Dr. Catalina Cañizares

Biography

Catalina Cañizares is an Assistant Professor and Faculty Fellow at NYU Steinhardt, specializing in clinical health psychology. Her academic journey demonstrates a deep commitment to understanding and addressing critical mental health issues, particularly those affecting adolescents. Dr. Cañizares's research focuses on adolescent suicidal behaviors and ideation, with the aim of identifying and understanding the main risk factors and social determinants that increase vulnerability to suicide among young people. She employs supervised machine learning methods to uncover patterns that contribute to these risks. Her research also encompasses emotional disorders, including depression, anxiety, trauma, and cognitive processes. Additionally, she engages in disaster mental health research with a specific focus on the mental health of responders during disasters, exemplified by her work with 9/11 responders in Florida. Currently, Dr. Cañizares is developing a network meta-analysis to identify effective interventions for reducing PTSD, depression, and anxiety. She is also passionate about data science, dedicating considerable time to data cleaning and transformation for research purposes, and teaching software literacy, especially in R, to colleagues and students. Prior to her role at NYU, Dr. Cañizares coordinated the psychological center for Master's students at Los Andes University, overseeing programs offered by the School of Education.

Research Interests

Awards