Gio (he/him/el) is a UC Chancellor’s and Ford Foundation Postdoctoral Fellow in TEAM Lab. Born and raised in Mexico, he received a BA in Psychology from Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México and is a licensed clinical psychologist. After immigrating to the US in 2013, he obtained further training in clinical child and adolescent psychology, completing a BA at Florida International University, a PhD in Clinical Psychology at the University of California, Los Angeles, and his Clinical Internship at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine/Montefiore Medical Center. His research program aims to reduce mental health inequities affecting racially and ethnically minoritized populations, with an emphasis on Latinx groups. To achieve this goal, he focuses on three interconnected areas: 1) identifying risk & resilience factors that influence mental health outcomes, 2) improving the cultural and contextual fit of treatments using data-driven approaches, and 3) employing digital tools to make mental health services widely available in disenfranchised communities.
As part of the TEAM Lab, his work is focusing on ensuring digital mental health interventions are culturally robust for diverse and historically marginalized populations.