Denise “Dee” Yookong Williams (they/them) is a Ph.D. Candidate at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Denise’s clinical experience in treatment foster care, private practice, community-based outpatient mental health clinics, and in the Baltimore City and Baltimore County public school systems fostered their passion for culturally relevant, accessible mental health treatment with a focus on trauma, crisis intervention, suicide prevention, and resiliency, from a social-justice framework. While Denise has worked extensively with individuals and families across the lifespan, their areas of research interest include mental health (e.g., depression, anxiety, and suicidality) and intersectionality, with a focus on BIPOC and LGBTQAI+ adolescent youth, to better understand experiences and disparities to create more evidence-based interventions within the community and school systems. Denise is especially interested in art-based interventions and infusing various modalities to treat individuals and families holistically. Their research assistantship is supervised by Dr. William J. Hall.