Sheeren Naser

About

Shereen Naser, PhD creates transformative frameworks for schools that prioritize human dignity and collective healing toward systemic change by engaging community and empowering student voices.

She’s an Associate Professor of Psychology at Cleveland State University. Her research focuses on how marginalized students, especially queer and Arab youth, experience school settings. Using resource mapping and implementation development models, she supports school systems in the creation of school wide programming that meets the mental health and behavioral needs of all students.

Dr. Naser is part of the THRiVE Research Collaborative and director of the Cleveland Child and Adolescent Research in Education (CARE) Lab. Shereen’s community engaged research means empowering kids, teachers, families, and policymakers as co-collaborators. Being part of the conversation from the start ensures the whole community can support healing. This interactive process for interventions builds culturally responsive interventions and programs informed by social justice that help decision-making processes long term. Her scholarship and practice challenges dominant narratives in psychology, offering transformative frameworks that prioritize dignity, collective healing, and systemic change. Her students at Cleveland State University get real-world experience with students and families, building relationships in the region that support their chosen career paths. Shereen Naser’s students learn to ask the tough questions knowing that every problem has a solution if you’re willing to look for it. She teaches courses in School Psychology including Educational Equity, as well as special topics courses like Mental Illness in the Media, and Navigating Difficult Conversations on the Middle East.

She has a PhD in School Psychology from Tulane University and a Bachelor of Science in Psychology from the University of Texas at Austin. She’s a former practicing school psychologist who has worked in refugee camps, public schools, and communities to develop liberatory approaches to care. Shereen loves to read Sci Fi novels, enjoys practicing Palestinian Tatreez, and alongside her partner is raising 2 beautiful girls and a few chickens.