Biography
Claudia-Santi F. Fernandes, Ed.D., LPC, MCHES, NCC
Dr. Claudia is a youth mental health and substance use prevention expert with experience in public schools, clinical settings, and research institutions. Previously, she served as a public school teacher, bilingual school counselor in New York City, and part of the founding leadership team at Bard High School Early College Newark where she developed and oversaw student-centered policies, programs, and structures. She then transitioned to an academic career. As part of her doctoral studies, she explored facilitators and barriers to the implementation of school wellness policies. She was also a project director at the Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence where she led the earlier stage of development for the inspirED Online Resource Center. Recognizing the impact and reach of evidence-informed, digital interventions to improve mental health and well-being in young people, she completed her postdoctoral studies on the design and evaluation of game interventions at the Yale School of Medicine. Dr. Claudia then became a Yale Center for Clinical Investigation Scholar where she was awarded a career development award from NIH/NCATS to lead her team in the design and evaluation of a digital game to prevent suicide among youth who misuse substances, including opioids. Throughout her career, she continues to apply a public health approach to reach more young people and to improve youth mental health and well-being outcomes in schools and community-based organizations.
Currently, Dr. Claudia is the Director of Research and Evaluation at Born This Way Foundation and is an assistant clinical professor in the Child Study Center as well as an assistant professor adjunct in the Department of Biomedical Informatics and Data Science at the Yale School of Medicine. She is also the Founding Director of Youth4Wellness at Yale and currently collaborates with XRPediatrics, Consumer Health Informatics Lab at Yale, and the ACCESS Lab. As part of the NIH's Helping to End Addiction Long-term (HEAL) initiative, she served as an invited Guest Editor of the October 2023 Supplemental Issue in Prevention Science Journal to highlight the coordinated effort of 10 research projects across the nation in preventing opioid misuse among youth and young adults. Other research interests focus on youth-led participatory action research and the translation of policies into practices and successful transitions from high school to post-secondary education, employment, and healthcare. Overall, Dr. Claudia conducts applied research to inform federal-, state-, and local-level policies and provides support to schools and communities in their youth-led implementation efforts. Dr. Claudia also practices as a licensed professional counselor and served on the Board of Directors for the Connecticut Association of School-Based Health Centers as Treasurer. She currently serves on the Digital Well-Being Advisory Board at the Peer Health Exchange. Dr. Claudia holds a Master of Arts in Applied Psychology from New York University and a Doctor of Education in Health and Behavior Studies from Columbia University Teachers College.
