Melanie M. Domenech Rodríguez

Biography

My work addresses health disparities through scholarship, teaching/training, and mentorship. My scholarship on cultural adaptations of evidence-based interventions addresses health disparities in access, acceptability, and effectiveness of treatment for ethnic and culturally diverse people. The work on cultural adaptations spans the gamut from specific trials (Amador Buenabad et al., 2019; Domenech et al., 2011; Parra-Cardona et al., 2017) to advances in theory development (Bernal & Domenech Rodríguez, 2012; Kofsloski & Domenech Rodríguez, 2017) to meta-analytic examination of impacts of cultural adaptations on treatment effectiveness (Smith et al., 2011; Soto et al., 2018). The impact is evident in citations (h index = 31, i-10 index = 54) and grant funding (continuous since 2003; $11.3m in funding across teams). I have improved accessibility to training in evidence-based interventions for providers working with ethnic and culturally diverse clients (Baumann et al., 2019). My courses in multiculturalism and diversity prepare psychologists entering the workforce from the undergraduate or graduate level to attend to diversity and equity in their professional pursuits. My approach to teaching/training is systematic and evidence-based whether at the undergraduate level in psychology (Patterson et al., 2018; Alvarez & Domenech Rodríguez, 2020) or at the graduate level in physician assistant studies (Domenech Rodríguez et al., 2019; Phelps et al., in press). In psychology, I have chaired 22 dissertations to completion: 21 added specifically to health disparities scholarship, 18 were authored by graduate students of color, 13 of whom were bilingual in English and another language. Finally, I have advanced an agenda to reduce health disparities through leadership activities in human research protections (Domenech Rodríguez et al., 2017), leadership in the National Latinx Psychological Association (Miville et al., 2017) and Psi Chi, the International Honor Society in Psychology (Domenech Rodríguez, 2018, 2019).