Joan W. Duncan, PhD | Founder & Co-Director

Dr. Duncan received her Ph.D. in Psychology from Clark University, Wooster MA, and completed her Postdoctoral training at Yale University. She is a professor of psychology within the Ph.D. Program in Clinical Psychology, in the School of Health Professions at Long Island University. She has served as the Program’s acting clinical director and associate director. She is chair of the Permanent Faculty Student Committee: Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion and teaches Cross-Cultural Psychology and Professional Ethics within the doctoral program.

Dr. Duncan’s work focuses on addressing the complex psychosocial needs of children, families, and communities made vulnerable by war, genocide, forced migration, natural disasters, loss, and poverty. This work includes situational analysis, needs assessment, program development, training, capacity building, technical assistance, and program evaluation. She has served as regional advisor, director, team leader, principal investigator, and consultant to international organizations such as UNICEF, Save the Children, CARE, the International Rescue Committee, Ford Foundation, among others, and has worked, and/or lived in Mozambique, Malawi, Zimbabwe, Rwanda, Thailand, Bosnia, and most recently Kenya. She has also worked to help community-based grass roots organizations focused on social justice build organizational capacity and evaluate programming. As an educator and proponent of the development of global awareness and responsibility, she has given many of her doctoral students the opportunity to experience the transformative experience of immersion-based learning in an international context.

Dr. Duncan’s academic interests and expertise extend to cross-cultural psychology, acculturation, ethnicity and mental health, ethics in psychotherapy, consultation and community health, child protection, and reproductive rights. She is also involved in numerous leadership roles in civic educational organizations, most notably she served as Board Chair of REACH Prep, Stamford CT and of the Teachers Initiative Grant for Educational Resourcefulness, at Fox Run School, Norwalk CT.

Dr. Caroline Clauss-Ehlers (aka Dr. CC) attended Oberlin College, graduating with Honors in Government and stimulating an ongoing concern for how psychology can inform public policy and create social change. She completed her doctorate in Counseling Psychology at Teachers College, Columbia University with a pre-doctoral internship at Bellevue Hospital/New York University Medical Center within the

Bilingual Treatment Program. Dr. CC is a Professor of Psychology in the School of Health Professions at Long Island University, Brooklyn, an Honorary Professor at the Universidad Peruana Cayetano Heredia, and an Affiliate Faculty member for Rutgers Global at Rutgers University. At LIU, she teaches Introduction to Clinical Interviewing I and II in the doctoral program and Honors Psychology and an Advanced Elective Seminar: Resilience, Research, and Relationships in the undergraduate Honors College. Dr. CC teaches Adolescent Psychology and Development as an online course for high school students in China through Rutgers Global.

Born in New York and raised in Venezuela, Dr. CC has worked with both English and Spanish-speaking communities throughout her career. Her clinical and research interests focus on trauma and resilience in children and families, and culturally responsive intervention. She has written and co-edited several books focused topics such as social justice for children and young people, multicultural psychology, resilience, eating mindfulness, and community psychology. Dr. CC served as Chair of the American Psychological Association (APA) Task Force on Re-envisioning the Multicultural Guidelines for the 21 st Century. This work led to publishing Multicultural Guidelines: An Ecological Approach to Context, Identity, and Intersectionality, 2017. She served as editor of the Journal of Multicultural Counseling and Development for 6 years and is a Fellow of APA Division 53, Society of Clinical Child and Adolescent Psychology and Division 43, Society for Couple and Family Psychology.

Dr. CC is also a freelance journalist who cares about providing mental health information to the public.  She writes a blog for Psychology Today called Eating Together, Being Together that makes connections between food, recipes, and life experiences.  She has worked to promote community well-being through collaborations with media outlets such as being a columnist for HOY (Newsday in Spanish), a contributor to Ser Padres (Parents magazine in Spanish), and a guest correspondent for Univision and Telemundo T48, NBC Bay Area, among others. Dr. CC was a Rosalynn Carter Fellow for Mental Health Journalism and currently serves as an advisory board member for this program.