Alejandra (Alesha) Cid-Vega is a Clinical Psychology PhD student in the Health Division at the University of Miami. Alesha earned a BA in Performing Arts and Global Health from Sarah Lawrence College and an MA in Psychology from The New School in New York. Before joining the lab, she served as lab manager and graduate research associate at the New School Center for Global Mental Health, where she led efforts to adapt and implement scalable psychological interventions developed by the World Health Organization using innovative approaches such as film and media, cultural contextualization, and training lay providers in low-resource and humanitarian settings. Alesha has been in technical roles in global mental health projects in Latin America and the Caribbean, Uganda, and Switzerland. She was a Mental Health Fellow at the International Rescue Committee and is currently a Community Mental Health Innovation Fellow supported by the Arcamind Global Institute and the Miller-Dwan Foundation. Originally from Spain, Alesha is bilingual in Spanish and fluent in French.
Her research focuses on the adaptation and implementation science of mindfulness programs to enhance mental wellbeing and holistic fitness in high-demand and vulnerable populations. She is particularly interested in trauma, autobiographical memory, and mind-body approaches. Outside of research, she enjoys social dancing, yoga, traveling, and reading.
Publications
- Lee, Y. J., Kazungu, R., Ssekalo, I., Blackwell, S., Nakaziba, K. S., Monnig, E., Mbabazi, R., Muwereza, P., Cid-Vega, A., Brown, A., Rohrbaugh, R., Rosenheck, R., Waiswa, P., & Kohrt, B. (2025). Mixed-methods evaluation of a global South-North research fellowship in Uganda: Global Health Experiential Fellowship (GHEF). SSM – Mental Health. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ssmmh.2025.100497
- Cid-Vega, A., Best, C., Sangraula, M., Pfeffer, K., Gwaikolo, W., Caracoglia, J., Brown, A. D., & Kohrt, B. (2025). Assessment of key interviewing factors for research assistants (AKIRA): Development of a novel training and evaluation competency-based tool for public mental health data collection. Frontiers in Education: Higher Education. https://doi.org/10.3389/feduc.2025.1539124
- Kohrt, B. A., Sangraula, M., Turner, E. L., Pfeffer, K., Best, C., Caracoglia, J., Cid‐Vega, A., Gwaikolo, W., McEneaney, C., Platt, A., Shah, C., Sun, S., Wong, J., Ganesh, K., Assoudeh, E., Wong, E., van Heerden, A., & Brown, A. D. (2025). Expanding the non‐clinical mental health workforce: Protocol for a randomized controlled trial of a psychological intervention delivered by community‐based organizations in New York City (RECOUP‐NY). Psychiatric Research and Clinical Practice, 1–13. https://doi.org/10.1176/appi.prcp.20250027
- Cid-Vega, A., Kim, L., Brown, A. (In press). Transforming mental health in the arts: Community-driven care in performing arts education and training settings. In Perspectives in Performing Arts Medicine Book II: Occupational Health, Public Health, Arts for Healing. Springer.
- Cid-Vega, A., & Brown, A. D. (2023). Reimagining communities of care in the performing arts: A call for a community-based task-sharing approach to address the mental health needs of performing artists. Social Science & Medicine – Mental Health, 3, 100222. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ssmmh.2023.100222
