Erika Luz Gustafson
Assistant Professor of Clinical Psychiatry
Psychiatry
Pronouns: she/her
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About
Dr. Erika Luz Gustafson is a licensed Clinical Psychologist and Assistant Professor of Clinical Psychiatry at the University of Illinois at Chicago’s Institute for Juvenile Research (IJR). Broadly, her research focuses on community-based interventions to support the mental health of families in marginalized communities impacted by disinvestment and structural inequities. She is particularly interested in how we can partner with paraprofessional workforces (i.e., community health workers (CHWs), lay providers, near peers) to expand access to contextually and culturally relevant mental health supports for communities that are underserved in standard models of mental healthcare. Her specific research interests include developing community-based, CHW-led mental health service models, and leveraging dissemination and implementation science to understand the mechanisms that contribute to the feasibility and sustainability of community-embedded services that use paraprofessional workforces.
As a Chicana scholar and first-generation college graduate, Dr. Gustafson has a strong commitment to research that serves underrepresented communities, as well as to supporting the advancement of diverse scholars in the academy.