PhD Student Ambassadors

Who We Are

NYU Silver PhD Program Student Ambassadors are enthusiastic, well-informed, student representatives who work together with the PhD Program Office to promote opportunities available to prospective students within the program and across the university.

PhD Program Student Ambassadors assist with program events, such as Open Houses and New Student Orientation, and respond to inquiries on student life within the program and in New York City.

Moiyattu Banya

Moiyattu has clinical and leadership experience working with community-based and social service organizations focused on adolescents and youth across Africa and the U.S. She Co-Founded the nonprofit organization called Girls Empowerment Sierra Leone over 10 years ago. Her research interests include using community-based participatory research to support communities with histories of trauma and gender based violence in developing strategies that work to improve outcomes. Her long-term goal is to use mixed methods to develop and test community-level culturally relevant interventions that foster mental health and wellbeing for adolescent girls and young women in Africa. Her secondary research interests include improving the mental health of refugee and first-generation immigrant African adolescents and youth in the US. As a doctoral student, Moiyattu works with the Youth and Young Adult Mental Health Group at Silver on a variety of projects.

Areas of Interest: Adolescent girls and young women, refugee/immigrants, global mental health interventions and policy, mental health outcomes, life course perspectives, social determinants of health, mixed methods and community based participatory research.

"I hope that my learning journey at NYU will inspire students and I look forward to sharing my journey with them."

Jackie Cosse

Jacqueline (Jackie) Cosse is a PhD Student at the Silver School of Social Work. Their research interests include work at the intersection of racism and gender-based violence, understanding the role of white carceral feminism in the criminalization of survivors of color, and critically examining white supremacy and cisheterosexism in research. Jackie holds a deep commitment to uplifting the narratives of queer, trans, disabled, and immigrant survivors of color in her research.

Areas of Interest: Intimate-Partner Violence, Criminalization, Mandated Arrest Policy, Conflations of Gender/Sex in Research, Mixed Methods

“As a psychodynamically-trained social worker with limited experience in statistical analyses, I’m grateful for the accessibility of my first-year statistics classes, as my professors in both semesters held an incredible amount of patience without sacrificing rigor.”

Natalie Green

Natalie Green is a NYU PhD student and a licensed clinical social worker. Her experience in psychiatric social work, healthcare consulting, and economic research have led to her present research interests which include health equity, dominant group dynamics and social justice. Specifically, her research focuses on the relationship between structural oppression and subsequent social stressors that contribute to health inequities. Through an interdisciplinary, intersectional, and critical lens her work is aimed at understanding the relationship of minority stressors, structural factors, and inflammatory biomarkers across the lifespan and how these can be utilized to inform interventions and policy. Natalie has training in both quantitative and qualitative methodologies and now works as a research assistant at the Attachment and Health Disparities Lab. She is currently working on several projects that examine the role of intersectional discrimination, close relationships, cortisol levels, and cardiovascular disease outcomes.

"NYU, its community, faculty, and students have helped me grow into the student and academic I am today. I am so grateful for all I have learned both in and out of the classroom as all of these relationships have shaped the lens through which I understand both myself and my role as a future social work researcher."

Xixi Kang

Xixi Kang is a PhD student at the Silver School of Social Work. Her research interests include child well-being, child mental health services, social determinants of health, social policy, especially child welfare system and Medicaid, intergenerational interventions, and nature-based social prescribing for vulnerable children. She holds dual master's degrees in Social Policy and Social Work from Washington University in St. Louis and Renmin University of China, and a BA in Social Work from China University of Labor Relations.

Areas of Interest: Child Well-being, Child Mental Health Services, Social Determinants of Health, Social Policies, and Nature-based Social Prescribing

“I am grateful to be in the Silver PhD program, where I receive rigorous training, nurturing mentorship, and cherished friendships that support my commitment to and development as a Social Work scientist.”

Madison Kitchen

Madison (she/her/hers) is a macro-social worker, E-RYT 200, RYT 500 yoga instructor, and PhD student at the NYU Silver School of Social Work who is passionate about mental health advocacy and research. She graduated from NYU Tisch in 2019 with a BFA in theatre, and earned Master's degrees in special education and social work from Boston University in 2024. Madison's work focuses on suicide prevention interventions and understanding help-seeking behaviors during suicidal crises.

Nari Yoo

Nari Yoo is a PhD student in the Silver School of Social Work. Her research interests include immigrants/refugees, minority mental health and mental health disparities, community and spatial analysis, and text as data methodology. She currently serves as a research assistant on two projects funded by the Silver Center for Data Science and Social Equity, including the project on Asian Americans' community well-being, and another on using natural language processing to measure person-centered care in behavioral health settings. She holds an M.A. in Social Welfare and B.A. in Sociology from Ewha Womans University in South Korea.

Areas of Interest: Immigrants/Refugees, Minority Mental Health and Mental Health Disparities, Community-Based Intervention and Advocacy, and Text as Data for Social Work Research

“I feel lucky to be a part of NYU Silver with supportive peers and faculties. I have grown more than I had expected through the coursework, academic advisement, and professional development programs at the Silver PhD program.”