Sita G. Patel Assistant Professor of Clinical Psychology, Palo Alto University

Dr. Sita G. Patel is an Assistant Professor of Clinical Psychology at Palo Alto University (PAU). Her research focuses on risk and resiliency, culture and context as they relate to immigrant mental health. She uses mixed-methods and community-partnership methods to study acculturation stress, immigration trauma, psychological, social, and academic adjustment, and access to treatment for mental illness among immigrant and minority populations. Her current projects include a longitudinal school-based study of risk and resiliency among newcomer adolescent immigrants; a community partnership focusing on refugee mental health and treatment; and an intervention study of trauma healing and peace education in the Central African Republic. At PAU, Dr. Patel is the faculty advisor for the Cultural Transitions Research Group and Students for Global Mental Health. In 2016, she was a visiting scholar at the Africa Mental Health Foundation in Nairobi, Kenya.

Dr. Patel completed her undergraduate degree in Psychology and Sociology, with a minor in Spanish, at Vassar College. She completed her doctorate in Clinical and Community psychology, with a minor in Cultural Psychology, at the University of California, Berkeley. She completed the predoctoral internship at Columbia College of Physicians and Surgeons (St. Luke’s-Roosevelt Hospital), and postdoctoral training at the University of California, San Francisco (Community Academic Research Training Alliance), focused on community-based participatory partnership research. Prior to joining the Palo Alto University faculty, Dr. Patel was an Adjunct Instructor at New York University, University of San Francisco, and U.C. Berkeley.

Selected Publications:

Assessing Psychological Symptoms in Recent Immigrant Adolescents.
By Sita G. Patel and Melissa A. Kull
2011 [ PDF ]

Newcomer Immigrant Adolescents: A Mixed-Methods Examination of Family Stressors and School Outcomes. By Sita G. Patel, Annette V. Clarke, Fazia Eltareb, Erynn E. Macciomei, and Robert E. Wickham.  2016 [PDF]

These undocumented women are graduating from Harvard—but immigration policy could ruin their futures. Interview with Sita Patel by Nidhi Prakash. 2016 [ Link in fusion.com ]