THE INTERSECT LAB
Directed by Sasha Rudenstine, Ph.D.
Founded in 2015 at the City College of New York, the INTERSECT Lab is a clinical and epidemiological research program. We study how mental health and illness unfold across the lifespan in historically marginalized urban communities, where exposure to chronic and cumulative stress is disproportionately high.
Why do some people maintain psychological well-being despite cumulative stress, while others experience lasting distress? Our work centers on the capacity to adapt: the ability to sustain functional well-being amid ongoing stress exposure.
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We use a social-ecological, life-course framework to ask how individual, interpersonal, and structural factors shape mental health outcomes. Our work is designed to inform evidence-based interventions and prevention strategies that improve mental health at both the individual and population level.
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1. Stressors and Mental Health Across the Life Course: How acute, chronic, and cumulative stress shapes mental health over time.
2. Psychotherapy Outcomes Among Urban Marginalized Populations: What happens in therapy, for whom it works, and why.
3. Prevention to Foster Psychological Health: Ways to build emotional and social skills that buffer the effects of stress we can’t avoid
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INTERSECT is a training site for emerging clinical scientists. Since 2015, our studies have supported 49 Master’s research projects, 29 doctoral dissertations, and over 25 peer-reviewed publications. Our mentorship model combines advanced quantitative training with a grounding in community-based, prevention-focused research.
