Dr. Gerald P. Mallon is the Julia Lathrop Professor of Child Welfare and the Associate Dean of Scholarship and Research at the Silberman School of Social Work at Hunter College in New York City. For more than 45 years, Dr. Mallon has been a child welfare practitioner, advocate, educator, and researcher. Dr. Mallon was the first child welfare professional in the U.S. to research, write about, and develop programs for LGBTQ+ youth in child welfare settings. He has also written extensively about LGBTQ+ foster and adoptive parenting. Dr. Mallon has lectured and consulted extensively throughout the United States, and internationally in Argentina, Australia, Canada, Chile, Cuba, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Ireland, Israel, Mexico, Norway, Singapore, the Netherlands, and the United Kingdom. Dr. Mallon earned his doctorate in Social Welfare from the City University of New York at Hunter College, holds an MSW from Fordham University and proudly has a BSW from Dominican College. Dr. Mallon also lives the talk he talks, in addition to being a child welfare professional for his entire career, he has been a foster parent and is the adoptive parent of now grown children.

Dr. Dunia M. Garcia is the director of the Cabrini-Hunter Fellowship for Social Work and Nursing Students program at Silberman School of Social Work at Hunter College.  She received her BSW from Lehman College, her MSW from Hunter College School of Social Work with a concentration on Community Organizing and Social Planning, and her Doctor of Social Work from Rutgers University.   Dunia has over 20 years of experience focusing on educational equity, college access in urban communities, and community engagement.  She was the director of the Community Navigator Program at the Silberman School of Social Work, a peer-led community-based program serving the East Harlem community.  During her tenure at the Community Navigator Program she fostered and sustained partnerships with city agencies and community organizations locally and throughout NYC and promoted the economic empowerment of peer-led groups.

Gabriela Ramirez is the Professional Development Counselor and a Hunter College Alumna. She received her BSW and MSW from the Silberman School of Social Work with a concentration in Clinical Practice with Individuals, Families, and Small Groups. Gabriela has over 5 years working with children and the older youth population. She focused her work on youth who are at risk of becoming justice involved and their families to provide social/emotional support. In addition, she has worked with high school students, in post-secondary planning and college preparation advisement. Throughout the years, Gabriela grew a passion for working with individuals for college access and academic achievement.

Indrit Bilbili is a Professional Development Counselor and a proud alumnus of Hunter College. He earned both his BSW and MSW from the Silberman School of Social Work, specializing in Clinical Practice with Individuals, Families, and Small Groups. Throughout his academic journey, Indrit concentrated his work on the educational system during his undergraduate studies and worked with marginalized communities in an outpatient mental health program during his graduate program.

Beyond academia, Indrit has an extensive history of work and volunteerism with the Red Cross, in the United States and Albania. He has played a vital role in the educational community programs and disaster cycle services, where he cultivated his skills in community engagement, crisis response, and program development—all aimed at enhancing the well-being of diverse communities. 

Frank Chan is an Information Technology (IT) Specialist and has worked at Silberman School of Social Work at Hunter College for 20 years. He has extensive experience in implementing, monitoring, and maintenance of IT systems. He is knowledgeable of web-based platforms, managing websites, and is skilled in data management. Frank has been providing technology support to grant-funded programs at Hunter College for 20 years.

Dr. Jennifer Dipiazza-Sileo PhD, PMHNP-BC serves as our liaison with the Hunter-Bellevue School of Nursing. Jennifer is a board-certified Psychiatric Nurse Practitioner.  Previously, she worked as a psychiatric NP at New York University.  She is a faculty member at the Hunter Bellevue School of Nursing (HBSON), Hunter College, City University of New York. She is also a Co-coordinator for the Psychiatric Mental Health Nurse Practitioner Graduate Program at HBSON, with certificate and master’s tracks. She taught as an adjunct Instructor at LaGuardia Community College for approximately 11 years. Jennifer completed undergraduate degrees at Cornell University (Human Development and Family Studies) and Columbia University (BS NURSING) and graduate degrees at Columbia University (MS NURSING) and New York University (PhD Nursing Research).  Her research interests are cigarette smoking cessation, harm reduction for cigarette smokers, electronic nicotine delivery systems (ENDS) and, sensory influences on smoking behavior, interventions to sustain behavior change and the phenomenon of maintaining behavior changes to overcome addictions

