Research Interests:

Cultural and community psychology; immigration and acculturation among adolescents and families; community partnership and school-based intervention; refugee mental health; reducing health disparities; global mental health; international trauma.

 

Education: 

• Ph.D., Clinical Psychology (Culture and Community Emphasis), University of California at Berkeley (2008)

• M.A., Clinical Psychology, University of California at Berkeley (2005)

• B.A., American Culture (Psychology and Sociology Emphasis, Hispanic Studies Minor), Vassar College (1998)

 

Background: 

Dr. Sita G. Patel is a clinical and community psychologist with research interests in culture and context as they relate to immigrant mental health and international trauma. Her research uses mixed-methods approaches to study acculturative stress, psychological, social, and academic risk and protective factors, and access to treatment for mental illness among immigrant and minority populations from around the world.  She currently serves on the editorial board of the American Journal of Orthopsychiatry.

 

Dr. Patel is a licensed clinical psychologist with experience conducting cognitive behavioral therapies for adolescents, adults, and families from diverse cultural backgrounds.  She completed the predoctoral internship at the Columbia College of Physicians and Surgeons (St. Luke’s-Roosevelt Hospital), with specialties in cultural competency using evidence-based therapy, and intensive treatment for personality disorders.  Her postdoctoral training at the University of California, San Francisco (Community Academic Research Training Alliance), focused on community-based participatory partnership research.  Dr. Patel was awarded a U.C. Berkeley Dissertation Award in 2006, an American Psychological Foundation Graduate Research Award in 2008, and an NIH Health Disparities Research Loan Repayment grant in 2009.  

 

Prior to joining the Palo Alto University faculty, Dr. Patel was an Adjunct Instructor at New York University, University of San Francisco, and U.C. Berkeley, teaching courses on Educational, Abnormal, and Cultural Psychology.  Dr. Patel currently teaches doctoral-level courses on cultural competency, evidence-based therapy, child and adolescent development, and personality disorders/Dialectical Behavior Therapy, and global mental health.