Cherise White

Cherise White is a Clinical Psychology PhD candidate with five years of research experience. Prior to coming to CUNY, she earned a bachelor’s degree in Psychology from Hampton University, a masters of science degree in Industrial-Organizational Psychology from the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga and a masters of Social Work degree from the University of Michigan. Her research experiences began in Dr. Spencer Baker’s lab at Hampton University where they examined the relationship between 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 together they researched incarcerated mothers’ coping patterns, adjustment processes, 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 highly functioning autistic employees 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. Additionally, she was 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. Currently, she is undergoing SCID training and is interested in exploring the connections between the brain, mental illness and psychoanalytic theories.