Jacqueline Moses

Jacqueline Moses is determined to improve racial and socioeconomic equities in mental health and education, particularly for Black youth, families, and communities.  

While pursuing a degree in clinical psychology at FIU focused on community-engaged mental health services research, Jackie co-facilitated weekly groups for teens in two juvenile detention facilities through her collaboration with the not-for-profit youth program Eradicating the School to Prison Pipeline (E-SToPP). This program serves adolescents involved in the juvenile justice system who live in communities with high rates of youth-involved violent crime. 

Jackie received a McKnight Fellowship to study risk and resilience pathways to adolescent school engagement and a grant from the National Institutes of Mental Health to examine culture, context, and engagement in community youth programs for her dissertation. She was inspired to pursue this work and her degree from her own background as a Black woman and daughter of Nigerian immigrants who came from similar communities and, despite adversity, demonstrated great strengths and resilience. 

In Nigerian Culture, Jackie says, education is viewed as the pathway to success. Since childhood, Jackie’s family has done so much to support her on that path. For Jackie, completing this degree is truly a shared accomplishment — for her family in the U.S. and in Nigeria.  

Under the guidance of Professors Stacy Frazier and Dionne Stephens, Jackie has begun carving a path of success for others. She became the founding and executive board member of the Black Graduate Women’s Association at FIU and was selected for the Society of Clinical Child and Adolescent Psychology’s Leadership Education to Advance Diversity Institute. Jackie was recognized with FIU’s Willie E. Williams award for her extraordinary leadership toward building a culture of respect and celebration for diversity in graduate studies at FIU. 

Jackie is currently completing a postdoctoral fellowship in the Institute for Juvenile Research and the Center for Clinical and Translational Science at the University of Illinois at Chicago, where she is training in research-practice-policy partnerships to empower under-resourced communities of color in their care and promote racial health equity. 

By Ayleen Barbel Fattal 
Account Manager 
College of Arts, Sciences & Education