Dr. Felipa Chavez is an assistant professor of clinical psychology at Florida Institute of Technology. She received her doctorate in Clinical Psychology, with a concentration in working with children and families from the University at Buffalo (UB). She is a former NIAAA post-doctoral fellow at UB’s Research Institute on Addictions, where she trained in research examining early child development and parent-child relationships in heavy drinking alcohol families. Currently, Dr. Chavez is the Director of Building Blocks: PCIT at Florida Tech, which disseminates Parent-Child Interaction Therapy (PCIT) to local families through the Community Psychological Services (CPS) center, which operates out of Florida Tech’s Scott Center for Autism. She also conducts a program of research providing Teacher Child Interaction Therapy (TCIT) services to at-risk underserved community classrooms including schools, daycares, and community centers through her Project Play research program, which has been partially funded by the Fight Against Community Violence Target grant. Through her community-based outreach research, Dr. Chavez examines how improvements in disruptive classroom behaviors, through the implementation of TCIT, can improve classroom manageability, student academic performance, and teacher stress, with rippling effects for reduced child abuse potential in the home. As a within agency trainer, Dr. Chavez has trained over 60 clinical psychology graduate students in the dissemination of PCIT treatment services, several of whom have gone on to become certified PCIT therapist themselves, and she currently working towards becoming a regional level trainer. Dr. Chavez also has over 18-years of experience in teaching multicultural course curriculum, and based on her years of experience in the delivery of both PCIT and TCIT services to underserved communities, she has developed a tips sheet offering clinical/training guidelines for the practical applications of PCIT principles in working with Black families in treatment, in support of the Black Lives Matter social movement. It is entitled: “We are Light that Overcomes Darkness as we strive to be our Brother’s Keeper”: PCIT Applications for supporting Black Families in Treatment. Dr. Chavez has conducted tailored PCIT trainings for Black and LatiniX clinicians who service Black and LatinX families with autistic children which was funded by the Philadelphia Eagles Autism Foundation, as well as working with colleagues at Georgetown University to develop an adapted version of PCIT for servicing Black families. Other noteworthy accomplishments include her NPR academic minute on children and anxiety (https://academicminute.org/2020/05/felipa-chavez-florida-institute-of-technology-anxiety-in-children/) and a two-part series on how to address issues of the COVID-19 pandemic with children (https://news.fit.edu/academics-research/how-do-i-explain-this-pandemic-to-my-child-part-one/ ; https://news.fit.edu/academics-research/how-do-i-explain-this-pandemic-to-my-child-part-two/).