Leadership and Faculty

NYU Steinhardt faculty members are experienced, active practitioners and top researchers in the mental health and school counseling fields who apply real-world experiences and case examples to their teachings in the online classroom. They are consistently developing new counseling theories, a deeper understanding of human behavior, and new ways of supporting clients.

As a Counseling@NYU student, you will be equipped with current practices, research, and skills used in the mental health and school counseling fields.

Course Leaders, Course Instructors, and Core Faculty

The Counseling@NYU faculty comprises course leaders and course instructors who work closely together to ensure that the educational objective for each course is well developed and successfully taught.

Course leaders develop the online course work you will complete on your own time. You will see them each week in the video course work online, explaining that week’s curriculum.

Course instructors teach the live sessions each week. These are the faculty members you will work with to ask questions, discuss takeaways from the curriculum, expand on key counseling theories, and learn how to apply counseling theories in real-world settings.

Course leaders may also teach in the weekly live class sessions, but in many cases you will have the opportunity to learn from multiple professors on the same topic, providing you with a well-rounded learning experience.

Core Faculty

Core faculty members are full-time NYU Steinhardt professors who develop and teach course work for the online and on-campus master’s degree programs as well as the on-campus bachelor’s program. You will encounter them in the online program, serving as both course leaders and course instructors.

  • Alisha Ali, PhD
  • Jennifer Astuto, PhD
  • Rezarta Bilali, PhD
  • Anil Chacko, PhD
  • Kesia Constantine, PhD
  • Linnie Green, PhD
  • Diane Hughes, PhD
  • Shabnam Javdani, PhD
  • Gigliana Melzi, PhD
  • Frandelia Moore, PsyD
  • Sumie Okazaki, PhD
  • Mary Sue Richardson, PhD
  • William Tsai, PhD
  • Selcuk Sirin, PhD
  • Lisa Suzuki, PhD
  • Norissa Williams, PhD

Learn more about our core faculty and adjunct course instructors.

Learn from a Renowned Faculty

Counseling@NYU is led by faculty members who hold professional licenses, have served on editorial review boards, and have received numerous awards and honors including The Outstanding Contribution Award in The Counseling Psychologist from the Society of Counseling Psychology, the Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Faculty Award, the Core Fulbright U.S. Scholar Award, and the NYU Distinguished Teaching Award.

Our professors have a broad array of clinical expertise in school and mental health counseling, including:

  • Trauma counseling
  • Neurobiology
  • Mindfulness
  • Psychotherapy
  • Stress management
  • Strategic career planning
  • Cognitive rehabilitation
  • Bilingual education

They have also done extensive research on a number of critical topics, such as:

  • Poverty and mental illness
  • Interventions for at-risk youth and disruptive behavior disorders
  • Racial and ethnic mental health disparities
  • Positive psychology outcomes
  • LGBTQ+ youth in school settings
  • Adolescent health disparities
  • Race-based trauma
  • Cultural adaptations of school-based interventions

Faculty Featured on the Blog

Learn more about our faculty members by reading their unique perspectives on topics affecting the counseling field. The following course leaders are featured on the Counseling@NYU blog:

Anil Chacko, PhD

Course leader for APSY-GE 2025 Cognitive Behavioral Therapy: Theory and Application

Conducts research on prevention, intervention, and service delivery models for youth at risk for or affected by disruptive behavior disorders. He recently shared his perspective on the importance of mental health screenings for youth ages 12 and older.

Read his Q&A on the Counseling@NYU blog.

Shabnam Javdani, PhD

Course leader for APSY-GE 2070 Research and Evaluation in Behavioral Sciences

Created NYC Resilience, Opportunity, Safety, Education, Strength (ROSES), a community-based intervention program that pairs young girls with highly trained, advanced undergraduate students at NYU who serve as their advocates.

Read about her work on the Counseling@NYU blog.

Additional blog posts featuring more faculty members can be found below:

Input from Gigliana Melzi
1 in 4 Students Is an English Language Learner: Are We Leaving Them Behind?

Commentary from Jennifer Astuto
Relationships That Heal: Building a Community to Combat Childhood Trauma

Commentary from Joseph Feola and Veronica Pichardo
Are Today’s Classrooms Having the Right Conversations about Privilege, Power, and Oppression?