RISE 2019 Conference

Dr. Amy Nitza is the Director of the Institute for Disaster Mental Health at SUNY New Paltz. She is a psychologist who specializes in providing mental health training in academic and non-academic settings both nationally and internationally, with an emphasis on disaster mental health and trauma recovery. As a Fulbright Scholar at the University of Botswana, she trained mental health and school counselors and studied the use of group counseling interventions in HIV/AIDS prevention among adolescents.   She has collaborated with the University of Notre Dame in Haiti to develop trauma-related interventions for children in domestic servitude, and to provide training for teachers in dealing with traumatized children in the classroom. She is also currently collaborating with UNICEF USA to develop and implement a program of mental health support for children impacted by Hurricane Maria in Puerto Rico. Amy is the author and editor of numerous publications, including the recent book Disaster Mental Health Case Studies: Lessons Learned from Counseling in Chaos.  She holds a Ph.D. in Counseling Psychology from Indiana University.