Cynthia Martinez

I am super excited to be an assistant professor in SFSU's counseling department!I was born and raised in San Francisco's Mission district and I am incredibly grateful for the opportunity to work in my city again. My pedagogical frameworks include, community organizing, popular education, trauma-informed clinical/school supports, decolonizing critical praxis and antiracist advocacy. As a psychologist, my clinical training and expertise is in providing trauma informed care, infant-parent psychotherapy, narrative and social justice postmodern theories. Prior to graduate school, I worked as an immigrant rights activist and obtained extensive experience in grassroots community organizing. I'm committed to working towards social justice and uplifting historically marginalized voices in higher education and the mental health field. I am currently the faculty founder of SMC's graduate student of color group (G-SOC) and the co-chair of the campus wide Afro-Latinx, Latinx, Indigenous Peoples Action Sub-Committee (ALLIPAS). My scholarship interests lie in participant action research and include working with BIPOC families to create non-traditional therapeutic wellness groups and trauma-informed, anti-racist advocacy and radical self-care for practitioners experiencing collective trauma. I live in Oakland, CA and am proud to be a child of immigrants from Guatemala, Central America and a first generation college and graduate student. I love art, music and dancing!