Cynthia M. Navarro Flores, Ph.D (she, ella)
Dr. Navarro Flores is an Assistant Professor in the Counseling Psychology Program at The University of Tennessee, Knoxville, and co-director of the Targeting Health Disparities through Research, InnoVation, and Equity (THRIVE) Lab. She earned her B.A. in Psychology and M.A. in Clinical Psychology from California State University, Northridge, and her Ph.D. in Combined Clinical/Counseling Psychology from Utah State University. She completed her pre-doctoral internship within the child track at the Charleston Consortium at the Medical University of South Carolina.
Her research broadly addresses health disparities among marginalized youth and families, with a particular emphasis on the Latinx/e population. Specifically, her first line of research focuses on understanding the mechanisms by which adversity (e.g., cumulative, individual effects, clustering, timing) impacts the mental wellbeing of marginalized youth and families. She is also interested in understanding factors that ameliorate the effects of trauma exposure on mental health problems (e.g., coping mechanisms, cultural values) and increase resilience to inform intervention efforts. Through this work, she aims to identify individuals at-risk for developing mental health difficulties following exposure to adversity and inform targeted intervention efforts.
Her second area of inquiry focuses on establishing a community-based participatory research program with local stakeholders (e.g., community organization, schools). These efforts have a specific focus on alleviating the detrimental effects of adversity (e.g., interpersonal and community violence, discrimination, and racism) on the mental health of youths and families within her community and increasing access to culturally informed mental health resources and services in the community.