Dr. Caroline Rosenthal Gelman is an Associate Professor at the Silberman School of Social Work at Hunter College.   She received her BA in Anthropology from Harvard in 1987, her MSW from the School of Social Welfare at the University of California, Berkeley, in 1991, and her Ph.D. from Smith College School for Social Work in 1998.  She has practiced as a clinical social worker for 30 years, specializing in mental health issues in a variety of settings and with diverse populations.   She has experience working in inpatient units, community mental health clinics, family service agencies, schools, and university counseling centers in California, Massachusetts and New York.  Dr. Rosenthal Gelman has an especially strong commitment to and interest in working with Latino populations, and has done so throughout her career.  Her teaching and research are strongly grounded in and informed by her practice, which for the past 20 years has explored the experiences and needs of older adults and their caregivers.  Most recently she has focused on children and families, and is leading the Child Trauma Program at Silberman. 

Dr. Geetha Gopalan is an Associate Professor at the Silberman School of Social Work at Hunter College, City University of New York.  Her research focuses on increasing the ability of families impacted by poverty to access and engage in evidence-based practices which enhance children’s mental health and family functioning.  Her direct clinical practice experience, spanning over 10 years in children’s mental health and child welfare services, drives this scholarship towards a heavy emphasis on prioritizing the needs and interests of consumers (e.g., caregivers, youth) as well as designing and evaluating interventions which can easily engage families and be implemented in low-resource, “real-world” contexts.

Dr. Anna Ortega-Williams is a social work scholar, practitioner, researcher, and organizer that is inspired by the healing alchemy of social action, youth development & well-being. Dr. Ortega-Williams is an Assistant Professor at the Silberman School of Social Work at Hunter College. As a social work educator, she is committed to uncovering trauma recovery interventions that push the boundary of where micro-level clinical practice ends and macro-level practice begins. Her approach to social work centers cultural humility, anti-racist, intersectional, and anti-oppressive frameworks. Dr. Ortega-William's area of research focuses on historical trauma, posttraumatic growth, and social action in trauma recovery. Her scholarship, research, and teaching is grounded in her twenty year journey as a social worker providing individual, group and family counseling, in addition to working as a director, program developer, capacity builder and evaluator. She is deeply inspired by local, national and global social justice movements; in particular, Black youth-led responses to interrupting systemic violence. She received her Bachelor’s degree from the City University of New York, Hunter College, Master’s degree from the State University of New York, Stony Brook, and PhD in Social Work from Fordham University’s Graduate School of Social Service. As a Black queer mom, activist, organizer, and poet born and raised in public housing in the Bronx, she believes social work practice can promote joy, healing, imagination and hope when rooted in transforming social and economic justice and protecting human rights.

Linda Perez PhD, RN, NPP graduated from SUNY-Downstate College of Nursing in Brooklyn, New York. She earned her Master of Science in Psychiatric Mental Health Nursing at CUNY-Hunter Bellevue School of Nursing and her PhD in Research and Theory Development at New York University.

Doctor Perez has worked primarily in psychiatric mental health hospitals and community settings as a clinician, manager, consultant and administrator and is the former Associate Executive Director of the Department of Psychiatry at Elmhurst Hospital Center. She also has many years of experience as a faculty member at area universities, including City College, Adelphi University, Long Island University and St. Francis College.  She currently is an adjunct associate professor in the Psychiatric Nurse Practitioner Program at Hunter Bellevue School of Nursing, CUNY School of Professional Studies and Adelphi University. In addition to her academic work, Dr. Perez has presented to professional and community groups on a variety of topics including, suicide, depression and anxiety, PTSD and addiction.

She is an Associate Professor at the Beatriz Lassalle Graduate School of Social Work, collaborator of Siempre Vivas Metro, a feminist interdisciplinary project, the Institute of Social Policy, and the Center for Studies on Government and Public Affairs at the University of Puerto Rico Río Piedras Campus. Previously, she was a faculty member at the Silberman Graduate School of Social Work at Hunter College City University of New York. Her dedication and commitment to promote social justice and human rights has led her to the practice of social work with families, groups, and communities throughout government agencies and community-based non-profit organizations. She has a bachelor's, master’s, and doctorate in social work from the University of Puerto Rico, Boston University, and Columbia University, respectively. As a social worker, researcher, and educator, she has specialized in women's issues and postcolonial feminist perspective, child welfare, social policy, strategic planning, leadership and supervision, community-capacity enhancement, and social theater. Her research work has been widely published in recognized professional journals and books, as well as disseminated in national and international congresses.