Dr. Sandra Barrueco
Dr. Barrueco recently joined the University of Maryland, Baltimore County (UMBC) from Catholic University in Washington, DC where she was a faculty member for nearly twenty years.
At UMBC, Dr. Barrueco is excited to serve as the Director of the Clinical Psychology PhD program and an Associate Professor. At CatholicU, Dr. Barrueco was Professor of Psychology, Director of the PhD Program in Clinical Psychology (including its reaccreditation), and member of the Children, Families, and Cultures Focus. She also led the undergraduate Latin American and Latino Studies Minor and Certificate Degrees and co-founded the University’s Institute for Latin American and Iberian Studies. Additionally, Dr. Barrueco was as an Associate Dean for Graduate Programs and Research in the School of Arts & Sciences.
In terms of background and training, Dr. Barrueco's undergraduate degrees are in Psychology & Economics from Amherst College, magna cum laude. She obtained my doctorate at the University of Denver in Clinical Child Psychology with an emphasis in Cognitive Neuroscience and a full-year nationally matched internship at Children’s National Medical Center in Clinical Child and Pediatric Psychology. Dr. Barrueco subsequently focused on the identification and prevention of developmental and mental health difficulties as a Postdoctoral Fellow in the Department of Neuropsychology at Kennedy Krieger Institute. She also completed a research Postdoctoral Fellowship in the Department of Mental Health at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, designing and conducting prevention and intervention science investigations. Dr. Barrueco is a licensed psychologist in Maryland and DC.
Dr. Barrueco's research program utilizes a prevention science framework to examine and address developmental and mental health difficulties among language-minority, immigrant, and migrant children. Contributing to empirical and clinical advancements in this area are three interrelated investigative foci: 1) methodological improvements in the assessment and early identification of bilingual children, 2) expansion of the theoretical and research bases pertaining to developmental and clinical processes within immigrant children and their families, and 3) creation and examination of multisystemic preventive interventions fostering linguistic and socioemotional functioning.
In collaboration with colleagues across the country, Dr. Barrueco created and led a nationally-representative study of Migrant and Seasonal Head Start with over 1400 participants focused on infants, toddlers, preschoolers and their agricultural families. Her research was also referenced in the development of national requirements in the assessment of bilingual children. Most recently, Dr. Barrueco has been co-directing a grant to advance diversity, substance/opioid, and telehealth training in clinical psychology. These studies and initiatives have been fiscally supported by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, U.S. Department of Education, U.S. Health Resources & Services Administration, and Spencer Foundation, and other entities.
Finally, Dr. Barrueco engages with the local and national communities, currently serving on The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine's Forum for Children’s Well-Being. Past appointments include DC Bilingual Charter School Board, the Advisory Committee of the American Psychological Association Presidential Task Force on Immigration, the federal Expert Panel on Research Methods with Young Dual Language Learners, and the Policy and Communications Committee of the Society for Research in Child Development (SRCD). Throughout her training and career, she has been dedicated to learning and utilizing advanced statistics, including latent variable and multilevel level modeling, to advance scientific knowledge and practice with young immigrant children and families. This approach is rooted in a community-based participatory research framework involving strong collaborations with families and the local and national programs that serve them.
