participatory storytelling in supporting immigrant youth’s identity development and mental wellbeing. Narrative storytelling has emerged as a promising approach to foster immigrant youth’s agency and identity; however, limited research has examined the mechanisms through which storytelling produces these effects. In Phase I, we adopt a transdisciplinary approach that integrates linguistics, psychology, and neurophysiology to investigate the mechanisms of narrative interventions. In Phase II, we design and implement the Moving Stories intervention, in which immigrant youth will be supported to create and share their migration experiences, with a goal to foster reflection, agency, and social connection. Findings from this project will inform policy and practice of immigrant learner education and youth programming. Designed to be scalable across schools and community settings, this project offers structured workshops on storytelling as narrative intervention, offering educators and policymakers actionable strategies  to create inclusive, empowering curriculum and spaces that promote immigrant youths’ identity, resilience, and wellbeing.

This project examines how housing stability affects academic success for fully Pell-eligible, first-generation NYU students. In 2024–2025, 154,000 NYC students experienced homelessness, a crisis affecting many students in the SPS DAUS Career Pathways Bridge Program, and 1 in 5 young people across the Bronx, parts of Brooklyn and Upper Manhattan. Housing insecurity contributes to chronic absenteeism, dropout, and difficulty engaging academically, while limited support for each basic need that goes unmet worsens the challenge. This project will test the addition of stipends for college housing, on top of Bridge’s existing stipends (for food, course supplies, and transportation), and use a continuous improvement cycle to test and refine the effectiveness of this resource. Findings will guide a scalable model for integrating free housing among other basic needs to , inform postsecondary approaches to supporting students residing in low-income communities, and shape public policy decisions.

The Decarceration Lab develops pathways for justice-impacted youth to gain academic and professional credentialing while ensuring universities remain accountable to communities most affected by incarceration. Many young people and community practitioners hold critical expertise but lack recognition or access to higher education. The Lab partners with CBOs, prison education programs, and violence intervention organizations to co-create curricula, credentialing frameworks, and participatory research models. This approach centers lived experience, strengthens youth leadership, and shifts institutional practices from extraction to reciprocity. The project produces a scalable, replicable model connecting youth, community expertise, and higher education to promote equity, opportunity, and violence prevention.