About

Education

• Ph.D., Clinical Psychology, University of Rhode Island
• Predoctoral Internship, Center for Multicultural Training in Psychology, Boston Medical Center and the Boston University School of Medicine
• M.A., Psychology, University of Rhode Island
• B.A., Psychology, Rhode Island College

Courses Taught

• PSYC 101 Principles of Psychology
• PSYC 225 Multicultural Perspectives on Mental Health
• PSYC/LALS 368 Latinx Psychology

Research Interests

How are psychological outcomes shaped, in part, by how people are treated? How do experiences of discrimination and oppression get under the skin? And what can we do to cope with and resist oppression? These and related questions animate my work which examines the influence of cultural and contextual factors on mental and physical health. I am especially interested in understanding how multi-level experiences (e.g., discrimination, socialization) impact the health outcomes of marginalized populations. Critical and decolonial perspectives, self-reflexivity, and community engagement shape the ways in which I approach questions as a researcher and a teacher.

Books

Mena, J. A. (in press). Decolonizing Latinx psychology: A critical and autoethnographic approach. Cambridge University Press.

Mena, J. A. & Pittman, D. M. (Eds.). (2024). BIPOC and LGBTQ feminist radical visionaries [Special issue reprint with new Preface]. Taylor & Francis.

Mena, J. A. & Quina, K. (Eds.). (2019). Integrating multiculturalism and intersectionality into the psychology curriculum: Strategies for instructors. American Psychological Association.

Selected Articles and Chapters

(*Student co-Author)

Mena, J. A. & *Ulerio, G. (2026). Forging caminos: Pathways to becoming a bilingual mental health professional. In M. Campos, Y. Mejia, & A. J. Consoli (Eds.). Forging caminos: Pathways to becoming a bilingual mental health professional. American Psychological Association.

Nolan, S. A., Cranney, J., Jia, F., Sokolová, L., Selvam, S. G., Dunn, D. S., Mena, J. A., Richmond, A. S., Machin, M. A., & Yahiiaiev, I. (2025). Going global: Intersections of the American Psychological Association’s Guidelines 3.0 with international foundational competence framework. Scholarship of Teaching and Learning in Psychology, 11(1), 37–48. https://doi.org/10.1037/stl0000409

Mena, J. A., & Naufel, K. Z. (2025). Advancing equity, diversity, inclusion, and justice with the American Psychological Association’s guidelines for the undergraduate major 3.0. Scholarship of Teaching and Learning in Psychology, 11(1), 24–36. https://doi.org/10.1037/stl0000418

Soto, J. A., Stoyer, M., Borge, M., & Mena, J. A. (2025). Accurate assessment of multicultural growth: The case for using retrospective reassessments. Scholarship of Teaching and Learning in Psychology, 11(3), 433–443. https://doi.org/10.1037/stl0000364

*Zhang, R., & Mena, J. A. (2024). Gender Differences in Coping with Discrimination, Psychological Distress, and College Stress Among International Chinese Students in the United States. Journal of Women and Gender in Higher Education, 17(4), 285–303. https://doi.org/10.1080/26379112.2024.2386024

Mena, J. A. & Stevenson, J. R. (2024). The promise of labor-based grading contracts for the teaching of psychology and neuroscience. Teaching of Psychology, 51(4), 466-471. https://doi.org/10.1177/00986283221119783

Mena, J. A., Fuentes, M. A., & Soto, J. A. (2023). Cultivating collaborative synergy to promote equity, diversity, inclusion, and justice in the psychology curriculum. Scholarship of Teaching and Learning in Psychology, 9(4), 480–493. https://doi.org/10.1037/stl0000392

Soto, J. A., Mena, J. A., Borge, M., Stoyer, M. R., Witherspoon, D. P., & Dawson-Andoh, N. A. (2023). Multicultural competence building blocks: Multicultural psychology courses promote multicultural knowledge and ethnic identity. Teaching of Psychology, 50(4), 307-321. https://doi.org/10.1177/00986283211031854

Mena, J. A. (2022). From cradle to college: Cultural socialization and the college experience of Latinxs college students. Journal of Latinx Psychology. Advance online publication.  https://doi.org/10.1037/lat0000207

Mena, J. A., Flack, W. F., & *Coleman, A. (2022). Cultivating cooperation and community in the psychology classroom. In M. Fortner & I. Katzarska-Miller (Eds.). Empowering students as change agents in psychology courses. Society for the Teaching of Psychology.

Borge, M., Soto, J. A., Aldemir, T., & Mena, J. A. (2022). Building multicultural competence by fostering collaborative intergroup dialogue skills. Teaching of Psychology, 49(1), 85-92. https://doi.org/10.1177/0098628320977421

*Campbell, C., & Mena, J. A. (2021). LGBTQ+ counseling center website friendliness and structural stigma. Journal of College Counseling, 24 (3), 241-255. https://doi.org/10.1002/jocc.12194

*Ulerio, G., & Mena, J. A. (2020). Parental cultural socialization practices in a predominantly White rural college community. Journal of Child and Family Studies, 29, 2697–2709. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10826-020-01778-2

Mena, J. A., Soto, J. A., Wei, W., *Kaplan, S., & *Salazar, S. (2020) Does centrality moderate the relation between skin tone satisfaction and psychological adjustment for Latinx Blacks and non-Latinx Blacks? Race and Social Problems, 12, 219-232.  https://doi.org/10.1007/s12552-020-09284-2

Selected Invited Presentations

“Developing inclusive psychology departments by cultivating collaborative synergy.” Presentation delivered at Tulane University, New Orleans, L.A. September 2024.

“Promoting equity, diversity, and inclusion through collaborative transformations.” Distinguished lecture delivered at the annual American Psychological Association convention. Washington, DC. August 2023.

“Cultivating student sense of belonging inside and outside of the classroom.” Keynote delivered at the annual Rocky Mountain Psychological Association conference. Albuquerque, NM. April 2023.

“Taking the decolonial turn: Power, critical consciousness, and psychology education.” Presentation delivered at Pennsylvania State University. State College, PA. March 2023.