Dr. Meza is an Assistant Professor In-Residence in the Department of Psychiatry and Biobehavioral Sciences and a bilingual licensed clinical psychologist at UCLA. Currently, she is the Associate Director of the Youth Stress and Mood (YSAM) Program and the Principal Investigator of the Health Equity & Access Research & Treatment (HEART) lab at UCLA. Her research interests include studying socio-ecological risk and protective factors for suicide and self-harming behaviors among Black and Latinx youth. She aims to integrate psychological, cognitive, and sociocultural influences to predict suicide and self-harm behaviors and, importantly, to identify therapeutic targets for culturally responsive interventions for ethnoracially minoritized youth. In addition, Dr. Meza is expanding her research to adapt evidence-based psychosocial interventions for ethnoracailly diverse youth, particularly Black and Latinx youth and systems involved youth (i.e., dually involved youth in the child welfare and juvenile justice systems).

Dr. Meza is a certified bilingual psychologist trained at UC Berkeley and UCSF in cognitive-behavior and dialectical behavior therapies. Dr. Meza’s work in advancing mental health treatments among ethnoracially minoritized families has been recognized by the National Latinx Psychology Association and has also received the prestigious UC Chancellor’s Postdoctoral Fellowship