Casas nmcs

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January 23, 2007
For immediate release

Dr. Manny Casas of UC Santa Barbara’s the Gevirtz School will be honored as a Distinguished Elder/Senior Psychologist at the upcoming 2007 National Multicultural Conference and Summit (NMCS) that takes place January 24-26 in Seattle.

The National Multicultural Conference and Summit (NMCS) convenes students, practitioners, and scholars in psychology and related fields to discuss human diversity and multiculturalism. Participants engage in a critical discourse on extant research and practice facing psychologists and educators. The objective of the 2007 NMCS is to explore the intersections of social identities, to understand how individuals, groups and communities are empowered, and to elevate frequently unheard voices. The organizers of NMCS believe that multiculturalism creates opportunities as well as challenges within the context of constantly negotiating multiple levels of privileges and oppressions. The conference is designed to explore how psychologists understand, intervene, and promote multiple identities.

After earning his secondary teaching credential, Casas found teaching to be quite rewarding, especially when working from a “counseling” perspective with children from diverse backgrounds, low income families, and at high risk for failure within the traditional educational system. Wanting to better understand such children and in turn improve his ability to help them, he obtained an M.A. and Ph.D. from Stanford University with a specialization in the areas of Counseling and Cross-Cultural Psychology. In his present position, a professor in the Department of Counseling, Clinical, and School Psychology at UC Santa Barbara, he continues to direct his professional efforts towards improving the plight of such children and their families. More specifically, Dr. Casas’s most recent research and publication endeavors have focused on Hispanic families and children who are at risk for experiencing educational, health, and psycho-social problems, including tobacco, and other drug abuse. His research in this area gives special attention to resiliency factors that can help Hispanic families avoid and/or overcome such problems. Along with Joseph Ponterotto he is the co-author of the Handbook of Racial/Ethnic Minority Counseling Research and one of the editors of the Handbook of Multicultural Counseling.

[Manny Casas is available for interviews; to arrange an interview, contact George Yatchisin at 805 893 5789]

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