Lourdes Suarez-Morales, Ph.D., received her doctorate degree in Clinical Psychology from the University of Missouri-Columbia. Her training has focused primarily in the area of Child Clinical Psychology and included a pre-doctoral psychology internship at the Medical University of South Carolina, with specialized training in Multisystemic Family Therapy and Trauma-Focused Cognitive Behavioral Therapy. At the post-doctorate level, Dr. Suarez-Morales received a Minority Supplement Grant from the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) to obtain additional clinical and research training in the area of substance abuse. She co-led the national adaptation and implementation of a protocol examining the efficacy of Motivational Enhancement Therapy with monolingual Spanish-speakers and co-authored publications on Brief Strategic Family Therapy and Culturally Informed Family Therapy for treatment of ethnic minority adolescent substance use.

Dr. Suarez-Morales teaches a number of core courses for the doctoral program including child psychopathology, clinical interventions with children and adolescents, and intellectual assessment. She also provides clinical supervision to doctoral students in their practicum. Her research work encompasses a wide interest in areas affecting ethnic minority mental health issues. She has published chapters and peer reviewed articles in areas related to assessment and instrument development (e.g., information-processing variables, acculturative stress, and substance use), as well as engagement in clinical research and research to practice issues for psychological treatments with Hispanic minorities. Currently, Dr. Suarez-Morales is developing a research program to examine the cognitive, environmental, and cultural factors related to the manifestation of anxiety and depression in ethnic minority youth with the aim to inform clinical interventions with this population.