Krystal Cruz

Krystal Cruz is a pre-doctoral fellow in the Research Group on Disparities in Health at Columbia University’s Graduate School of Education, Health and Psychology in the Department of Health and Behavior Studies and is graduating in 2022. She studies the biopsychosocial model as a theoretical framework to explore critical racial health disparities related to maternal morbidity and mortality, perinatal mental health and substance use disorders, the influence of neighborhood social conditions and built environmental factors on psychosocial stress and wellbeing during gestation, intrauterine environmental influences across the life course, and global mental health. She is also honored to be the doctoral student of Professor Barbara Wallace (Princeton ’80), her academic mentor, and the first African American woman to move through the ranks and gain tenure in the history of Columbia University, doing so in 1994; her dissertation committee member, Sociomedical Sciences Professor Robert E. Fullilove, Dean of Community and Minority Affairs at the Mailman School of Public Health sowed transformational seeds of inspiration and cultivated a strong conviction within her to conduct research and promote scholarship imbued with liberation theology.

Throughout her academic studies, she has participated in the following extracurricular activities: Chairperson of the Office of University Life Interschool Governing Board; Columbia University Senator serving on the Student Affairs, Libraries and Rules committees; Office of University Life Race, Ethnicity & Inclusion/Task Force on Inclusion and Belonging committee member, Columbia University’s Graduate School of Arts and Sciences Students of Color Alliance commencement co-chair, The Roger Lehecka Double Discovery Center mentor, founding member of the School of Education, Health and Psychology’s Diversity and Community Affairs committee; she is also the founding president of the United Nations Association of the United States of America Columbia University-wide Chapter.