Yara Mekawi, PhD

Yara Mekawi, PhD, is a licensed psychologist, cofounder of the DEAR Project, and assistant professor at the University of Louisville. She earned her bachelor's degree in applied psychology at the University of Illinois Chicago and her PhD in clinical-community psychology at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. Her work focuses on examining racial discrimination and racial prejudice at the intersection of affect and cognition. Dr. Mekawi has published over sixty empirical research papers on topics like dehumanization, racial color-blindness, and racial microaggressions. Dr. Mekawi's clinical work is consistent with an empirically driven, functional-contextualist orientation that emphasizes culturally informed assessment, contextually driven hypothesis generation, collaborative goal setting, and implementation of evidence-based, culturally informed intervention. Administratively, Dr. Mekawi is interested in the assessment and integration of anti-racism and social justice oriented practices within organizations and the implementation of interventions designed to effectively dismantle White supremacy at individual, cultural, and systemic levels. She lives in Louisville, Kentucky.