peggyPeggy Ceballos, PhD, NCC, CCPT-S, CPRT-S
Primary Investigator (PI)

Dr. Ceballos is an Associate Professor who coordinates master’s and doctoral tracks in the Counseling program at the University of North Texas. She has extensive experience working with underserved minoritized populations in community and school settings. Her research agenda addresses bilingual culturally-responsive play therapy and expressive arts interventions with underserved youth in school settings with a specific focus on Hispanic Spanish speaking populations. As PI, Dr. Ceballos will manage the project to ensure that implementation and prescribed activities are carried out in accordance with specified objectives. She will coordinate project activities through task assignment and guidance.

EXTENDED BIO: Through her experiences as a school counselor, community counselor, and as a counselor educator, Dr. Ceballos has engaged in development, management and dissemination of findings for research studies in the areas of culturally responsive school- counseling services for minority students, culturally informed parent and teacher training interventions and other issues relevant to multiculturalism and social justice. Her educational background includes specialized training in the use of play therapy and expressive arts as non-traditional counseling interventions to use across developmental stages and with linguistically diverse clients. Her clinical, teaching, service, and research experience will be helpful in addressing the project training on serving MUCs. In addition, her experience working with Spanish speaking clients and educational background in play therapy and expressive arts will be helpful to develop the trainings on using translation and non-traditional counseling interventions with linguistically diverse clients.

“There is no professional growth without personal growth.” – Dr. Peggy Ceballos?

dhruDr. Dhru Mukherjee, Ph.D., LCSW
Co-Primary Investigator (Co-PI)

Dr. Dhru Mukherjee is an associate professor at the University of North Texas in the College of Health & Public Service – Social Work Department. He is a Licensed Clinical Social Worker (LCSW) with certification in Trauma-focused Cognitive Behavior Therapy and Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing therapy. As Co-Principal Investigator, Dr. Mukherjee will participate in the project coordination, overseeing the development of the trauma-informed interventions training and will assist with project evaluation. In addition, he will provide telehealth best practices training.

EXTENDED BIO: Dr. Dhru Mukherjee, Ph.D., LCSW-S is an associate professor and licensed clinical social worker. He also serves in various part-time leadership and consultative roles for regional and statewide initiatives. Dr. Mukherjee’s focus of work is trauma-informed social work practice, behavioral health workforce development, studying the regulatory mechanisms of mental health workforce in international settings. Dr. Mukherjee has been the Principal Investigator of several the Behavioral Health Workforce Development (BHWET) grants from Human Resources and Services Administration (HRSA), a suicide prevention grant from Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) grants. He also recently received Rural Communities Opioid Response Program (RCORP) grants on planning and implementation of opioid use disorder. Dr. Mukherjee is certified in Trauma-focused Cognitive Behavior Therapy and Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing therapy. Throughout his roles, Dr. Mukherjee provides clinical supervision, consultation, program evaluation, and direct therapy practice to urban and rural communities in Southern Illinois and the Dallas Fort Worth Area (DFW). Dr. Mukherjee has been a recipient of National Institution of Health (NIH) summer grant writing fellowship.

“As human beings, our greatness lies not so much in being able to remake the world… as in being able to remake ourselves”. – Mahatma Gandhi

angieAngie Cartwright, PhD, LPC-S, LSOTP-S, NCC
Co-Primary Investigator (Co-PI)

Dr. Angie Cartwright has both firsthand knowledge and extensive work experience with underserved communities, behavioral health, and integrated care settings. As the Co-PI, Dr. Cartwright will assist in the management of the project. Dr. Cartwright’s main focus will be to oversee the trauma-informed SAMHSA-HRSA Substance Abuse trainings. She will also assist with project evaluation.

EXTENDED BIO: Dr. Cartwright advocates for evidenced-based prevention models and an increase in an adequately trained mental health workforce. Additionally, Dr. Cartwright is the past president of the Texas Association for Counselor Education and Supervision (TACES). As the TACES President, Dr. Cartwright imitated several advocacy efforts for the State of Texas and these efforts still occur annually. For example, Dr. Cartwright launched the idea of TACES sponsored Advocacy Grants. Subsequently, TACES disseminated the first set of annual advocacy grants, the inaugural TACES Advocacy Award for an outstanding professional was disseminated, and Angie played an active role in assisting the Texas Counseling Association with achieving the largest turnout to the TCA advocacy days at the Texas State Capitol.

At that particular advocacy day, over 150 counselors, supervisors, students, and counselor educators from across the Texas chartered buses and carpooled to lobby and speak to legislators about issues related to the counseling profession. Additionally, Dr. Cartwright received the Texas governor’s award for her volunteer clinical work with incarcerated sexual offenders within the TDCJ. Her passion for counseling and teaching was recognized by the African American Student Leadership Team at Texas A&M University- Commerce with the 2015 Professor of the Year Award. Dr. Cartwright has been recognized at the national level for her leadership and work with underserved populations. She was named the Outstanding Addiction/Offender Professional by the International Association for Addiction and Offender Counseling in 2016 and most recently the American Counseling Association selected her as the 2017 Emerging Professional Leader. Dr. Cartwright’s research agenda addresses the success of children from absent-father homes, offender and addictions counseling issues, and issues within counselor education. She has published in numerous peer-reviewed publications related to cultural diversity.

“I am no longer accepting the things I cannot change. I am changing the things I cannot accept.” – Angela Y. Davis