Bio

Jennifer Mootz, MA, is a doctoral candidate in Counseling Psychology at Texas Woman’s University (TWU) with an anticipated graduation date of August, 2015. She has MA degrees in Counseling Psychology from TWU and Social Sciences from the Universiteit van Amsterdam (where she facilitated grounded theory research with sex workers in the Red Light District of Amsterdam under the supervision of an anthropologist). In July, she will commence a postdoctoral research fellowship with the Global Health Equity Scholars Program, which is supported by National Institutes of Health (NIH), and her appointment will be held by Yale University. Her primary mentor is faculty in public health at Yale, and her secondary mentor is housed in the Department of Women and Gender Studies at Makerere University in Kampala, Uganda. In Uganda, she will develop further her community-based participatory dissertation research on gender-based violence in a Northeastern Ugandan community experiencing enduring armed conflict, for which she was honored to have been awarded two American Psychological Association Awards through the Division of International Psychology and the International Section of the Division of Counseling Psychology. Her upcoming research project will explore prevalence, predictors, and mental health outcomes of gender-based violence in the context of ongoing armed conflict in the Teso Subregion of Northeastern Uganda. Mental health outcome data will be collected qualitatively and conceptualized from a variety of lenses (e.g., indigenous and medical). Her academic interests include indigenous and intercultural conceptual models of mental health, especially as those models pertain to the prevention, intervention, and mental health sequelae of gender-based violence in the contexts of forced relocation and ongoing armed conflict. In June, she will complete her pre-doctoral clinical internship with the Southwest Consortium in Albuquerque, New Mexico, having participated in rotations with the First Nations Clinic, Veterans Health Administration, and University of New Mexico Hospital. At First Nations, she served as an intern clinician with Dr. Maria Yellow Horse Braveheart’s research project, investigating the efficacy of the integration of historical trauma components with interpersonal therapy for depression for Native Americans. Previously, she worked as an intercultural trainer for persons relocating globally and as a program director for a nonprofit agency, offering suicide prevention and response support to the community.