Lillian Polanco-Roman is an Assistant Professor of Psychology at The New School for Social Research and Adjunct Clinical Assistant Professor at Montefiore/Einsten. Dr. Polanco-Roman is a licensed clinical psychologist. She completed a T32 Postdoctoral Research Fellowship at the Department of Psychiatry/Division of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry at Columbia University/New York State Psychiatric Institute. She also completed her psychology internship at Montefiore Medical Center/Albert Einstein College of Medicine and has trained at NYC Health + Hospitals/Jacobi Medical Center, The Psychological Center at City College, CUNY, and The Wellness Center at John Jay College, CUNY.

Dr. Polanco-Roman's research interests are in the intersecting areas of cultural psychology, mental health, and youth development. Her research aims to investigate the sociocultural context of the development of psychopathology as well as in the promotion of mental well-being among racial/ethnic minority and immigrant youth. One major goal of her lab is to examine the mental health consequences of experiences of culture-specific stress in its various forms including racial and ethnic discrimination. Specifically, whether racial/ethnic discrimination experiences elicit traumatic stress reactions in racial and ethnic minority youth, and whether culture-specific processes may serve to buffer the harmful effects of cultural stressors. Her lab also aims to understand causes for the elevated risk of suicidal behaviors in racial/ethnic minority youth by clarifying precursors in the development of suicide-related risk in youth, including the developmental consequences of adverse childhood experiences such as experiences of racial/ethnic discrimination.

*denotes student author

Polanco-Roman, L., DeLapp, R.C.T., Dackis, M.N, Ebrahimi, C.T.,* Mafnas, K.S.W,* Gabbay, V., & Pimentel, S.S. (2022). Racial/ethnic discrimination, emotion reactivity and regulation, and suicide-related risk in a treatment-seeking group of racially and ethnically minoritized adolescents. Clinical Child Psychology & Psychiatry, Online ahead of print.

Polanco-Roman, L., Hollingsworth, D.W., Liang, C.*, Oduro, N.*, & Anglin, D.M. (2022). Racial/ethnic discrimination, anxiety, and suicidal thoughts among ethnoracially minoritized college students. American Journal of Orthopsychiatry, 92(6), 720-730.

Hollingsworth, D., & Polanco-Roman, L. (2022). Ethnic identity protects against feelings of defeat and entrapment on suicide ideation in African American young adults. Cultural Diversity and Ethnic Minority Psychology, 28(2), 217–226. 

Come, A., Polanco-Roman, L., Dos Santos, P., Fumo, W., Mutemba, R., Pathare, S., Feijó, M., Wainberg, ML., Oquendo, M.A., Duarte, C.S., Mell, M.F., & Lovero, K.L. (2022). Social and Psychiatric Factors of Suicidal Thoughts and Behaviors in Mozambican Adolescents. Journal of the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry, 61 (7), 841-44.

Alvarez, K., Polanco-Roman, L., Breslow, A. & Molock, S. (2022). Structural racism and youth suicide prevention: A conceptual framework and illustration across systems. American Journal of Psychiatry, 179(6), 422-33.

Polanco-Roman, L, Miranda, R., Hien., D. & Anglin, D.M. (2021). Racial/ethnic discrimination as race-based trauma and suicide-related risk in racial/ethnic minority young adults: The explanatory role of stress sensitivity and dissociative symptoms. Psychological Trauma: Theory, Research, Practice and Policy, 13(7), 759-67.

Lugo-Candelas, C., Polanco-Roman, L., & Duarte, C. S. (2021). Intergenerational Effects of Racism: Can Psychiatry and Psychology Make a Difference for Future Generations? JAMA Psychiatry, 78(10), 1065–1066. 

Polanco-Roman, L., & Miranda, R. (2021). A cycle of exclusion that impedes suicide research among racial and ethnic minority youth. Suicide and Life-Threatening Behaviors, 52(1), 171-4.

Polanco-Roman, L., Alvarez, K., Gould, M., Corbeil. T., Wall, M. Alegria, M., Bird, H., Canino, G., & Duarte C.S. (2021). Association of childhood adversities and suicide ideation and attempts in Puerto Rican young adults. JAMA Psychiatry, 78(8), 896-902.