Erika Felix, Ph.D. is the Associate Dean for Research and Community Outreach at the Gevirtz Graduate School of Education at the University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB), professor of Clinical Psychology in the Department of Counseling, Clinical, and School Psychology, and alicensed psychologist. Dr. Felix’s research focuses on the risk and protective factors affecting children’s long term mental health following natural disasters, mass shootings, and terrorism andhas been funded by the National Institutes of Health, National Institute of Justice, and the National Science Foundation. Her research has been published in peer-reviewed academic journals and covered by various news outlets. Dr. Felix trains counseling, clinical, and school psychologists on preventive interventions and trauma treatment for children and has developed a disaster mental health class for undergraduates at UCSB. In 2021-22, she served as an AmericanPsychological Association Congressional Fellow working on disability policy across the lifespan in Senator Casey’s office in the U.S. Senate on the Special Committee on Aging. Recently, she was a Public Voices Fellow with the OpEd Project, and has been disseminating her research through OpEds in Ms. Magazine, The Hill, Education Week, Ed Source, and the Santa Barbara Independent, and through popular press articles for Psychology Today.