Meet our New Faculty/Staff

Dr. Denise Chavira

Dr. Chavira received her Bachelor’s degree in Psychology from the University of California Berkeley and thereafter graduated from the University of California San Diego (UCSD)/San Diego State University Joint Doctoral Program with a PhD in Clinical Psychology.  She completed a clinical internship at Brown University and returned to the University of California San Diego for a postdoctoral fellowship in the Department of Psychiatry.  Dr. Chavira also completed postdoctoral training at UCLA’s Child Anxiety, OCD, Tic and Tourette’s Disorders clinic.  She is a licensed Clinical Psychologist, an Associate Professor of Psychology/Psychiatry and a research investigator at the Child and Adolescent Services Research Center in San Diego.  She has been an investigator on various grants examining the phenomenology of various child psychiatric disorders as well as the effectiveness of child and adult anxiety interventions delivered in medical settings.  Dr. Chavira is currently the principal investigator on two NIH grants focusing on barriers to treatment and models of service delivery for children with anxiety disorders and rural Latino populations.  Dr. Chavira has taught various courses focusing on empirically supported therapies for children, adolescents and adults, case conceptualization and assessment, research methods, clinical and developmental psychopathology, and multicultural issues in assessment and counseling.

This semester Dr. Chavira is teaching our new topics course entitled, Effective Counseling Interventions for Children and Adults (HD370-02). This course substitutes for SOC 417, Family Violence.

Dr. Sawssan Ahmed

Sawssan Ahmed received her doctoral degree in Clinical Psychology at Wayne State University with minors in Community Psychology and Quantitative Methods where she explored the relationship between socio-cultural factors (including perceived racism, religiousness and ethnic identity) and the physical and mental health of adolescents of color. After graduate school, she completed a one year fellowship at UCLA's Center for Culture, Trauma and Mental Health Disparities and was until recently San Diego State University's Oscar Kaplan Fellow in Developmental issues where she was working under the mentorship of May Yeh.  Her research interests include understanding the link between socio-cultural risk and protective factors and health disparities in adolescents of color with specific interests in Arab American and refugee youth.

Dr. Ahmed teaches our new topics course entitled, Health and Human Development (HD370-01). You should know that this course substitutes for SOC 314, Health and Society.

Jo Ann Espinoza

We are fortunate to have the able assistance of Jo Ann Espinoza to help us as Administrative Coordinator. She is located in UNIV 328. Soon we will have a receptionist outside of her office, which can help answer basic questions about where faculty are located, our office hours, etc. Jo Ann also serves Kinesiology besides HD.