Melissa Villodas

Melissa is a rising third-year doctoral student at the University of North Carolina – Chapel Hill School of Social Work. She received her MSW in 2015 from New York University and her BA in English writing from Nyack College in 2012. Melissa’s clinical training is in trauma informed evidence-based practices for children, youth, and young adults with mental health challenges. Before arriving at UNC, Melissa worked as a clinical therapist for a treatment family foster care program in NYC and as the Project Director for the Youth and Young Adult Mental Health Research Group at New York University. Her research interests are in community connection and positive youth development. Melissa is committed to investigating how young people decide who they want to be, what values matter to them, and how community connections influence youth development. Melissa is also interested in investigating how a positive sense of community impacts health behavior and mental health in marginalized groups both globally and domestically.

Melissa worked with mentor, Dr. Von Nebbitt, Professor at the Brown School of Social Work at Washington University in St. Louis.  She worked on validating a neighborhood cohesion measure for African American adolescents living in public housing in three US cities, and after analyzing the data, has begun a paper on her findings.

Email:  melissav@ad.unc.edu