Meet the Team

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

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

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

Dr. Carey is Professor and Program Director for the Hybrid Clinical Mental Health Counseling Program in the Department of Counseling and Behavioral Health at the University of Pittsburgh. As a Co-PI and grant consultant, Dr. Carey will oversee the development of the SAMHSA-HRSA Center for Integrated Health Solutions training modules, assist with project evaluation and data collection, and serve as a liaison for RHS students during their clinical internship and potential community partners.

EXTENDED BIO: Dr. Carey is a Professor of Clinical Mental Health Counseling and currently serves as the Program Director for the hybrid clinical mental health counseling program. Dr. Carey has made investigating issues affecting persons of color with disabilities a career-long focus. She has served as an editorial board member for the Journal of Multicultural Counseling and Development and is the former president of the National Association of Multicultural Rehabilitation Concerns. Carey was co-principal investigator on three U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) grants, and a co-principal investigator for a U.S. Department of Education, four-year, inclusive post-secondary education program, UNT ELEVAR (University of North Texas Empower, Learn, Excel, enVision, Advance, Rise). She is a Certified Rehabilitation Counselor and previously held a Licensed Professional Counselor intern designation in the State of Michigan (2005-2009). She was the Lead Primary Investigator on a Minority Health Research Grant Program project sponsored by the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board, which focused on recruitment and enhanced retention support for African American and Latino(a) students seeking careers in rehabilitation counseling. In addition, Dr. Carey has managed the Department of Education, Office of Special Education and Rehabilitation Services, and Long-Term Training Grants, which provided training stipends for students in rehabilitation counseling master’s degree programs.

Dr. Carey has contributed 35 refereed publications and book chapters to the literature and completed well over 50 national presentations over her 23-year career as a scholar. She is the recipient of 7 Research and service awards and is regarded as one of the top multicultural researchers in her discipline. Her research interests include (1) equitable access and utilization of rehabilitative services for individuals with significant mental illnesses, (2) multicultural responsiveness training in counselor education practice and education, (3) integrated care and behavioral health disparities for minoritized communities, and (4) educational access and mental health stability for students with IDD in post-secondary education. Her current research focuses on psychosocial adjustment and positive mental health for college students with intellectual disabilities and fostering mental health support for parents and caregivers of individuals with intellectual disabilities through life transitions, particularly as it relates to communities of color.

“Many stories matter. Stories have been used to dispossess and to malign. But stories can also be used to empower, and to humanize. Stories can break the dignity of a people. But stories can also repair that broken dignity”. -Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

Ms. Simmons is a Program Project Coordinator in UNT-CHE-RHS. As project coordinator, Ms. Simmons will manage the administration and logistics of community and academic partnerships, project reporting, interactions between students and partnership sites, budget management, purchasing, and the day to day duties related to the project

EXTENDED BIO: Ms. Simmons is a Program Project Coordinator in UNT-CHE-MSW-RHS. She comes with over eleven years of administrative and student support experience. Ms. Simmons has spent seven years in various positions under the UNT System (UNTS) umbrella but, her main experience and skills comes from her Administrative Assistant roles, providing all-around administrative and student support for the whole UNTS Finance organization. While working full-time at UNT System, Ms. Simmons also worked two years as a Speech Language Pathology Assistant, where she provided therapy services to children and adults with various language delays/disorders. After her time at UNT System, she served three years as an Office Support Associate for the UNT Kristin Farmer Autism Center (KAFC) and a year as a Sr. Administrative Specialist for the College of Science Advising Center (COS Advising). Within her three years at KFAC, she served two of those years as liaison and coordinator for the Center’s annual Adventures in Autism Research & Innovation Conference which was funded by the Texas Council for Developmental Disabilities to provide free registration to people with developmental disabilities and their family members. During her time at COS Advising, she had the privilege of providing administrative support for the College of Science Associate and Assistant Deans, Directors of Advising and Academic Advisors. Also, Mrs. Simmons assisted with departmental/campus events, registration, orientation and advising for over 3,000 College of Science undergraduate students.