Dr. Lauren D. Kendall Brooks describes her work as interdisciplinary scholarship, with work spanning cognitive, developmental, and health psychology through a culturally sensitive lens. Her research carries a broad range focusing on identity and academic achievement, academic resiliency in Black and Latine adolescents and college students, health disparities as it relates to academic achievement, and health disparities in Black women. Lauren views her work through the Phenomenological Variant of Ecological Systems Theory (PVEST), as she believes identity continuously influences all parts of life. Lauren completed her post-doc at the University of Maryland, College Park in the department of Human Development and Quantitative Methods in the Prather CogDev Lab. She is also the co-founder and current president of the organization Black in Psych, which aims to create space for future and current Black psychologists in all concentrations. Lauren received her Ph.D. in Health Psychology, with a concentration in Behavioral and Community Health from Virginia State University.