Founder and Principal

Dr. Cruz is passionate about promoting joy and good mental health for all. She has over 10 years of experience creating custom, alternative mental health solutions individualized to an organization's needs, forming the basis of the expertise she can bring to address your organization's needs. Most prominently, she created a system of mental health care for the Darjeeling, India region in which teachers deliver mental health care to their students since, locally, professionals are unavailable. Her work has been vetted in 5 peer-reviewed publications and has been recognized through numerous awards and grants. This groundbreaking innovation has the potential to transform access to youth mental health care worldwide, allowing care to potentially be available everywhere teachers teach.

In addition to extensive experience with mental health solutions for schools, she also has experience in promoting positive mental health culture in scientific laboratories and non-profit organizations. She frequently collaborates with colleagues to ensure all areas of expertise needed for a solution are addressed with high quality. Collaborating colleagues range from school psychologists to classroom teachers to family medicine doctors to social workers to researchers such as epidemiologists and anthropologists.

Dr. Cruz is a practicing psychiatrist double board certified in child and adolescent psychiatry and general psychiatry, a Global Mental Health researcher, an Assistant Professor and teaching attending psychiatrist at a public medical school and a public school of education in North Carolina, an education professional, and a former management consultant with PricewaterhouseCoopers in Boston. A New York City native, she completed her general psychiatry residency and child and adolescent psychiatry fellowship at UNC Hospitals, her MD at Harvard Medical School, her Masters in Education in Prevention Science and Practice at the Harvard Graduate School of Education as a Zuckerman Fellow, and her Bachelor of Science in Economics, with concentrations in Finance and Accounting, Summa cum Laude, from the Wharton School of Business of the University of Pennsylvania.

When Dr. Cruz is not working towards good mental health for all, she enjoys being outside with her two young children, husband, and extended family in North Carolina.