Valerie Velasco

Valerie Velasco is a Clinical Psychology doctoral candidate at Ohio University. She earned her B.A. in Psychology from the University of Nevada, Las Vegas in 2019. Before joining CIRS, Valerie worked for the University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center at the Center on Child Abuse and Neglect (CCAN) where she gained experience working on research and intervention projects involving the child welfare system. She also graduated from the CCAN Interdisciplinary Training Program, a course designed to provide the content, concepts and skills for an interdisciplinary approach to the diagnosis, treatment and prevention of child abuse and neglect.

Valerie’s research interests involve the examination of the differential effects and risk factors of child maltreatment types on long-term outcomes. She is also interested in the evaluation of interventions involving children and families impacted by violence like child maltreatment and other adversity/trauma.

When she’s not studying or doing research, you might find Valerie practicing yoga, binge watching TV, searching for coffee drinks that are equal parts tasty and highly caffeinated, or showing off her photo collection of pets —Frederick Douglass, Lincoln, Harriet Tubman, and Cleopatra.